Play Fruit Mania for Free

There’s plenty to recommend Fruit Mania, from its bonus round to its progressive jackpot. We’ll define the specific features later, though: right now, we’re chiefly concerned with bringing you up to speed on the betting range.

As stated, Fruity Mania includes five reels, but rather than the customary 15 or 20 paylines, there are just five to work with. All wins pay left to right, as normal, except the scatter, which pays anywhere on the reels. The aim of the game, as ever, is to find between two and five identical symbols on adjacent reels. There is a fixed coin value of 0.25 per line, meaning the maximum bet costs just 1.25 – making this very much a low roller slot. That said, the pay-outs aren’t to be sniffed at. In order to be in with a shot of scooping the progressive jackpot, you’ll need to play on the maximum number of paylines (all five, in other words). The game’s return-to-player percentage is 95.8%.

Fruit Mania lives up to its name, in that the fruit are not consigned to the reels – they make up much of the backdrop too. Indeed, it is as though the 5x3 reel grid has been thrown into a basket at the local farmers’ market. You’ll find all the usual tabs along the bottom of the screen, negating the need to remember your bet, line bet, credit balance and win amount. There’s also a Paytable button, perfect for keeping check of those win values, and the customary Spin button. The progressive jackpot is always changing of course, but you can keep up-to-date as the number sits below the game title, above the third and fourth reel.

The symbols on the reels are nothing new – they’re fruit, for god’s sake. Icons include a lemon, a blueberry, a strawberry, a pair of cherries, an orange and a cluster of grapes. There’s also a yellow sun, complete with sly grin and close-set eyes, and a cocktail of some kind (or is it just a juice?).

The cocktail glass (it’s now definitely an alcohol drink swilling in that tall glass!) is the game’s scatter. It can appear anywhere on the reels to trigger wins. Just land three to claim a prize. Three glasses pays x5 your stake, four pays x40 and five pays a whopping x500.

Most of us love to see the sun creep out from behind the clouds, but in this game, catching a glimpse of the sun is potentially lucrative. The icon triggers the fruit bonus feature. You’ll require two sun icons for the feature to initiate, one on the first reel and another on the fifth. The bonus screen is replete with fruit; all you need to do is choose one fruit from each of the three rows to calculate your bonus win. The winnings are instantly added to your total balance before you’re returned to the base game.

Among the other well-paying symbols, five blueberries or oranges pays 2,500x your stake, while five grape/apple icons pays 500x stake.

We know what you’re thinking: “there’s a progressive jackpot, so how the hell do I win it?” Well, we were coming to that. To win the progressive, all you need to do is hit five cherries. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Yeah, well, the chances of hitting five cherries are pretty slim. Exactly how slim, we do not know. But the old adage “you’ve got to be in it to win it” is applicable.

Fruity Mania is a solid offering from Playtech, playing on gamers’ love for everything old school. While some will bemoan the lack of multipliers, not to mention free spins, others will simply be glad of the opportunity to relive their misspent youth. The progressive jackpot is another nice incentive, while the bonus game adds an extra dimension to play.