About Carnival Queen Slot
Thunderkick continues to be one of our favourite slot studios here at The Slot Buzz – thanks to excellent game designs that make their titles stand out from the crowd, as well as some mean high variance action in recent times. With Carnival Queen they’ve dropped the volatility a touch, but at the same time delivered a game with much higher payout potential than normal.
There are also shades of many of our favourite slots in Carnival Queen – namely in the mix of 4,096 ways to win, avalanche reels and progressive multipliers – features of some of the best slots we know and love.
We’ve waited a while for the first Thunderkick release of 2019 – let’s see if it lives up to expectations.
Gameplay, Symbols and Pay Tables
Carnival Queen is set in the packed streets of Madi Gras in New Orleans – with crowds of revelers standing in front of a colorful 4×6 reel set. To the left and right stand buildings with Creole colours and fairy lights. Like all the best Thunderkick games it looks pretty enticing.
This is a 4,096 ways to win slot which means it pays out left to right and right to left for any line of identical symbols. The low-value ones are the cards, 9 through to Ace, whilst the premium symbols are the Carnival characters in various colourful costumes, and the highest paying symbol, a gold crown which pays out 20x for six on a payline.
The Wild is a ‘W’ and substitutes for all others bar the scatter. It also pays out 20x for 6 on a payline.
The key feature of the base game and the bonus round is avalanche reels, used in a plethora of slots from Gonzo’s Quest through to BTG’s Bonanza and Extra Chili. This gives you the chance to win multiple times on each spin – when winning lines appear, the symbols that make up those lines are removed each time, with new ones dropping in to replace them. If a new winline is created, the process repeats.
With each consecutive win, a progressive multiplier value increases by 1x, applied to the total win once the cycle ends. This process is also valid in the bonus round.
Features and Bonuses
Carnival Queen Free Spins
To enter the bonus round you’ll need to land three of more Mask Scatters on the reels in a single spin. This gets you free plays as follows:
3 Scatters: 12 Free Spins
4 Scatters: 16 Free Spins
5 Scatters: 20 Free Spins
6 Scatters: 24 Free Spins
Once you’re into the free spins round it’s possible to re-trigger an unlimited number of times. 2 scatters during the bonus round will land you 3 free spins, and for every extra scatter you’ll get 3 more.
Avalanche wins and the progressive multiplier continues to work in the bonus round with the added advantage that on losing free spins, the multiplier does not re-set. This drives the win potential up in the bonus round.
PLUS …
In the bonus round, when a wild lands on a losing free spin then it causes all symbols in its vertical and horizontal rows to be removed and replaced with new ones, creating another chance for a win.
The Slot Buzz Verdict
It’s unusual to come across a medium variance game with such a high payout potential, but Carnival Queen is one such slot. That means whilst all the big win opportunities are packed into the bonus round, you can still pick up a few decent payouts in the base game with the avalanche / multiplier combo. This is a quality slot and a fine addition to the Thunderkick catalogue.
