Babushkas review
Russian nesting dolls from the Swedish studio Thunderkick play by their own rules: winning symbols do not vanish but turn into the next ones up in value. The game came out in August 2016, and instead of a big ceiling it relies on a bonus with a guaranteed wild and three mystery features that make each round unlike the last.
Dolls and bears: how the grid works
The grid has five reels and three rows, so 15 symbols sit on screen at a time. Payouts come along fixed lines, read left to right. Symbols come in seven value tiers, from the cheapest to the most valuable, and the whole mechanic rests on moving between those tiers. The wild appears only on the middle reel and can trigger one of three mystery features, dressed up as bears.
In the studio’s words the game is a slot with wilds, four symbol-upgrade features and a free-spin bonus with guaranteed wilds. Thunderkick is known for unusual mechanics, and that holds here: instead of a cascade or a cluster the game is built on symbols moving between ranks.
The pay table across seven symbols
Payouts in the client are shown as multiples of the total bet. For each of the seven symbols the values for three, four and five identical symbols on a line are given.
Symbol 0 (top) — 3 symbols: 0.5; 4 symbols: 1; 5 symbols: 2.
Symbol 1 — 3 symbols: 0.4; 4 symbols: 0.8; 5 symbols: 1.5.
Symbol 2 — 3 symbols: 0.3; 4 symbols: 0.6; 5 symbols: 1.
Symbol 3 — 3 symbols: 0.2; 4 symbols: 0.4; 5 symbols: 0.8.
Symbol 4 — 3 symbols: 0.2; 4 symbols: 0.4; 5 symbols: 0.7.
Symbol 5 — 3 symbols: 0.1; 4 symbols: 0.2; 5 symbols: 0.5.
Symbol 6 (bottom) — 3 symbols: 0.1; 4 symbols: 0.2; 5 symbols: 0.4.
The biggest payout for a single line is only two bets, and that at once explains the character of the game. The gap between the bottom and top symbol is fivefold at any line length: from 0.1 to 0.5 for three in a row, from 0.2 to 1 for four and from 0.4 to 2 for five, not dozens or hundreds of times as in high-volatility games. So every step up the ladder adds a noticeable share to the line, not small change.
The steps are not even, though. Moving from symbol 6 to symbol 5 at three or four in a row changes nothing in the payout, so such an upgrade helps only when it creates a new or longer line. Symbols 3 and 4 also share the same values at three and four in a row, and the difference appears only at five.
Winning-symbol upgrades and the Wipe
By an upgrade the rules mean replacing a symbol with the next one higher in the pay table: symbol 6 becomes symbol 5, that one becomes symbol 4, and so on up to symbol 0. The game does not wait for the next spin: all winning symbols of one rank climb a step within the same round if that creates new or longer lines, and the check repeats for as long as an upgrade remains useful. On screen this looks like a series of consecutive transformations of dolls into bigger ones. A long chain needs every step to create a fresh win, so the main contribution to the result comes from short runs of one or two steps.
A separate rule is called the Wipe. If after all upgrades 15 identical symbols lie on screen, they are upgraded once more. And if that rule applies to the most valuable symbol, a special win is awarded according to the pay table; its exact size is not given in the sources available.
The bet cannot be changed during a round, so upgrades and mystery features are always played on the stake the spin began with. All wins of a round are added up and shown at the end, not along the chain. If the game malfunctions, all affected bets and payouts are voided.
The wild and three bear mystery features
The wild lands on the third reel and substitutes for any symbol. If it shows a star when it stops, it opens and reveals one of three mystery features; a wild with no star simply substitutes. Which feature has landed becomes clear only after the reels stop, and none of them asks for any action from the player.
- Scare Bear upgrades the cheapest symbols on screen. The series of upgrades repeats one to three times, depending on the size of the bear.
- Charm Bear upgrades every symbol on screen once.
- Dance Bear awards 7 free spins in which a new wild lands on the third reel on every spin.
Scare Bear’s result depends on how many cheap symbols lie on the field, Charm Bear reshapes the whole field at once regardless of its makeup, and Dance Bear pays nothing at once but leads to the bonus. The rules give no probabilities for each bear.
The geometry of the lines and the role of the middle reel
The game configuration lists all 17 lines by position. Three of them are straight: the top, middle and bottom rows. The other fourteen are broken and change rows on the way from left to right. Five lines pass through the top cell of the third reel, five through the bottom one and seven through the middle, so every line crosses the third reel exactly once.
That gives the wild its main property: since it lands on the third reel, it sits on every line at once, whichever cell it takes. A substituting symbol in the centre takes part in every combination, and that makes the wild worth more than in a 20-line game where some paths bypass the centre. The middle cell has no special value of its own: seven lines against five only slightly raise the role of the middle row.
The payout rule is the same for every line: the highest combination on a line pays, provided it runs in sequence from the left with no gaps. Wins of different lines add up. The client draws only part of the possible lines on its diagram, which the rules state specifically.
Free spins with a guaranteed wild
The bonus game consists of 7 free spins, and its chief trait is that a wild lands on the middle reel on every spin. Together with the winning-symbol upgrade that gives a decent chance of a run of several lines. The length of these free spins is known in advance, as the rules describe no extra spins inside the bonus. The round ceiling applies here too, so the bonus does not turn a low-volatility game into a high-volatility one.
Low volatility and the round ceiling
The studio labels volatility as low, and the pay table supports that reading. Upgrades redistribute the payout across lines, but every line pays little, and to collect hundreds of bets the screen would have to fill with top symbols. The balance swings little, a run of empty spins is usually short, and a single huge win is impossible by definition. The page gives the 95.80% return in a single version.
A round is limited to a sum of 390 total bets, and anything above is not paid. In the configuration the studio puts the maximum-win odds at one in 70,999,985,091, roughly one hit per 71 billion spins, and no player choices affect the probability. The configuration’s win-level scale matches this scope: Mini up to 1 bet, Small 1 to 5, Medium 5 to 10, Big 10 to 25, Mega 25 to 50, Ultra 50 to 100 and Max from 100 bets, a mark just above a quarter of the ceiling. For comparison, the newest Esqueleto release from the same studio has a 7,500-bet ceiling; the Swedish studio’s other games are gathered on the Thunderkick page.
