PopRocks review
PopRocks is the slot that introduced AvatarUX’s PopWins mechanic, released on 7 April 2020 through Yggdrasil’s partner programme, known as YG Masters. That programme brought small independent studios to market on Yggdrasil’s platform, and PopRocks became one of its most talked-about releases. Play starts on five reels of three symbols, but every win “pops” symbols and makes the reels grow, up to seven high and 33,614 ways with wins paying both ways. Popped symbols fill a vault that raises a multiplier, and once every reel reaches full height, Bonus Mode kicks in. The ceiling is 72,188x the stake, and the studio calls the volatility “super high”. This game launched a whole family of AvatarUX Pop slots and is still the reference point for the mechanic.
Arcade styling and PopWins growth
See-through reels show gems, dragons and a brooding castle, with retro-electronic music recalling eighties arcades. The studio’s hot-and-cold imagery conveys a mood rather than a schedule of wins. Symbols include card ranks, gems, dragon-held gems and a super-premium type; Wild substitutes for ordinary symbols. Review claims that premiums appear only through pops lack separate rules confirmation.
Wins come from matching symbols on adjacent reels, counted left to right and right to left. The number of ways depends on reel heights: multiply the five heights together for one direction and double it for both. That gives both the starting figure and the maximum.
| Reel heights | Ways, one direction | Ways, both directions |
|---|---|---|
| 3-3-3-3-3 (start) | 243 | 486 |
| 4-3-3-3-3 | 324 | 648 |
| 5-5-4-3-3 | 900 | 1,800 |
| 7-7-7-3-3 | 3,087 | 6,174 |
| 7-7-7-7-7 (maximum) | 16,807 | 33,614 |
Each reel starts three high and returns to that height after a chain. Way count measures possible combinations rather than winning ways or continuation probability. A specific symbol needs matches on adjacent reels from the relevant edge.
After wins are paid, participating symbols pop and each becomes two new symbols. Each pop adds a reel position up to seven high. The grid is checked again and the process repeats with another win. The entire chain belongs to one initial stake, with no extra charge per step. A blank re-evaluation ends it.
Pops Vault and Bonus Mode
Every popped symbol is collected in the Pops Vault, and each batch of seven adds 1x to the win multiplier. The multiplier applies to pays within the run and can keep climbing while the chain lasts.
A made-up sequence: the first win pops four symbols, so the vault holds four. The next step pops five more, the count passes seven and the multiplier goes up by one. A third step pops six, and after fourteen pops it rises again. The logic is simple: the longer the chain and the more symbols in each win, the faster the multiplier grows. A short run of one or two wins barely touches it, which is why the game’s potential lives almost entirely in long chains.
Once all five reels reach seven symbols, Bonus Mode begins within the same chain. One random symbol immediately becomes a Wild. Every seven pops now add 2x, and a popped symbol becomes one replacement, preserving height. There is no separate spin counter; the mode ends with the chain. The Wild guarantees no new win, and multiplier growth does not carry between independent spins.
Grid size and growth increments explain the feature’s states, but without symbol probabilities they cannot establish that a height necessarily speeds wins, most chains end on step two, or how many Bonus Modes occur in five hundred spins. Starting multiplier, its overall upper bound and individual-value frequencies are undisclosed.
Maths and the AvatarUX family
RTP is 96.40%, with no other builds enumerated; stakes are 0.1–100. Maximum is 72,188x, with chain termination at the limit unspecified. Hit, Bonus Mode and maximum frequencies are unpublished. A super-high rating describes risk rather than promising alternating long losses and large wins. The original has no scatters, separate free-spin round or Bonus Mode buy.
After PopRocks, AvatarUX developed CherryPop, CherryPop Burst, HippoPop, AstroPop and MonkeyPop 2, alongside ZapReel, MultiPop, StickyPop and Xpops. Shared branding does not make their rules identical. Bonanza Megaways changes reel heights randomly each spin rather than through pops; Reactoonz runs cascades on a cluster grid.
