Ice Cream Slot Machine
Ice Cream and slot machines doesn’t sound like a natural mixture. For a start it sounds like a bit of a mess waiting to happen, and no doubt plenty of casinos and arcades at seaside resorts have had their issues with customers walking in with a 99 and then letting it drip all over the floor while they get distracted with all the other numbers flying around in front of their eyes. But The Art of Games aren’t worried about that, so they’ve thrown ice cream at their game and let it stick.
Like their High Roller game, Ice Cream is a game designed to evoke the feeling of actually playing a real slot machine, so the layout is exactly that, but with an ice cream theme.
It’s maybe not exactly the best-looking machine in the world or one that you’d walk up to in a real venue, but there’s enough about it catch the eye and make for an enjoyable online experience. A bowl of real ice cream wouldn’t go amiss too.
One Scoop or Two?
Having a whole slot machine on screen makes for a game where the main action is a little bit too small, but Ice Cream allows you to zoom in on both the paytable and the reels, which makes it easier to get the essential information about what’s on offer and to focus on the game itself, but there’s still something to be said for the experience of pulling the lever by clicking on it and watching it pull down to set the reels spinning.
There’s nice little details on the machine to make it feel real like the slot for paying that reads THIS MACHINE ACCEPTS TICKETS OR BILLS, something that isn’t needed at all in the context of a free slots online game but shows that The Art of Games are serious about recreating the look and feel of a real machine. One part of that where it maybe suffers in comparison to less ‘authentic’ games is that the Spin button doesn’t stand out as much as it could. It’s a minor detail, but still a bit of frustration at the time.
The Cream Rises to the Top?
Ice Cream’s quest for authenticity means that there are not many bells and whistles (or should that be hundreds and thousands) on top of the basic slot machine game, so there are no mini games to play and the theme only extends as far as the ice cream icons on the reels. In that sense, the theme actually backfires, because the ice creams all look mostly the same apart from the different pastel colours, with the exception of the chocolate one, which has some nuts, or something, in it.
This means that it’s not the most visually appealing of games and you could even accuse it of being a little dull to look at, which isn’t what you need. However, there’ll be people out there who don’t want a game with animations and distracting imagery, so there’s bound to be an audience for a game like this where the visuals are more simple and straightforward, and the icons are certainly distinct enough to be clear.
Ice, Ice Baby
In terms of what’s on offer here, there’s a Scatter, which gives up to 10 bet cashback, while a 3x Free Spins multiplier offers either 6/12 free spins, which is a bit like an ice cream van turning up at your house with a free all-you-eat offer, albeit with less of a likelihood of you getting brain freeze or really bad stomach ache. Although the sight of all this ice cream might give you that anyway, or at least tempt you into eating too much of it while you’re playing.
But when you’re standing back (metaphorically) in that casino and pulling the lever to watch the reels spin, who needs an ice cream to get you interested? The Art of Games can always be relied on to provide that experience and Ice Cream is nice and easy to get hooked in to.
Cream Dream
The name Ice Cream conjures up a Katy Perry-esque wonderland of sweet treats, pretty colours and a theme that blows your mind like a tour of a Ben & Jerry’s factory. So this game turning out to be some coloured blobs on a slot machine makes it initially a bit underwhelming.
But it’s a good recreation of that kind of game, right down to the sound effects, and that authentic experience certainly works well.
