Hot Potato: Slot Overview

Hot Potato, as many will recognise, is a party game where players pass an object around until a timer sounds, and whoever is left holding it is eliminated. The idea is that the item is a literal hot potato, scorching your hands if you can’t get rid of it in time. Of course, a hot potato can also simply mean a baked potato ready to eat. That second meaning is closer to the vibe of the online slot Hot Potato! from Swedish developer Thunderkick. Here, the studio has gone into the kitchen and served up a sizzling cluster-paying grid slot that can deliver some intense multiplier-driven action once the spud starts heating up.

Even so, Hot Potato! doesn’t begin in the kitchen. To reach the game’s hottest moments, you’ll need to trigger free spins. Until then, the action unfolds outdoors in a city packed with skyscrapers, with a yellow cab parked to the side, suggesting New York City or a similarly built-up setting. The ‘Hot Potato!’ title blazes across the top like something from a B-movie action or horror poster, teasing the frantic potato character that appears later. Ideally, that feisty potato shows up as often as possible, because when it does, multipliers tend to come with it. With its bright, cartoonish style, Hot Potato!—much like a steaming version of its namesake—brings plenty of temptation.

In real life, what often makes a hot potato great (or not) is what’s loaded inside it—cheese, sour cream, butter, and the rest. In Hot Potato!, the filling is a highly volatile math model served with a default RTP of 96.16%. That number rises to 96.44% if you buy the free spins feature for 100 times the bet. Stakes range from 10 c per spin up to a maximum of $/€100, and on each spin, 49 symbols drop onto the 7×7 grid.

Wins land when five or more identical pay symbols connect next to each other horizontally or vertically. Winning clusters are cleared via the Avalanche feature, after which new symbols fall in from above to fill the gaps and potentially create additional wins. From lowest to highest, the pay symbols are a cucumber, a doughnut, a soda can, fries, a burger, and a chef. Not a huge set, is it? In terms of payouts, a 5-symbol cluster returns 0.1x to 1x the bet, while a 25+ cluster pays 10 to 100 times the bet.

Hot Potato: Slot Features

The potato character really comes alive as the Exploding Wild symbol, working alongside a Multiplier Grid and a bonus game.

Exploding Wild Symbol

The Exploding Wild may randomly appear and detonate during a spin or Avalanche, or it can be created automatically and explode within a cluster win area. When it goes off, it removes all symbols in a 3×3 area, which then forms a Multiplier Grid. Wild symbols substitute for all regular pay symbols.

Multiplier Grid

Every spot inside a Multiplier Grid receives a multiplier with a starting value of x2. If additional Exploding Wilds land and explode on top of an existing Multiplier Grid, the impacted multiplier values are doubled, up to x128. Multiplier Grid values stack additively, meaning if a cluster win covers an x2 and an x32, the payout is multiplied by x34.

Bonus Game

The bonus game triggers or retriggers when 3 scatter symbols land anywhere on the reels. This grants 10 free spins. Any Multiplier Grids running in the base game are wiped at the start of the bonus round. However, Multiplier Grids created during free spins are persistent and remain active till the round ends.

Hot Potato: Slot Verdict

The last Thunderkick slot reviewed, Bones & Bounty, was a strong showing, so there was a fair bit of eager anticipation about what the studio would deliver next. Hot Potato! heads in a different direction in several ways—it’s a cluster-paying grid slot, and its bonus round is a world away from Bones & Bounty’s inventive hold ‘n win feature. The previous game leaned into ghostly pirates; this one is all about food, including a wide-eyed, living potato. Even with those contrasts, both titles can be seriously entertaining when they get going. Hot Potato is simple in certain respects, yet it still delivers gameplay that can really boil over when things click.

There were flashes of mayhem in the base game when wins landed alongside potatoes, leaving multiplier values scattered across the grid. Since Multiplier Grids are removed between base game spins, it wasn’t until free spins kicked in that the true ceiling started to show. Hot Potato! also gave off noticeable Sugar Rush energy, particularly when large sections of the play area were covered in multipliers, resembling the 2048 puzzle game. Of course, not every session will be red-hot, and Thunderkick slots can be challenging to unlock, but with a max win of 10,000x the bet available, Hot Potato! can definitely bring the heat. That said, the stated max win potential in Thunderkick slots has attracted both attention and doubt within the community, largely because max wins are rarely seen shared on social media and elsewhere. Worth bearing in mind.

Hot Potato’s mechanics are fairly easy to follow, but they’re straightforward in a genuinely enjoyable way. The potato symbol seemed to land often—especially during free spins—and Avalanches came thick and fast, keeping the reels busy. Much like Bones & Bounty, Hot Potato! suggests the Thunderkick team is still experimenting in the workshop, producing smart, engaging slots that are easy to sit back with and enjoy.