Star Fall Slot Machine
We are huge fans of Push Gaming over here at VSO, their Meet the Meercats slot game is one of our favourite fun slots so we expect a lot from the new Star Fall slot game! Push Gaming sadly don’t produce too many of their own slots, focusing instead on taking other developers land based games online. This is a huge shame as each time they do give us one of their own creations, it’s invariably very good!
Star Fall is no exception. Though it may be a simple game, this new slot is something of a cross between the ever popular Starburst slot from NetEnt and an old school fruit machine. What Push Gaming seem to be aiming for here is a modern looking slot which is simple to play, offers big win potential and yet pays tribute to the original slot games of the Las Vegas casino floor.
This is a bold move for a company more known for slightly off beat themes. There’s a lot of competition in the market, with virtually every Novomatic game in the range offering (or trying to) the same thing and even the big boys over at WMS and IGT throwing games into the mix. Will this game fall into top spot – or simply fall off the radar?
Theme
If NetEnt released a really basic looking game, their die-hard fan base would be up in arms, with Star Fall, Push Gaming runs the risk of falling into the same trap. It’s easy to judge this against their other games, which have much more fun themes, rather than gauging it against its competitors – where it actually stands up very well.
The reel backdrop is a crazy shining mosaic reminiscent of the disco balls of yesteryear. It comes in two distinct colours, blue for the base game and red for the free spins bonus feature round. The reels themselves are transparent which allows the pay icons to stand out really well against the screen and does the same for the animations. There’s a little bespoke audio tune in the background which is inoffensive and a few decent sound effects thrown in for good measure.
The pay icons are a mix of all the classic games of old. There’s all the fruit machine icons, rare gems and the royal playing card symbols floating around on the reels. The only symbol which is unique is the games wild and scatter symbols which are a star and a gold coin star respectively.
Features
The wilds form the first of two interesting features on the game. When a star wild falls from above onto the reels it replaces all other icons just like a fixed wild in any other game. What makes it different is that it falls down one place in each subsequent spin for a max of three before falling off the bottom of the reels. This means when you hit a big pay-line, you are almost certain to it repeatedly at least partially on your next spin.
The second feature, which also makes good use of the wilds, is the free spins bonus. When three of them land on the middle reels you get 10 free spins – there’s no re-trigger but the scatters now serve a different function to make this round progressive. You can now collect them on reels 2,3 or 4 and they become an expanded wild covering the whole reel once you collect 3. This lasts for the duration of the remaining free spins so these free games become progressively more valuable as the game goes on.
Summary
Star Fall manages to take what is quite a basic game design and make it richly rewarding. The free spins round in particular really builds anticipation with the coin collection mechanic. The game is well designed, looks good, sounds great and, when you compare it to the other games in the genre, such as Novomatic’s Spinning Stars game, it holds up very well indeed to the best in the field. On mobile particularly this developer’s talent shows through, this game is just as playable on small devices as it is on desktop, definitely worth taking for some spins to see if you can get coins to fall in your favour.
