Tonttula Slots
Having not been familiar with the word, you might not know what to expect when the loading screen for Tonttula begins… we certainly didn’t anticipate a festive theme to land onto our devices.
Before you turn off, deeming it still too early to play Christmas related games, wait one second and hear what we’ve got to say – Tonttula isn’t your average holiday game. In fact, you can argue it isn’t Christmas based at all, and that the elves are just there for decoration.
Seriously though, this is a Nordic inspired slot machine that has an enchanting set of graphics, completely unique to this slot and this one alone. It’s cute without being overly sickly sweet, and it brings a sprinkling of joy to your day - what isn’t to like about that? This is one of the most adult childlike aesthetics we’ve come across in the slot community.
Inside a floating 3x5 grid, the characters with their little hats and big eyes, will go whizzing off, exchanging themselves for presents as they go.
Tug of War
Before we get started with what symbol do what, we want to jump straight to the double your money mini game because it’s so clever and different, it’s too good to leave until the end. Two levers will appear after a win, one asking you to gamble and the other to take the cash, click the gamble button and you’ll be prompted to select between a red and blue team.
Once your choice has been made, you’ll watch as a tug of war breaks out between them, each of the teams inching ever closer to the line; we lost during our gamble, but it the animation was so imaginative that we didn’t mind! What a refreshing change from seeing boring card based guessing games that are now seen in way too many online slots.
Despite it looking different, the same rules apply: win and you get cash, lose and you get nothing. It’s worth remembering that whilst you’re getting sucked into the aesthetically pleasing animation.
How Do You Play?
We actually asked ourselves this several times while searching for a means to access the pay table, seeing as the widget given in the top right hand corner didn’t work at all. Would you believe that all we had to do was press the bet button, just above the spin one? Yup, that’s the one.
Upon clicking it, a window will show up with a list of all the symbols and any special features, with further clicking upping their totals and your bet. What this means is that your bet has a greater bearing on what you win back, which is good news for those who have cash to spare but bad for those who hate parting with their money.
The lowest bet is €0.20, which makes the highest base pay out (without any multipliers applied) only worth €20. Should you increase your wager to the maximum amount of €10, the top pay out becomes a lot more interesting, say about €1,000 more. Even though 10 credits is steeper than most would like to pay, it’s still relatively small in the grand scheme of things, for there’s slot machines out there that have minimum bets of €60 and over.
The Gift of Giving
Remember how we said the characters were exchanged for presents? Well the hedgehogs of the game can trigger the gift machine to throw out some high level multipliers, as much as x30. It’s a raffle of sorts, with the hogs needing to catch one of the presents for the multiplier to be decided and placed.
If only one grabs a present, the other two falling over, the multiplier becomes x2, but get two presents in their paws and it becomes x10. That then leaves all three to herald in the x30 reward.
Not Just for Christmas
This slot machine is great to play in the rundown to Christmas, but also all year round, for it manages to override festive feelings with its cute illustrative game play.
Tonttula is one of Playtech’s hidden gems, a game that should be more appreciated and played than what it is; make sure you try it out when given the chance. You won’t regret it.
