Fireworks Megaways

Theme and Design

A Peaceful Setting About To Explode Into Life With Fireworks and Epic Wins

At odds with its epic game engine and headline-grabbing potential, BTG chose to set Fireworks in a quiet suburban garden at dusk, the scene of some kind of low-key party, with bar-b-q, balloons, stereo and festoon lights. It’s all very pleasant, with spring flowers lining a kempt lawn in the background and the reels set in a kind of lattice framework with climbing plants and pink roses around it. It’s all eerily quiet in fact … until, that is, you turn up the sound and get hit with a powerful blast of Euro-dance music, a reminder that BTG mean business and they are never here just to make up the numbers. Visually, it’s not too dissimilar to the design style of Pop from the same developer. In terms of audio, I found it hard to stick with that, but there’s always the mute button!

RTP and Variance

Fireworks Megaways has two available RTP settings – 96.44% and 94.26%. You should always try to find a casino that runs slots like this at the optimum level to give yourself the best odds of winning. To find out which RTP level you are playing at, just hit the ‘I’ button in the top left of the screen then scroll down until you see Return to Player displayed.

I recommend playing at MrQ from Lindar Media which consistently run slots at the optimum RTP. Other sites that usually, but not always have high RTP settings are Casumo, and Barz Casino.

It comes as no surprise of course that this is a very high variance slot with wild volatility and a huge max payout. This is BTG after all, the originators of the Megaways engine. It can kick out some enormous wins when cascades, wilds, free spins and multipliers combine. But it can also be a grind at times. Unpredictable is the word.

Maximum Win

Coming in at 150,335x, Fireworks Megaways has the highest max win of any BTG slot to date, beating Max Megaways 2 by a few thousand. Of course, it is still a long way short of NLC’s infamous Tombstone RIP game (300,000x) but at the minimum 20p bet you could, theoretically, walk away with a £30,000 payout! I say theoretically because the odds for this are millions to one. Nevertheless, it is an indicator of the kind of game we have here, and the sort of prizes you might win on a lucky day.

Symbols and Paytable

Fireworks uses the classic Megaways model. That is a 6-reel grid with between 2 and 7 rows appearing per reel on each spin. The number changes according to the random reel modifier engine that powers the game. Combine that with a win ways engine that awards pay outs for identical symbols landing on adjacent reels, regardless of row positions, from left to right, and you have up to 117,649 win ways per spin (7x7x7x7x7x7).

To add to the fun, underneath reels 2, 3, 4 and 5 sits an extra row with 4 reels that spins independently and holds special symbols that can trigger bonus features explained below.

Values in the paytable are not huge on their own, but there are plenty of features to boost payouts, so don’t worry. There are 10 pay symbols in all. Six are low value, represented by the cards, 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King and Ace. Their values are from 0.05x for 3 9s up to 0.4x for 6 Aces. Premiums are the fireworks in green, blue, red and purple. These are valued at from 0.15x for 3 greens up to 10x for 6 purple rockets.

There are also Wilds which substitute in for any pay symbol to complete win ways. These only occur when a rocket from the bottom reel fires up through the row above, also explained below.

Features and Gameplay

Fireworks is not a hugely complicated slot, but what it does, it does well. Here is a run-down of the features you will find in the game.

Reactions Trigger Further Wins

At the heart of the gameplay in Fireworks is the Reaction mechanic, otherwise known as Avalanches or Cascading Wins. If you’ve played other Megaways games then you will know how it works. After each win, winning symbols are removed from the reels, remaining ones drop down to fill the spaces, and new symbols drop in from above, or the side on the bottom reel set, to fill the gaps that remain.

If this causes further wins, then the process repeats. And so on, until no more wins are formed.

Firework Wilds Go Off! 

Aside from Reaction, the other event to look out for is the Firework Wild feature. This is triggered by events on the bottom reel set. With each spin, or Reaction, you will see a fuse lit under ONE of the reels. If this reel contains a firework when the spins stop, then the firework turns into a Wild and a feature is triggered.

It will be one of the following:

• Purple Firework Bonus – if the firework that is lit is purple then it fires upwards through the reel above and turns ALL symbols on it wild
• Red Firework Bonus – if the lit firework is red then up to FOUR Wilds are randomly added anywhere on the reels
• Blue Firework Bonus – if the lit firework is blue then a random multiplier of up to 25x is activated and applied to any wins that the Wild forms a part of
• Green Firework Bonus – if the lit firework is green then ALL green fireworks on the reels turn Wild

Free Spins With Progressive Multipliers

Showtime is the free spins round, as always, built around a progressive multiplier feature. To trigger the round you need to land just TWO scatters on one spin. Sounds easy? These elusive symbols ONLY appear on reels 1 and 6, and they drop that often as I found out!

Two scatters earns you 12 spins, and you get another 4 spins for every extra scatter. So if you landed 3 scatters you would have 16 spins (12+4).

The progressive multiplier starts at 1x and grows by 1x with each Firework Wild Bonus that triggers. That makes it harder to grow than if, say, it increased with each Reaction as normally happens in Megaways. But there is help at hand because now TWO positions on the bottom reel are lit on each spin or Reaction, increasing your chances of triggering that Firework Wild Bonus.

Exchange Wins For Free Spins

And if you are getting frustrated trying to unlock those free spins, you can buy your way into the feature via an Exchange. This is only available for wins of 100x or more. You can exchange that win for 12 free spins, and the hope of achieving something better.

OR … if you win between 25x and 100x you can GAMBLE for 12 free spins. The gamble is on a wheel spin with green and red segments. If the wheel stops on green then you get 12 spins. But if it lands on red, then you lose your winning and go back to the base game. So, think carefully!