Aaargh! The sweet frustration of playing Frutz for hours is killing me! On the one hand it’s great that you can see a big win coming a mile away, but at the same time you can see when the winning stops. Trust me, it’s really easy to get all worked up when you play this game.
Hacksaw Gaming released this harmless looking beast of a slot on April 28, 2021. And I don’t think I’ve ever been the same since. It’s weird how something that looks so simple can be so hard. And just when you think you’re about to drop kick your laptop over the balcony, you hit a massive win out of nowhere.
With and RTP of 96.4% and dwelling somewhere in the mid- to high volatility range, this slot was mainly designed for mobile phones. You can tell from the spares effects and minimalist approach to the graphics and animations. And don’t let my sudden outburst two paragraphs ago turn you away from this game. This is a diamond in the rough and I’m about to let you know why.
Before I go into the nitty gritty details I’d like to start with a more basic overview to give you an idea of what you’re in for, Believe me, it’s hard to express in words what this game will do to you, but I will give it the old college try.
PROS:
CONS:
Frutz is part of Hacksaw Gaming’s so-called Pocketz series, which means that it’s more or less specifically designed for mobile phones. As a result, there are no animations in the background and the game symbols look a bit pixelated, like something out of Pac Man if you’re old enough to remember how that looked.
The theme is obviously fruits and nothing but fruits, except for multipliers. I like the minimalistic approach and it’s a nice change of pace from slots with tons of animations and crazy sound effects. It’s nice to know that you’re not risking permanent damage to your ears if you’re playing with your headphones on.
Frutz relies on cluster wins which can be equally exciting and frustrating. This is because symbols in winning clusters are removed and replaced by new ones. There will be times when you just have to sit and watch symbols drop down after a win, knowing that there will be no more winning clusters. The flipside of that is that you will also be able to see the opposite, a win on the way.
The base game is quite simple. There are 10 different symbols available to form clusters of 5. That’s all fine. But there are also 3 different win multipliers, and free spins symbols and after a while this will feel excessive. Not that you need 5 in a cluster to win, but that it will feel like there are too many symbols that will block your clusters.
In the end you will find yourself looking only for multiplier symbols, oranges, lemons, and strawberries. The 3 win multipliers are Light Blue (1x, 2x, or 5x), Dark blue (10x, 15x or 20x), and Striped Blue (25x, 50x, 100x) while those 3 fruit symbols are the best paying one, in order.
Here’s an example of a winning spin: You hit a cluster of 5 strawberries, a Light Blue and a Striped Blue multiplier. The multipliers are always resolved first. They are turned over to reveal the 1x and 25x. Now you have 27x at the top of the screen (every spin starts from 1x).
The multipliers and strawberries are removed and new symbols fall down. If a new winning cluster is formed, the payout will be multiplied by 27. If there’s no winning cluster, the multiplier is reset to 1x and it’s time to spin again.
Now we can get to interruptions in the game for big wins. Normally, big wins are counted once a spin has come to an end, but not in Frutz. For some reason your win will be counted on the screen after a winning cluster. Even if you can tell already now that any new symbols will not help to form a new winning cluster after. This is so frustrating. I wish they would change this and resolve everything after the spin is totally finished.
Frutz has a very low hit frequency of 26.71%. In case you don’t know what this means, let’s just say that hitting free spins can feel like a very long grind. I once went more than 700 spins without triggering free spins.
BUT, you can avoid the grind and buy your way straight to the bonus feature. For the small price of 93x your stake you get 8 free spins, 142x your stake will net you 10 spins, and 200x gets you 12 spins to win big.
There are two main differences compared to the base game. Win multipliers will stay after every spin and grow progressively. I have no idea how high this can go. I think I hit 186x when I was testing the game out for this review. The other big change is that you will also have a wild symbol that can help you hit winning clusters.
I may have come across as a bit of a pessimist with regards to Frutz, but truth is that overall I actually like this game. It has a lot of great things going for it, I just wish a few things could have been done differently. Especially counting big wins and so on after a spin has resolved and not in the middle of it just because of a cluster win when there’s more to come after.
Don’t let a few kinks put you off. It’s still extremely satisfying to see massive wins when the multipliers go your way. You will definitely be on the edge of your seat during free spins when the multiplier grows and grows, knowing that all you need is any winning cluster to hit paydirt.
If you like reading this review you might like this:
