Hacksaw Gaming Slot Review
Fruit Duel: Slot Overview
Since its early days’ software developer Hacksaw Gaming has had a preoccupation with making games with food and all things edible, including plenty of fresh produce. From the comfort food style of Om Nom to the health-conscious selection of snacks in King Carrot. For Fruit Duel (initially titled Fruityplier), the studio has gone full-blown fruit, and they’ve chosen to do so in a 3×3 modelled game with a simpler range of features and a more modest max win than we are used to seeing from the team. Fruit Duel caters to a different segment of the market compared to the studio’s menacingly elaborate releases, so to find out if you happen to be in the game’s scope or not, please read on.
Fruit Duel opens on a sunshiny day at a farm, which could well be the same location used in Hop’n’Pop from a slightly different angle. This time, players view the action on a 3-reel, 3-row game panel, peeking out from between thick, green foliage. Red barns sit blurred in the background, while a relaxed soundtrack brings on a hanging-at-the-beach-in-the-Caribbean sensation. There’s not a heck of a lot going on. Fruit Duel paints a fruity picture of rural living on a pleasant summer’s day.
Fruit Duel slot – base gamePlayable on tablets, mobiles, and desktop devices, Fruit Duel takes bets of 10 p/c to £/€100 per spin and offers two bonus modes for applicable players. It’s less volatile than Hacksaw games often are, this part of the math model having been rated medium, or 3 out of 5. The maximum RTP value is 96.3%, but Hacksaw slots can come with alternative models, so that’s something to be on the lookout for.
A total of 17 paylines are provided to land winning combinations made up of three of a kind on. The vast majority of the symbols in Fruit Duel are fruit-based, such as the normal pay symbols. These include blueberries, lemons, grapes, oranges, apples, bananas, cherries, and strawberries, paying 0.1 to 5 times the stake for a three-symbol hit. Finishing off this section is the wild symbol, landing on any reel to replace all fruit symbols. Wilds pay the same as strawberries if making wins of themselves.
Fruit Duel: Slot Features
Fruit Duel slot – free spinsFruit Duel touts a feature called DuelReels, which is triggered when the VS symbol lands on any of the reels. When the VS symbol activates, becoming a full reel wild. In addition, when landing 2 fruit symbols with multipliers on the reel they will duel. The winner adds its multiplier value to the full reel wild similar to what you may have seen in games such as Gladiator Legends. One thing to note is the reel only expands if it will be used in a win when it expands – ‘book of’ style. If more than one wild reel is used in a win, the multiplier values are added before being applied. Possible multiplier values are x2, x3, x4, x5, x10, x15, x20, x25, x50, x75, or x100.
Free Spins
Landing 3 free spins symbols in view awards 10 free spins. During this feature, there is an increased chance of landing VS symbols compared to the base game, and players are more likely to get higher multipliers from the duel.
Buy Bonus
Open up the Bonus Buy menu to peruse two different choices. One is FeatureSpins which cost 10x the bet where each spin is guaranteed to land at least 1 VS symbol (96.35% RTP). The other choice is free spins for 80x the bet (96.36% RTP).
Fruit Duel slot – bonus buy optionsFruit Duel: Slot Verdict
If you happen to misread the DuelReels feature name at first, you might be expecting some sort of double grid action to arise. Instead, what Fruit Duel has is simpler and boils down to full reel wild multipliers when triggered by the VS symbol (and a win can be formed). These aren’t new, having appeared in past Hacksaw games such as Gladiator Legends and Warrior Ways. The difference now is fruits duke it out to see which one gets to use its multiplier instead of martial artists or helmed warriors. You might not think the fighting angle suits fruit, but it gave Hacksaw the chance to apply some splattering juice effects when the losing fruit is vanquished. Not quite as dramatic as beheadings and blood spatters, though.
But hey, surely that’s the point. To create a carefree fruit slot using DuelReels that comes across as approachably friendly rather than a berserk maniac. Fruit Duel’s math model would tend to suggest that, too, being less volatile than Hacksaw slots often are while reeling back the max win. In Fruit Duel, when the duelling, splatting, and winning reach their pinnacle, players can win up to 3,333x the bet. Not majorly exciting, yet not terrible for a 3-reel fruit slot. The odd number of paylines and the multipliers, which can technically be quite large, can help, especially when two or more DuelReels are working in tandem.
With Fruit Duel, if you’re not super keen on basic fruit slots, then the rest of what’s on offer probably won’t make up the shortfall. The DuelReel feature was arguably more satisfying in the previous DuelReel slots since they possessed stronger atmospheres, creating more immersive experiences than kicking around a farm squishing fruit. On the other hand, players sifting through game line-ups for a basic fruit slot with some expanding wild multiplier action on board should find a level of satiation from what they find in Fruit Duel.
Upvote (33)
Mediocre
If you’re not super keen on basic fruit slots, then the rest of what Fruit Duel has to offer probably won’t make up the shortfall.