Hula Balua

Hula Balua: Slot Overview

Players, if you like a bit of subtle continuity in your online slots, then Hula Balua from software provider ELK Studios is worth investigating. It might not look obvious at first, but Hula Balua connects to Tropicool 2, with a few strands linking the two games together. One is that some of the features share crossover qualities, while another reason is Elmo the Sloth has returned. Sick of the icy weather in his last game, perhaps, the loveable sloth has upped sticks and set sail for somewhere much warmer.

The warmer destination one would presume is Hawaii since utilising a handy online translation tool revealed that Hula Balua in Hawaiian means 'double dance' in English. Interesting because there isn't a shed ton of dancing going on in Hula Balua. No matter, it is set in an enchanting part of the planet. One of those places where you wake up in the morning, bathe in the waterfall next door, eat mangos grown in the garden, and spearfish in the lagoon before lazing around in a hammock for the afternoon. This, then, is where Elmo has chosen to reside, and quite a dreamy spot it is, too.

Shaking the dream off for a moment, we come to bet selection where the options are 20 p/c to $/€100 per paid drop. Hitting the spin button unleashes 36 symbols into a 6x6 sized gaming space, though symbols can merge into big symbols, as we shall see. Hula Balua is a scatter pays slot, which means it doesn't matter where matching symbols land in relation to each other; as long as there are at least 8 identical symbols in view, players collect a reward. Winning symbols are removed from the reels and replaced by those above them. Hula Balua's action unfolds in a medium-high volatile way, generating a return to player value of 94% whether playing in the normal mode or activating features from the X-iter menu.

Symbols now, and Hula Balua has, in ascending order of value, green, yellow, and pink anonymous fruits, then a sliced kiwifruit, sliced mango, a pink fruit half, and a split star-shaped fruit. Hitting 8 identical symbols awards 0.1 to 1 times the bet, up to a maximum of 5 to 200 times the stake when 20+ symbols hit. Feeling bold, ELK Studios has included wild symbols in Hula Balua, which can substitute for any regular pay symbol. A winning combination of only wilds pays like the highest value pay symbol

Hula Balua: Slot Features

If there's something Hula Balua has its fair share of, its features. On its list are Sticky Redrops, Merging symbols, Elmo Redrops, Big symbols, Multipliers, a bonus game, a Super bonus game and X-iter feature buy modes.

Sticky Redrops

When triggered, this feature picks one paying symbol and makes it sticky. All matching pay symbols in view lock to the reels. Landing one or more matching sticky symbols or wilds during a redrop awards an extra redrop, and winnings are paid when no more matching symbols or wilds hit on a redrop. Sticky symbols may be upgraded, and sticky redrop symbols can be 1x1, 2x2, or 3x3 in size.

Multipliers and Big Symbols

Matching symbols that land in a square or a rectangle merge and create big symbols. Big symbols, in turn, go on to create multipliers with a value equal to the number of small symbols the big symbol covers. If a big symbol is part of a win, its multiplier value is added to the global multiplier, which is applied to all wins.

Big symbols can merge into even bigger symbols if they are adjacent to each other and they match. When big symbols merge into bigger symbols, an additional multiplier is added to the global multiplier. The global multiplier remains in view until no more wins appear. Finally, if spaces are created beneath a big symbol, they are filled with symbols of the same type.

Elmo Wild Drops

Elmo triggers this feature, and when active, Elmo moves 1 column to the left, placing a random number of wilds on the grid for each redrop. Wilds persist until Elmo has left the grid or when used in a win. Elmo is active on the last redrop.

Bonus Game

When 3, 4, 5, or 6 bonus symbols hit, players win 6, 8, 10, or 12 free drops, respectively. 2 bonus symbols vertically connected on top of each other upgrade bonus symbols to Super bonus symbols. The Super bonus game guarantees big symbols on each free drop. The global multiplier remains during free drops, and hitting 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 bonus symbols triggers 4, 6, 8, 10, or 12 additional free drops.

X-iter

Activating the X-iter lets players pick from these options:

• Bonus Hunt – 3x the bet to buy a game round with an increased chance of triggering a bonus.
• Big symbol – 10x the bet for a game round with guaranteed big symbol.
• Sticky Redrops – 25x the bet for a game round with sticky redrops.
• Buy bonus – 100x the bet buys the bonus game.
• Super bonus -200x the bet buys the super bonus game.

Hula Balua: Slot Verdict

Hula Balua might have brought back memories of Tropicool 2, without the Cool Reel, but a number of different features and a general mechanical overhaul has gone into its creation. Fairly subtle changes in some ways, bigger in others, but when combined with the warmer location this time around, Hula Balua feels completely new. It's a must-see if you liked the previous Tropicool games' style or if you have an interest in scatter pay slots in general. As an aside, this style of gaming is running scorching hot at the moment. Where once scatter-paying slots were something of an oddity, they've now firmly crossed over into the mainstream. Hula Balua is a fine example, too, if you're willing to overlook ELK Studios' insistence on delivering low return values.

What makes Hula Balua a success are two things. One is the excellent presentation, another ELK Studios hallmark. Two, the extra bits and bobs the team has added on. One of these is Sticky Redrops. These sticky winning symbol respins features, made popular by games like Serial, are in themselves catching on in greater numbers as well, yet they're not commonly found within a scatter pays game, which adds desirability. Not content to leave things there, the big symbols and merging functionality work like a charm not only on their own but gels perfectly with the scatter pays/sticky redrops bit, too. Add in a global multiplier, and Hula Balua has all the right ingredients to blow, when it wants to. Naturally, this is unlikely to be an every other drop experience, yet the opportunities are here. Potential is on the high side, too, at 25,000x the bet. Funny, it wasn't super long ago that ELK Studios used to top out around 2,500x, or 5,000x if you were lucky. Judging by contemporary releases, those days appear to be long gone.

Let's end by saying Hula Balua was a bit of an odd one since it's not officially a Tropicool slot as such, but certain things stuck out like sore thumbs. Mainly Elmo, who snuck in there, dressed up for the occasion and all. No bad thing, though, and despite not being sure about Hula Balua's pathway for spawning into existence, as a scatter pays alternative boasting several nifty extras, it's hard to go wrong.