Florageddon!

Put on your seatbelts – Yggdrasil are back with another multiplying adventure to follow on from Multifly! and Raptor – two of their most popular releases. This time around, the multiplier is cooling off a bit, taking a (small) step back, with all this extra energy now given to a handful of features ready and waiting to take gameplay to a new level in Florageddon!. With wins available up to 20,000x bet, this highly volatile release comes with a default RTP of 96.0%.

Florageddon! Base Game

Visually, it’s exactly as the team describe it – we’re in the doom of civilisation. Grim foliage, dreadful plants, flesh eating blossoms, and fearsome carnivorous plants, it’s all here. Things aren’t quite as ‘tidy’ as you’d expect from Yggdrasil, especially after Raptor which really packed a punch with graphics and animations. Instead, it’s all quite busy and a bit unkempt – although this might be exactly what they were going for, given the theme. Still, it’s a decent looking game, just not quite the level of its predecessors. Audios tie into the theme well – not so much the flowers (what music even exists for flowers?), but more the general feeling of unease.

Wilds Appear When Winning Combinations Are Removed

Florageddon! Base Features

Taking place across 5 reels, wins are formed on Florageddon! by matching at least 3 symbols on adjacent reels, beginning with the left or rightmost reel, as wins pay both ways – producing 486 ways to win. Dropdowns, Wilds, multipliers, and Special Awards all add to the excitement, but let’s cover symbols first, beginning with non premiums – Js, Ks, Qs, and As. Land 3, 4, or 5 of a kind of any non premium to see wins of 0.10, 0.30, and 0.50x bet, respectively. In the mid range we have a street sign, a clock, a lamppost, and a fire hydrant – awarding wins between 0.20 and 0.25x bet for 3 of a kind, increasing to wins between 0.60 and 0.80x bet for 5 of a kind. Premiums introduce us to four unique varieties of plant life – I’m not sure of the name they’re supposed to have, but they are blue, green, purple, and red in colour, to match their non premium and mid range counterparts. Landing 3 of a kind of any plant will award wins between 0.30 and 0.80x bet, whilst landing 5 of a kind will see wins between 1 and 5x bet.

Consecutive Wins Trigger Special Awards

The first thing to cover in Florageddon! are dropdowns. On every spin, all symbols involved in a win will be removed from the reels, allowing existing symbols to drop down and fill the gap, and new symbols to drop in from above to fill remaining spaces. New symbols dropping in give more chances to form new wins, with dropdowns ending when no new wins are formed.

Working hand in hand with dropdowns are Wild symbols. Each time winning symbols are removed, a Wild symbol is added in one of the available spaces. On the next dropdown, a further Wild is added after winning symbols are removed, even if the first Wild has not been used. Wilds can also drop onto the reels normally, substituting for all symbols except Free Spin symbols.

3 or More Scatters Trigger Free Spins

As if dropdowns and Wilds weren’t enough, multipliers enhance Florageddon! even further. There are two multiplier carousels – one to the left of the reels, and one to the right. All wins that take place from left to right will have the multiplier on the left applied to them, and all wins that take place from right to left will have the multiplier on the right applied to them. Any both ways wins – that is, a 5 of a kind win – will add both multiplier values together, and then apply it to the win.

Each winning dropdown will increase the multiplier – left to right wins will increase the left multiplier, right to left wins will increase the right multiplier, and both ways wins will increase both multipliers. Multipliers increment by 1 more than the previous increment – so, from x1 to x2 (+1), to x4 (+2), to x7 (+3), and this continues with no limit. Multipliers reset after a losing dropdown.

Gamble Up To 16 Free Spins

The final element to cover in the base game is the Special Awards feature. Landing 4 consecutive dropdowns will fill the meter above the reels, generating a Special Award on the next dropdown:

• Double Wild – 2 empty spaces will be filled with a Wild, instead of 1.
• Multiplier Boost – Both multiplier values will be boosted by x10.
• Wild Stack – 1 column will generate 3 Wilds, with 3 more stacked above for the next dropdown.
• Extra Life – A non winning dropdown in the current streak will be wiped out, and a new set of symbols will drop in.

It is possible to activate Golden Bet in Florageddon!. Doing so will decrease the amount of consecutive dropdowns to trigger a Special Award from 4 to 3.

Multipliers Do Not Reset During Free Spins

Florageddon! Bonus

Land 3, 4, or 5 Free Spin symbols anywhere on the reels to trigger 7, 9, or 11 Free Spins, respectively. It is possible to gamble up to 16 Free Spins, but players must gamble from one level to the next – they cannot gamble straight from 7 to 16 spins:

• Gamble 1 – Gamble from 7 to 9 Free Spins (+2)
• Gamble 2 – Gamble from 9 to 11 Free Spins (+2)
• Gamble 3 – Gamble from 11 to 16 Free Spins (+5)

It is not possible to trigger 16 Free Spins – players can only gamble to this point. The odds for each gamble are not indicated by a percentage, but roughly look like a 2 in 3 chance for the initial +2 spin gamble, a slightly lower chance for the second +2 spin gamble, and a 1 in 2 chance for the final +5 spin gamble.

Losing a gamble results in a loss of spins.

Florageddon! Wild Stack

During Free Spins, only 3 consecutive dropdowns are required to trigger a Special Award, with the possible awards remaining the same as the base game:

• Double Wild – 2 empty spaces will be filled with a Wild, instead of 1.
• Multiplier Boost – Both multiplier values will be boosted by x10.
• Wild Stack – 1 column will generate 3 Wilds, with 3 more stacked above for the next dropdown.
• Extra Life – A non winning dropdown in the current streak will be wiped out, and a new set of symbols will drop in.

Neither win multiplier resets during Free Spins.

Florageddon! Free Spins

Players in appropriate regions can opt to buy the bonus, with two options available:

• 100x bet – 7, 9, or 11 Free Spins (Random Scatters)
• 400x bet – 16 Free Spins (Special Feature)

The maximum win available in Florageddon! is 20,000x bet. If the sum of a single game round exceeds this, the game round will end, and 20,000x bet will be awarded.

Feature Buy Options

First Impression

In spite of how it seems, Florageddon! isn’t intended as a sequel to Raptor – for a start, it’s not called Raptor 2, and there are no dinosaurs in sight. Instead, it’s a general follow-on from both Multifly! and Raptor – big shoes to fill. Unlike Raptor, there’s no DoubleMax – no multiplier doubling every time, and no insane heights of said multiplier – at least not in my experience playing. Instead, we have two multipliers and wins paying both ways. I did on multiple occasions see multipliers surpass x100, although granted, usually on just one side, and from 16 spins.

What really helps to move things along are Special Awards, which also go a long way towards making the base game exciting, especially for players who don’t have the option to buy a bonus. It does feel a bit frustrating that Golden Bet now makes no difference to bonus frequency, however, and it seems maybe we could have had two Golden Bets – one for Special Awards, and one for bonus chance – a bit like 4ThePlayer offer in 4 Secret Pyramids.

Still, I digress, and admit that Special Awards can be pretty exciting, and each have their own merit, making it hard to choose a favourite. They get particularly exciting in Free Spins, working hand in hand with multipliers that don’t reset. 16 spins is obviously the goal (they’re worth 400x after all), but there’s still a lot to be said for the lower levels, especially if winning combinations hit in the right way. A nice touch as well to add 3 gamble stages now, with slightly better odds than we saw in Raptor in 2 of them. Mathematically, things are highly volatile, and RTP is generous at its default of 96.0%, although other settings are available, so I remind you again to check this beforehand.

Basically, Florageddon! takes on a life and legacy of it’s own. There’s nothing to say fans of Raptor will immediately love it, and nothing to say those who disliked Raptor won’t take to this one – especially with wins available up to 20,000x bet.

*The screenshots taken of games reviewed on this site are taken from Demo Play, as reviews are often written before games are released for real play.