Royal Drop

Royal Drop (InOut Games) Game Review

InOut Games has come up with a whimsical mix of medieval castle siege, royal chickens, and arcade-style block-busting in Royal Drop, an other-type game that actually includes regular slot reels as part of the unique rocket bombarding mechanic. The slapstick soundtrack underscores the lighthearted atmosphere of this game, which offers bet levels ranging from £0.12 to £10,000 per round. Other than that, few stats are disclosed, so let’s now focus on the features and how to play.

Royal Drop plays out in 2 stages per round. First, you spin the 5x3 reels at the top of the screen, and this may land blue, green, purple, and red rocket symbols. Each rocket has a number of up to 5 assigned, indicating how many instances it represents. After the reels stop, the rockets start to bombard the 5x7 grid below the reels. This grid is made up of crates of increasing strength the further down you go, and each crate the rockets destroy awards a cash prize (or no prize) randomly.

Royal Drop - Game Screen

Although each spin is unique, overall, the crate grid usually lands with a top row of the least durable wooden crates. Below that follow sturdy wooden crates and reinforced wooden crates, before you get to the metal crates, stone crates, and royal crates towards the bottom of the grid. The harder a crate is to destroy, the higher its potential prize, and keep in mind that rockets can destroy multiple crates depending on their own strength and that of the crates. A magic wand symbol may upgrade at least one rocket to 5 instances.

At the very bottom row, below the crates, you’ll find locked treasure chests. If you manage to destroy all the crates in a column, the treasure chest below is opened to award a multiplier that boosts your total win. Possible chest multipliers are x2, x3, x4, x5, x10, x25, x50, and x100, and multipliers are added together if you manage to open multiple chests in the same round. The crate destruction does not reset between free spins in the bonus round, increasing your chances of cracking the Royal Drop max win of 1,000x your stake.

Royal Drop Features

We have already provided an overview of how this game works and its core features, and the time has come to go into more detail. Before we present everything with total clarity, however, we would like to encourage you to test the Royal Drop free play demo after you’re done reading about the game. It’s located at the top of this page. Let’s get started!

Magic Wand Rocket Upgrade

The rocket symbols land with numbers indicating how many rockets will blast off from each position to destroy the crates. However, before that happens, random rockets may be selected and have their number upgraded to the maximum of 5. This only happens if at least one Magic Wand symbol is present, but there is no guarantee you’ll get an upgrade even if the Magic Wand lands.

Free Spins Bonus Round

Royal Drop - Free Spins Win Screen

Landing 3 chicken scatter symbols anywhere in view on the same spin triggers the Bonus Round, awarding 4 free spins. The Bonus Round plays out similarly to the base game, but with the important difference that the crate grid is not restored for each new spin. Instead, the destruction of each free spin is carried over to the next, increasing your chances of reaching the bottom multiplier chests. It should also be noted that crate destruction from the triggering spin is carried over into the bonus round.

Bonus Buy (not UK)

Eligible players will find the Buy Bonus menu on the left, and it opens when you hit that big yellow shopping cart button. It comes with an Extra Bet option, allowing you to pay 3x your stake to increase your bonus round chances by 5 times. Alternatively, you can purchase the bonus round directly for 100x your stake. This awards a triggering spin guaranteed to land 3 scatters. The Extra Bet volatility is marked as 3 out of 5, while the Buy Bonus volatility is marked as 5 out of 5.

Theme & Graphics

Set inside a grand, open-air stone citadel, Royal Drop frames its action against a blurred medieval backdrop. Sunlight streams through high-arched stone pillars that reveal distant castles under a mostly blue sky, flanked by purple banners bearing gold crown insignia and flickering wall torches. Barrels, treasure chests, and shields stand around on the stone floor, together with the wide-eyed regal chicken wearing its gold crown and jumping up and down for no apparent reason. The reels and the crate grid take center stage, with the locked multiplier chests neatly lined up at the bottom.

Royal Drop Free Play

We strongly recommend that you test the free Royal Drop demo before playing this game for real money. It’s an unusual game compared to regular slots, even though a slot grid is included. You don’t win anything directly from the slot grid, as wins come only from the rockets you land destroying the crates below. This unusual mechanic takes some time to get used to, and we also recommend that you purchase the bonus round multiple times to get a sense of what to expect. Once you’re happy with your Royal Drop free play session, casinos carrying this title await below the demo game.

Pros and Cons of Royal Drop

Our Verdict

InOut Games has delivered something undeniably unique with Royal Drop, mixing the familiarity of spinning reels with the more novel rocket-destroying-crates mechanic. The medieval setting and theme are a tad incongruent, perhaps, but it doesn’t really matter once you settle into the gameplay. The royal chicken character is also somewhat of a strange protagonist choice, and although it adds some whimsical personality to the game, it’s a bit of a one-trick pony. All it does is jump up and down no matter what happens, but at least there is no chicken noise.

That being said, the game mascot looks ‘too cool for school’ when upgraded with sunglasses in the bonus round, especially since the feature plays out at night. Royal Drop breaks free from the mold of traditional paylines and allows symbols to come alive and do real damage to the crates below. It’s satisfying to watch the rockets chew through wooden, metallic, and stone barriers, and it’s undeniably fun seeing how deep you manage to go each round.

In my experience, you seldom reach the bottom multiplier chest layer in the base game, though, and I hardly managed this at all outside of the bonus round. The upper half of the crates isn't worth all that much, and you’ll mostly see smaller wins as you grind along. Also, destroying a crate does not guarantee a win, as this is a random process unique for each round. Some crates pay nothing each round, and you’ll seldom see crates pay more than 1x your stake in the base game. The highest-value crate I destroyed in my test session was a bottom crate worth 25x the stake, although most in this area pay 3x to 5x the stake.

Of course, including some features could’ve amended this issue and made the base game a bit more versatile. The magic wand is decent, but not quite enough to penetrate down to the multiplier chests most of the time. Purchasing the bonus round is good fun, though, not least since the impact from the triggering spin is carried over. You can do serious damage to the crate stack here, but only to the tune of up to 1,000x your stake. The concept is definitely interesting but may require further refinement and a stronger math model to truly catch on.