Pop: Slot Overview

Pop is the third release in Aussie studio Big Time Gaming’s set of 4-reel slots. The run began strongly with Donuts, which landed in 2018 and was well received. Chocolates followed, and although it delivered a comparable experience (and even bigger win potential), it didn’t resonate quite as much with fans who loved Donuts. That inability to match the buzz may be why BTG has moved away from sugary treats to something just as charming but far kinder to your teeth – balloons.

Maybe because balloons are so closely linked with kids, they don’t appear all that often in iGaming. Crazy Tooth took an interesting shot at the idea with The Incredible Balloon Machine. Pop, however, is far more traditional in feel, playing like a proper slot on a 4×4 grid with 256 ways to win.

The backdrop swaps the cool mountain vibe of Chocolates for the warmer, salty air of the Pacific. More specifically, Big Time Gaming places Pop on the iconic Santa Monica pier. Behind the reels, a glowing Ferris wheel turns slowly as the sun drops, and over on the left sits a Donuts stand, a neat nod back to BTG’s original smash. Audio-wise, there isn’t much to write home about: a subdued electronic loop that feels like a generic keyboard backing track, paired with a handful of familiar slot bleeps. Overall, it looks harmless and pleasant enough, which doesn’t quite hint at how punishing it can be.

Pop runs smoothly on any device, with bets ranging from 10 p/c per spin up to $/€20. A common thread across all three titles in the 4×4 range so far is their highly volatile math. Triggering Donuts‘ bonus wasn’t always straightforward, and players should expect a similar challenge in Pop. As is typical for Big Time Gaming, the RTP is also on the generous side, with the 96.54% setting offering little to complain about.

In the paytable, 9 through Ace symbols cover the lower payouts, while green, blue, red, and purple balloons represent the premiums. Straightforward wins aren’t massive, with premium 4-of-a-kind combinations paying 0.8 to 2 times your stake. One last detail: low-value royals only pay when the winning chain is 4 symbols long, whereas premium balloons need only 3 matching symbols to create a win.

Pop: Slot Features

If you’re prone to feeling a bit queasy, Pop’s unusual spin behaviour might catch you off guard. Low-paying symbols drop downward, while the high-paying balloons and wilds drift upward, settling into the spaces between the royals. It’s not exactly nausea-inducing, but it can feel a touch odd until you get used to it.

Reactions trigger whenever a win lands. The symbols that form the winning result burst off the grid, and only balloons rise to occupy the empty spots. Reactions keep chaining until no further winning combinations are created.

The rainbow wilds aren’t limited to substituting for all symbols except the scatter (though they do that too). In the base game, wilds can also carry a multiplier of up to 4x. Any win that includes wilds is increased according to the multiplier value on each wild involved.

Gold coins featuring the BTG logo act as the scatter, and landing 3 or more awards 12 free spins. During free spins, every one of the 16 positions holds a multiplier that stays in place for the entire bonus and can rise as the round progresses. One or more positions containing the triggering scatters begin at x2, x3, or x4, while all remaining positions start at 1x. Then, each time a win made up of balloons or wilds lands on an initial spin, 1 or more of the winning positions’ multipliers is increased at random by 1, 2, or 3.

Hitting 3 or more scatters during the bonus grants +3 free spins and also increases all multipliers by 1 position. The size of the multiplier increase also steps up by one with every retrigger.

Pop: Slot Verdict

Pop feels like a solid progression for BTG’s 4-reel collection, although it’s more of a lateral move than a major breakthrough. From a maths perspective, it performs well, and the feature set nudges gameplay in a slightly different direction than the two earlier entries. Whether it can generate the same kind of buzz as Donuts is debatable; we’re leaning towards probably not. Even so, it’s a quality slot that can entertain, frustrate, and eventually deliver hefty payouts when things go your way.

Pop really revolves around its premium balloons, while the royals often become more of a nuisance than a help. Much of the time they simply linger, blocking balloon connections. The upside is that when royal wins disappear, only premium balloons are able to rise up and fill the spaces. That part of the reaction mechanic is useful in the base game, but it becomes especially valuable in the bonus, where it helps connect more balloons alongside more multipliers.

Overall, the multiplier approach didn’t feel quite as compelling as building a pre-free spin multiplier by collecting golden donuts. Still, it’s undeniably exciting when multiple multipliers repeatedly combine with waves of balloon reactions to stack up a strong win. In the base game, prizes up to 14,407x can be achieved, while free spins can climb to 66,960 times your stake, making it the top-paying slot in the series and narrowly edging out Chocolates. How realistic that ceiling is remains uncertain, since earlier releases haven’t always seemed to reach their advertised maximum potential in practice.

It’s reasonable to think that players who enjoyed Donuts will also appreciate the guilt-free fun of Pop. That said, the same expectation applied to Chocolates, which ended up getting a more muted response than many predicted. Not because it was a bad game—Chocolates simply didn’t hit the same sweet spot as Donuts. Some slots catch on, others don’t, so where will Pop land? It has the volatility, the big upside, and a polished look, so the ingredients are there. Whether it truly pops with players or gradually loses air like an abandoned balloon is something we’ll have to watch.