Candy Glyph

Candy Glyph: Slot Overview

Back in 2019, before the world had really tipped into the maelstrom of Covid, lockdowns, and social distancing, software developer Quickspin made its first thrust into the cluster pay arena with the release of Golden Glyph. Not a bad first effort at all either, leading to the creation later on of Golden Glyph 2 and then Golden Glyph 3. Now, it appears the developer has had enough of Ancient Egypt but wanted to have another go at the mechanisms driving the first Glyph game. What's rolled off the line is Candy Glyph, a reskin using pinatas and sweet stuff in place of an Ancient Egyptian vista.

As such, players will not catch glimpses of any statues or pharaohs around here or pyramids. Instead, it's all pinatas, candy, flags on strings, and cacti - one wearing a sombrero. We might be 4 years on (at the time of review), and while Candy Glyph has a pleasant outer shell, it's not as striking as the trio of Glyph games. Not to say it'll wound your eyes for looking, but Golden Glyph was more eye-catching.

For people who fear change, the way Candy Glyph produces the same stats as the slot it is copied from should be reassuring. This means an RTP value of 96.19% (lower models have been built) and a medium volatile math model. Bets of 20 c to $/€100 per paid round may be placed, and hitting spin drops 49 symbols onto a 7x7 sized game grid with the aim of hitting winning clusters. At least 5 identical pay symbols, connected in horizontal or vertical directions, are what is needed to form a cluster.

Candies make up Candy Glyph's paytable, where there are 7 regular paying symbols. These are a blue triangle, a green square, a doughnut-shaped sweet, a kidney-shaped one, an orange slice one, a star, and a pepper-shaped candy. The prize for landing a 5-matching symbol cluster is 0.1 to 1 times the bet, while the most valuable clusters have 15 or more symbols in them, paying 7.5 to 250 times the bet. When wilds appear on the grid, they are able to substitute for anything except Power Wilds or Pinata Glyph Wilds and are removed by tumbles when used in a win. The tumble mechanic is available in all phases of the game. It removes winning clusters, causing symbols to drop from above to fill the empty spaces. Tumbling ends when there are no new winning clusters.

Candy Glyph: Slot Features

Candy Glyph's features are the same as Golden Glyph, too, except this time, they're operating under different names. Well, some names are different, some stay as they were.

Power Wild

After a winning cluster is removed from the reels, a Power Wild is placed in one of the empty spaces before symbols drop. Power Wilds are evaluated and removed like regular wild symbols. However, whenever a Power Wild is removed, one of the Power-Ups located next to the reels is activated. If the free spins Power-Up is activated, all unused Power Wilds are transformed into wilds, and no additional Power Wilds are awarded for the rest of the spin.

Power-Up Feature

At the start of each spin, 5 Power-Ups are randomly displayed by the grid, and the fifth Power-Up is always free spins. The first four Power-Ups can be the Bonbon Rocket, Lollipop Rocket, or Bouncy Bean and are activated by each Power Wild consumed as part of a win. When tumble wins end, activated Power-Ups are awarded in the order they were activated, then removed:

• Bonbon Bomb - lands on the grid and removes all high and low pay symbols in its row and column. Each removed symbol awards 1/20 of the bet.
• Lollipop Rocket - removes a randomly chosen low-pay symbol type. Each removed symbol awards 1/20 of the bet.
• Bouncy Bean - spawns 4 to 10 randomly placed wild symbols.

Free Spins

If free spins are activated in the base game, 9 free spins are granted to the player. If this occurs during the free spins round, then players get +3 free spins. On the first free spin, the Pinata Glyph Wild is put in a random location and substitutes for regular pay symbols. It has a starting multiplier of x1, which increases by +1 per tumble if the Pinata Glyph Wild is part of at least one winning cluster. This Pinata Glyph Wild does not tumble nor is it removed by tumbles. Instead, it and its multiplier carry over to the next free spin till the round ends. On each free spin, the Pinata Glyph Wild moves to a random position.

Candy Glyph: Slot Verdict

As mentioned, Golden Glyph was Quickspin's first cluster paying grid slot, and an entertaining first effort it was. After the original, then Golden Glyph 2 and Golden Glyph 3, the Quickspin team has hard-forked away from Ancient Egypt to give us Candy Glyph. Actually, a soft fork is a better descriptor since Candy Glyph is a clone and all. Quite what the connection between Ancient Egypt and candy might be is hard to discern, except sweets in online gambling are hugely popular, so it makes sense that Quickspin would pick a lowest common denominator theme as the new skin for a clone.

It means that unless you're mad for pinatas or sugary goodness, then Candy Glyph is certainly no better than Golden Glyph. Ancient Egypt might be as common, if not more so, but the Glyph games were lookers, doing a better job at turning heads than Candy Glyph did, though looks are highly subjective. Beyond the skin, there's nothing to add to what Golden Glyph didn't already provide. Namely, good levels of playability, nice interplay of tumbles, Power Wilds, and Power Up features, then a roaming multiplier wild in free spins. It's a feature set which achieved wins up to 13,185x the bet. It was hard to get too fired up, but Candy Glyph wasn't a drag to play, either. A bonus buy might have been a nice add-on for some, maybe next time.

As the review wrapped up, the conclusion drawn lay along the lines of Candy Glyph being neither significantly better nor worse than the slot it was copied over from. The gameplay and stats are the same, so picking one slot over the other simply comes down to what you prefer - pyramids or pinatas?