HelioPOPolis

It’s not too often you see asian-style visuals combined with the classic ancient Egypt theme, but this seems to be what AvatarUX is aiming for in HelioPOPolis. It’s definitely not your run of the mill Egypt presentation at least, and it reminded us of some of the earliest installments in the PopWins mechanic series. The futuristic new age soundtrack is refreshing, and it amplifies the aura of mystique.

The base game is all about maxing out the grid to 5×6, and this happens via the PopWins mechanic as usual. It awards 2 free spins with either synced reels or extended win symbols, and these are the modifiers you can choose from when the bonus round triggers as well. It comes with a progressive win multiplier that keeps building, as well as mystery symbols, and you can win up to 20,000x your stake.

HelioPOlis Slot Features

The premium symbols pay between 3 and 4 x your stake for 5 of a kind wins, and 5-oak wins pay only from left to right while smaller combinations pay both ways. You get scarab wild symbols in the bonus round only, and wilds step in for pay symbols to help complete wins.

The PopWins mechanic replaces each winning symbol with 2 new symbols, which also expands the grid accordingly. This repeats per new win, and the base game grid can expand to 5×6 in size. When this happens you get exactly 2 free spins, and these come with 1 of the 2 modifiers you also get in the full-blown bonus round (see below).

You need 3, 4 or, 5 scatters to land in the same PopWins sequence to trigger the Bonus Round, and this awards the following:

• You get 7 free spins from 3 triggering scatters, and they come with 2,048 starting win ways and up to an x5 starting win multiplier.
• You get 9 free spins from 4 triggering scatters, and they come with up to 6,250 starting win ways and a starting multiplier up to x6.
• Finally, landing 5 triggering scatters gives you 11 free spins, with up to 15,552 starting ways to win and up to a starting multiplier of x7.

You can choose 1 of 2 modifiers to bring with you into the bonus round, and these are Synced Reels and Extended Win Symbol. The Synced Reels feature can synchronize adjacent reels to create mega symbols of size 2×2 or 3×3. When the chosen Extended Win Symbol is part of a win, it extends to cover the entire reel. When the PopWins mechanic expands the grid, it resets to the lowest height of any of the reels between spins.

Mystery Symbols are active no matter which of the above modifiers you go with, and these turn into the same randomly chosen matching symbol when they land. The progressive win multiplier increases by +1 per win, and it never resets for as long as the feature lasts. If you max out the grid with 8 positions per reel, the multiplier increases by +2 per win after that. This also gives you +2 extra spins, and both modifiers described above become active.

You can turn on the Ante Bet if you’re willing to pay 50 % more per spin, and this doubles your bonus round chances. Non-UK players, and anyone eligible, can take advantage of the Bonus Buy menu, which comes with 2 options. You can choose 1 of the 2 modifiers to bring with you into the bonus round for 125x the stake, or get both from the get-go for 1,000x your stake.

The 200 Spins HelioPOPolis Slot Experience

You get to see a few smaller PopWins here and there, before we purchase the top-tier bonus round close to the 1-minute mark. We got 11 free spins, an x7 starting win multiplier, and 15,552 starting win ways. You can see for yourself how we fared by hitting the play button below.

Review Summary

After having released some installments with more, shall we say, “accessible” visuals, AvatarUX has gone back to the somewhat vague and strange-looking visual style you got in their earliest releases. The familiarity of the ancient Egypt theme makes this even more evident, and the pace of the base game is also an unwelcome “blast from the past”. This should be an obvious fix, at least in our view, but the problem keeps “popping” up on a regular basis.

The awkward pause both before and after you hit the spin button is something we thought this studio had ironed out by now. We would suggest making the pace the same as in the bonus round, where everything flows smoothly. Speaking of, the bonus round comes with plenty of extras in this game, and not least if you manage to upgrade via the maxed out grid. The 20,000x potential seems achievable, and we just wish this studio would sort out the spin pace problem once and for all.