Visual Elements
In designing the visual elements for Samba de
Frutas, which translates to samba of the
fruits in English, IGT went all out in committing to the unmistakable samba
style. The game’s title screen features a smiling Brazilian woman clad in the
characteristic samba dancer garb, down to the purple dress and earrings
fashioned to resemble green grapes and a necklace made of strawberries. On her
head, the title screen dancer wears all variety of tropical fruits, and her
hands are heading skyward in anticipation of the next move.
The game’s background screen shows pineapples
concealed beneath the reel area, while the samba dancer is featured in a side
screen designed to evoke a 1950s era film poster. The billing reads “IGT
Presents: Samba de Frutas”, while assorted fruits fill out the foreground of the
poster.
Moving on to the reel symbols, Samba de
Frutas starts with the traditional card rank symbols used in many IGT slots, and
most slots for that matter. So you’ll be spinning the usual 9, 10, J, Q, K, and
A symbols, each of which is shown in bright, colorful Carnival like colors.
The assortment of themed symbols serves as
the perfect supplement to the Samba de Frutas theme. You’ll find the pair of
blue parrots, the pair of black toucans, the samba man with maracas, the samba
dancing woman, the fruit hat, and the pair of maracas Bonus symbol.
The fruit hat symbol is crucial in Samba de
Frutas, as it serves as a Stacked Wild which can fill up multiple symbol spaces
on a single reel. The fruit hat symbol can be double sized, occupying two symbol
spaces at a time, or stretch out to cover three, four, or even all of the spaces
on a given reel. As you might suspect, the inclusion of Stacked Wild symbols
gives Samba de Frutas an added element of flair, because many spins will include
a wide range of wild fruit hat symbols to work with while you try to land
winning combinations.
A slot game based on samba music must include
a lively soundtrack to enhance the ambience, and Samba de Frutas succeeds in
that regard. While you play, the game will serenade you with upbeat samba tunes
straight from the genre’s glory days, and soon enough you’ll find yourself
tapping your feet to the rhythm while you play.
This combination of visual design and audio
enhancement combines to make Samba de Fruta an entertaining game, one fitting of
its co opting of Brazilian culture. You can’t help but enjoy yourself with the
tunes in the background and colorful fruit all over the screen.
Gameplay Features and Mechanics
Technically speaking, IGT classifies Samba de
Frutas as an eight reel, 100 pay line design, but from the player’s perspective,
the game is really of the five reel variety.
The distinction here is superficial of
course, but from your perspective, you won’t be watching eight reels spin.
Instead, the game displays five spinning reels, but each reel is stretched out
to become double the size of a standard reel array.
Each of these five lengthened reels holds
eight symbol spaces, putting 40 reel symbols in play on every spin.
From a certain perspective, then, you might
say the game combines two sets of five reel, each with 20 symbol spaces, one on
top of the other. But even so, each of the five reels you’ll see on screen spin
as one, so in effect Samba de Frutas becomes a five reel game.
In terms of pay lines, you can toggle between
1, 8, 25, 50, 75, and the full 100 pay lines, but experienced slot players know
that activating all possible pay lines is the best way to enjoy a game’s full
range of features and payouts.
The coin denominations available in this game
begin at the penny slot level, before moving up to $0.02, $0.03, $0.05, $0.10,
$0.20, $0.25, $0.30, $0.50, $1, $2, $3, $5, and $10.
Assuming you play all 100 pay lines, the
minimum cost to cover would then be $1, while the maximum bet rises to a
monstrous $1,000 per spin. For the most part though, recreational players stick
to stakes between a penny and a nickel, making for $1 and $5 minimums per spin.
For fans of the IGT slot design template,
Samba de Frutas will be right up their alley, as it is built around the familiar
offering of wild symbols, and a bonus symbol that can trigger multipliers and
the free spins bonus round. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t connect with any
progressive jackpot networks, so you’ll have to be content with the base game’s
rewards.
Check below for
a primer on important game specifications for Samba de Frutas:
- Wilds:
Yes
- Free
Spins: Yes
- Multiplier: Yes, for 2x
- Bonus
Game: Yes
- Progressive: No
- Return to
Player: 93.37%
With no
progressives in play, the biggest payout you can earn in Samba de Frutas occurs
when you land five of the fruit hat wild symbols across the reels. For this
feat, you’ll bring back a full 1,000 credits. Landing four of the fruit hat wild
symbols is good for a payout of 250 credits, and you’ll receive a reward of 50
credits for landing three.
Both the samba
man with maracas symbol and the samba dancing woman symbol offer 500, 100, and
25 credits for landing five, four, or three, respectively. As for the pair of
black toucans and the pair of blue parrots symbols, each returns the same pay
scheme of 250 / 75 / 25.
As for the card
rank symbols, you’ll get 150 credits for landing five of the As or Ks, and 100
credits whenever five Qs, Js, 10s, or 9s flash across the reels.
This
standardized pay table, combined with a low minimum cost to cover, makes Samba
de Frutas the classic low volatility game. Players can usually enjoy extended
sessions sustained by small wins, while disastrous fruitless runs are quite
rare.
This has been
mentioned already, but a refresher is always in order when it comes to wild
symbols. The fruit hat symbol in this game serves as a wild symbol – appearing
as a Stacked Wild more often than not – and it can replace every symbol in the
game, except for the Bonus symbol, to help you create winning combinations.
As for that
Bonus symbol, it will only show up on the second, third, and fourth reels, so
these middle reels become key to your overall progress. Whenever you see just
one or two of the Bonus symbols on screen, you’ll be disappointed because they
don’t trigger any winners or payouts. But should three of them hit the board,
occupying all three of the middle reels, you’ll enjoy a 2x multiplier which
doubles any payouts generated on that screen.
But that’s not
all, as seeing three of the Bonus symbols onscreen provides the entry point for
Samba de Frutas’ free spins bonus round.
Triggering the Bonus Round
Those pivotal Bonus symbols don’t seem to
appear all that often, but whenever you can land three of them on the three
middle reels, you’ll unlock the game’s free spins bonus round.
Samba de Frutas awards an allotment of five
free bonus spins for each round, and while this isn’t all that much when
compared to the dozens doled out on other games, this figure does align with
IGT’s typical slot machine template.
During any free spin, you can also retrigger
another allotment of five free spins by landing the same three Bonus symbols on
the middle reels. In this way, a single round of free spins can be extended to
include 10, 15, 20, and so on down the line – through the maximum of 255
consecutive free spins.
And when you do land a winning combination on
your free spin, the corresponding payout will be based on the coin denomination
used during the triggering spin.
We wish there was more to say about Samba de
Frutas’ free spins bonus round, but unfortunately IGT opted for the barebones
design here. You can earn five free spins, and you can then earn five more to
extend the run, but other than retriggers the bonus round doesn’t offer any
other freebies or features.
According to the game’s Rules section, the
frequency with which Stacked Wild fruit hat symbols will increase, so at least
you’ll land winners more often during a free spin than you would otherwise.
But the modern video slot tends to offer
diversions via the bonus round, such as side screen guessing games, wheel
spinning contests with an assortment of prizes, and other interactive features.
By limiting the bonus round action to free spins only, Samba de Frutas asks
players to toil through the tedium of a base game only.
Conclusion
Samba de Frutas does right by its Brazilian
cultural themes, integrating vintage visuals and music to capture the spirit of
Carnival. If you’ve spent time in that beautiful country, or simply have a soft
spot for the sounds of samba, this is the game for you. But veteran slot players
who have experienced the alternative provided by more fulfilling bonus rounds
and added features will definitely find the base game to be a bore after an hour
or so, because the base game is all there is to enjoy.
