Flame Busters Slot

Flame Busters is a slot by Thunder kick software provider and I believe it's one of their oldest games, or at least one of the oldest and first games I remember from Thubderkick software.

The slot is inspired by fire fighting theme and the wheels are based on a several story building where fire fighters are putting out the fire. The design itself is something that I would describe as quite old school and very simple, so by no means I can say that I like the game for it's looks. But there are things I’ve grown to enjoy about this game over a long period of time.

From technical point of view the the slot has 5 reels and it pays 243 ways as well as there’s a free spins bonus round and base game feature. The base feature is simple - before any spin one or more color low paying symbols can change into high paying symbols if they land on the spin. The feature in my experience comes up quite often but it has never given me a win over 50x bet so I never have high hopes for it.

For a long time this slot was on my - absolutely not play- list as I never seemed to get any decent wins. But then I started to play it more on free roll battles and once even got to the last floor in free spins bonus which ended up with a 700x bet win on a small 10 cent bet. It showed me that the game has potential. And it really does- for 3 scatter symbols you get to play 10 free spins. There’s no multiplier yet for 3 more collected scatters, you get to level up and turn one of the low paying symbols into higher paying ones. Every level up comes with 2 additional spins and you can get up to 5 levels. So far I have managed to achieve this once but quite a few times I have got to the 4th level and scored a few 200-250x bet wins.

Overall I believe this is a decent slot and after many sessions I more like it than dislike it. For me the only times I have had few hundred times bet wins has been only from minimum bets, whenever I would play with higher bets it would end up completely dry. Also even getting to the 4th level, which is quite a success, can end up in a tiny win. I have started to enjoy this slot for my low rolling sessions.

Flame Busters is a 5 reel, 243 ways to win slot from Thunderkick. Available to play across all devices from $0.10 to $100 per spin. This fire-fighting themed offering has low graphics offering (64-bit style) and some good bonus features. The graphics reminds me about the old school ''TV Game" before Sega and Playstation was a thing. Gosh how we raved about a 20 in 1 or 52 in 1 cartridge. Oh, how I miss Mario Brothers game now.

Visually, Flame Busters looks like a Nintendo style game with old school graphics. This game also has an arcade feel to it. Set in a burning building with firefighters (Busters) on either side of the reel set, holding horse pipes;

Symbols on the reels include coins (A, K, Q, J and T). You also have a goat boy, pirate, robot, wizard and Roasty McFry (firefighter). Roasty is the most valuable giving you 10 times your total stake for 5 across a payline. There is also a Fire symbol which acts as a mystery symbol and can reveal any symbols of the same kind, which create the big wins. The wild symbol substitutes for everything except the scatter.

The game has a random Fire drill feature that turn low paying symbol into fire symbol for that specific spin. You can benefit from 1 – 5 additional mystery symbols.

Landing 3 fire clock symbols trigger 10 free spins. The game has levels and you collect fire bell to proceed to each level and get extra spins at the same time. As you level up, you create more mystery fire symbols, which means if you at level 5 all low paying symbols transform to mystery symbol and that’s where you basically can get mega wins on each spin.

When I played this game for the first time I was not impressed and seemed bored. Once I had my first monstrous win it made me come back for more and I love this slot. I have not yet reached level 5 yet but hope that soon I will get there.

When the game is not in the mood, it can be cold and bonus will take forever to trigger. I would rate this slot from medium to high variance.

When I first came across this new game from Thunderkick at Casumo, I couldn't resist trying it out. Oh boy! Was I really surprised when I saw that this Flame Busters game is really a very old 8-bit game but upgraded into a 243 ways to win game! That was a nice upgrade, but how I wish those Thunderkick guys could have upgraded the graphics into 16-bit as well. Okay, that would incur a lot of time and effort on their side, especially because it isn't one of their games in the first place. It's probably bought over from Nintendo, with a copyright pattern dated way back to 1986, long before Thunderkick was even born! Hahaha.

With a boss named Roasty McFry, one can only expect things to be frying hot in this game. Well, it certainly did for me when I was trying it out in the fun mode. It gave me a very nice win of 596x my bet amount, and that got me so excited that I quickly switched over to real play mode and made a deposit to play it. Ah! It's been so long ago when any Thunderkick game could do that to me! From Fruit Warp, to Barber Shop, and then to Birds On A Wire. Now it's Roasty McFry and the Flame Busters turn to do that.

'W' is the Wild symbol in the game, a very dumb symbol unfortunately. It only does substitution for other symbols except for the Scatter symbol, and nothing else. No paying for itself, no doubling of wins, no stacking and no expanding either. Yep, and no fun too, hehehe. The Fire Alarm is the Scatter symbol, another dumb symbol, and getting 3, 4 or 5 of these Alarms trigger 10, 15 or 20 free spins without any multiplier. The Free Spins game cannot be retriggered either. Oh sheesh! The Fire is a Mystery symbol, the third dumb symbol in the game. It comes stacked in both base and Free Spins games, and can transform into any symbol except for the Scatter and the Wild symbols. As for the other symbols, the Fireman pays 10x, the Old Man pays 5x, the Boxer pays 4.5x, the Robot pays 3.5x, the Goat pays 3x, and the rest pay from 2x to 1.5x, all per total bet for getting 5 of each kind. Sadly though, this is an extremely low paytable, comparable to many other newer games, but then again, Thunderkick paytables have always preferred to stay on the lower end of the scale.

In the base game, a Fire Drill may be randomly activated, whereby 1 up to 5 low symbols may be turned into the Mystery symbol, and then transforming into any other symbol on the reels, except for the Scatter and Wild symbols, to create wins. Quite interesting this Fire Drill game, although it doesn't happen so often. In the Free Spins game, each appearing Fire Alarm fills the meter at the top, and collecting 3 Fire Alarm symbols advances the game to the next higher level, with 2 extra free spins added, and one additional low symbol turned into the Mystery symbol. All 5 low symbols are turned into the Mystery symbol for the final 5th Level game, and this is where all the big wins can be attained.

Getting use to seeing those low quality graphics may take a little while, but if you keep your focus on the gameplay alone, then the game would be more interesting and exciting. After many plays on this Flame Busters game, the low graphics doesn't matter at all to me now. All I want to see is getting those Free Spins and Fire Drills, as many times as possible. Hahaha.

There are only 2 things that I'm not satisfied with this Flame Busters game - the 8-bit graphics and the extremely low paytable. Most payouts in the base game are just too small to create any interest, and things only get hot when the Free Spins games start coming on and off, including those Fire Drills too. A very entertaining game, although the payouts are much to be desired, but I still find myself playing it over and over again. There must be something in that Roasty McFry that I still don't know of, hahaha.