Sugar Gates 1K

Sugar Gates 1K Review

With the release of Sugar Gates 1K, Colorful Play has delivered a slot game that takes the best from Pragmatic Play's Gates Of Olympus and combines it with the best from Sugar Rush, hence the title. You’ve probably never seen Ancient Greece depicted this way before, as this cheeky provider has turned the stoic temples into sugar-glazed monuments for the occasion.

Sugar Gates 1K plays out on a 6x5 grid with a Cluster Pays win system, meaning you win when matching symbols form a cluster anywhere on the grid. The clusters connect vertically and/or horizontally, and 5 to 10+ matching symbols can form a winning cluster. The symbols, consisting of a lightning rod, a vase, grapes, a wreath, and 3 different candy items, pay 0.1x to 0.5x your stake for 5 matching symbols in a cluster. Landing 10+ matching symbols in a cluster awards 0.6x to 5x your stake. The bet levels range from €0.1 to €75 per spin.

Sugar Gates 1K Slot - Reels Screen

Winning symbols are removed and replaced thanks to the tumble mechanic, and they also highlight the winning positions. New wins add x2 multipliers to marked positions in the same base game round, and these position multipliers double per subsequent win after that. In addition, you can land multiplier symbols of up to x100, and these are added together to boost your total win from the round. Sugar bomb symbols blast away adjacent symbols in a 3x3 radius, doubling any affected position multipliers.

The position multipliers never reset in either of the 3 bonus round tiers, meaning they keep doubling up to the maximum of x1,024 if you land enough wins. In the super and hidden bonus rounds, the multiplier symbols are added to the global win multiplier, boosting all wins when multiplier symbols are present. The hidden bonus round also guarantees 2 sugar bomb symbols per spin. Sugar Gates 1K is a high volatility slot game featuring an RTP of 96.11% and a max win of 50,000x your stake.

Sugar Gates 1K Features

Before we lay out all the features for you in more detail, we would like to take this opportunity to remind you that the Sugar Gates 1K free play demo is available at the top of this page. Let’s get started!

Tumbling Feature

The Tumble mechanic kicks in after any win, removing all winning symbols from the grid. The empty positions are then filled with new symbols dropping down after the remaining symbols have dropped to their lowest possible position first. This process repeats as long as you keep forming new cluster wins, allowing for indefinite winning streaks in all stages of the game.

Multiplier Symbol

You can land Multiplier symbols randomly on any spin and on any reel in both the base game and in the bonus round. Each multiplier symbol lands with a random value of x2, x3, x4, x5, x6, x8, x10, x12, x15, x20, x25, x50, or x100, and multiplier symbols accumulate during tumbling sequences. All multiplier symbols are added together to boost your total win when the tumble sequence ends.

Board Multipliers

Winning symbols mark their position before being removed via the tumble mechanic, and marked positions are upgraded with an x2 multiplier if another winning symbol is removed from them. Each subsequent winning symbol being removed doubles the position multiplier up to a maximum of x1,024. Position multipliers are added together if more than one is part of the same winning cluster, boosting the win accordingly.

Sugar Bomb

If present, Sugar Bomb symbols explode at the end of tumbling sequences, removing all symbols in a 3x3 radius. However, scatter and multiplier symbols are not affected by the explosion. All positions affected by the explosion have their position multipliers doubled.

Regular, Super, & Hidden Bonus Rounds

The regular Bonus Round triggers when you land 4 scatter symbols in view on the same spin or in the same tumble sequence, awarding 12 free spins. The Super Bonus Round triggers from 3 regular scatters and 1 super scatter, awarding 12 super free spins. The Hidden Bonus Round triggers from 2 regular scatters and 2 super scatters, awarding 12 hidden bonus free spins. What all 3 bonus rounds have in common is that the doubling multiplier positions never reset for the duration of the features.

In both the super and hidden bonus rounds, the multiplier values from multiplier symbols are added to a global win multiplier. The global win multiplier boosts all wins throughout the round, but only if at least one new multiplier symbol is present. In the hidden bonus round, you are guaranteed 2 sugar bomb symbols per free spin. This means that a symbol-removing explosion will trigger at the end of each round.

Sugar Gates 1K Slot - Free Spins

Feature & Bonus Buy (not UK)

The bonus buy menu is found via the ‘Bonus’ button down to the left, and it comes with the following options for eligible players:

• Extra Chance - Pay 3x your stake to boost your chances of triggering the bonus round by 5x.
• Sweet Spin - Pay 100x your stake to fill every position with random multipliers ranging from x2 to x1,024 before the round begins.
• Candy Spin - Pay 1,000x your stake to fill every position with random multipliers ranging from x8 to x1,024 before the round begins.
• Bonus Round - Pay 100x your stake to trigger the standard bonus feature instantly.
• Super Bonus Round - Pay 500x your stake to trigger the super bonus feature instantly.
• Random Bonus Round - Pay 500x your stake for a 57% chance of triggering the regular bonus round, a 38% chance of triggering the super bonus round, and a 5% chance of activating the hidden bonus round.

Theme & Graphics

Sugar Gates 1K combines two usually incongruent tropes, taking you to a version of Ancient Greece that looks like it’s been thoroughly dipped in syrupy glaze. Marble temples still dominate the backdrop, though, but the gods seem to have been generous with the candy for the occasion. Even Zeus himself is enjoying a lollipop, hiding with his long, white beard behind the game logo. The symbols reflect the strange mashup too, featuring a mix of candy items and more typical Greek iconography. The soundtrack is a funky, lighthearted tune, setting the tone for this somewhat bizarre experience.

Sugar Gates 1K Free Play

If you have come this far, we would like to remind you that the free Sugar Gates 1K demo is available at the top of this page. You can head up there to sample all the features for yourself after reading our verdict of the game below. It’s your chance to see this strange creation in action and test all the features via the bonus and feature buy menu. You can purchase the different bonus rounds as many times as you want too, although the hidden bonus round is only available via the random bonus purchase if you’re lucky enough to trigger it.

Pros and Cons of Sugar Gates 1K

Our Verdict

There is no denying what Colorful Play has done here, and they are wisely not even trying to hide it themselves. It would be obvious anyway, so they might as well lean into it and be unapologetically in your face about it. Throwing two of Pragmatic Play’s biggest crown jewels into the blender to see what the mashup looks like takes balls, not least with such incongruent themes. Colorful Play lives up to their company name with this release, that is for sure.

When Zeus himself is standing guard with a giant swirl lollipop tucked into his beard, you know you’re not meant to take things too seriously. However, the ‘1K’ part of the title feels unnecessary and somewhat misleading, as the multiplier symbols in Sugar Gates 1K top out at x100 and not x1,000. This is how Colorful Play has decided to play it with this release, as they needed to balance the math model somehow. An understandable downgrade, given all the multiplier action you get.

While we’ve seen plenty of copycat releases in the wake of Pragmatic’s two smash hits, this is the first time we’ve seen the two popular multiplier mechanics combine forces in the same game. This is, of course, the great hook of Sugar Gates 1K and the reason it just might attract some attention from fans of the originals. Don’t expect to see too much combined multiplier action in the base game, though, as this game reserves most of its firepower for the bonus rounds. At least that was my experience, but you are free to make your own.

The bonus round is all about building the persistent position multipliers while also benefiting from multiplier symbols. Things can definitely heat up when the multiplier symbols build the persistent global win multiplier in the super and hidden bonus rounds, but you still need multiplier symbols in view to benefit from it. The hidden bonus round doesn’t come along very often, but when it does, you’ll get plenty of help from the 2 guaranteed sugar bomb symbols. Overall, Sugar Gates 1K is a cheeky charm bomb and a creative copycat release done right, boasting a solid 50,000x max win to further sweeten the deal.