Solstice Celebration Slots
It’s time to celebrate summer and make the most of it while we can. What better way than to play a summer-themed slot game, collecting winnings as you sit outside and soak up the warm rays – or perhaps while staying in to dodge the inevitable rain showers? The bright colors of the season are seen across five reels which are crossed by 30 paylines. Behind these reels, we can see a flower-filled meadow with mountains in the distance, turning this into a very attractive slot machine. Some of the symbols are a bit random, such as a horse with flowers in its mane and a diamond – but we won’t complain because it is so pleasing to look at.
In terms of gameplay, here are some great features and unique treats waiting for you in this slot. Stacked Action Symbols can be seen on each spin, with blank spaces all filled with the same type of symbol at once. There’s also a Sparkle feature which nudges reels until you see all three rows on a reel filled with the same image. Offering up to 40 free spins, during which you can see extra wilds on the reels, this is a slot that has the potential to return some great rewards.
This is the creation of Konami, the casino games developer who is an established major player in the Japanese gaming market. Konami’s slots are available around the world, so you won’t have to go far to play them. Plus, each game is presented in a mobile-optimized format. So if it’s sunny outside, why not play Solstice Celebration in the garden, perhaps with a lovely cool beer beside you?
Sunny Days
Land matching symbols across any payline from left to right to claim a prize. The brightly colored high card symbols 9, 10, J, Q, K and A pay out the lower-value wins, with up to 100x the reel stake awarded. There are prizes of 15x, 50x, or 150x the amount staked per reel when you land either the sunflower or butterfly on three, four, or five reels at a time. Any of these symbols can be stacked high on a reel, with a gold trellis surrounding each stack to highlight them. These Action Stacked Symbols will help you land extra prizes, although this is not guaranteed. In practice, we found that they didn’t really help very often.
The hippie horse is worth up to 200x, while the diamond pays up to 250x the line bet. Solstice Celebration comes with wild and scatter symbols, either of which is only needed on reels one and two from the left to be worth a small prize. A woman in a bright yellow dress, with the sun shining behind her, is the scatter symbol. The top prize for landing this ethereal figure across all five reels is 50x the total stake. The cartoon sun is a wild symbol which is worth up to 500x the line bet. This cheerful heavenly body is able to act as others, apart from the scatter, to complete extra winning lines for you.
The Heat of the Action
If Action Stacked Symbols are seen on any two or more reels at once, the special Sparkle feature is triggered. The reels are automatically nudged up or down, if so needed, to have all three positions on each affected reel filled with the same, randomly chosen stacked symbol. The selected symbols are then stretched to fill the reel and any new winning combinations are calculated. It’s a quick in-game feature which can work really well if more examples of the stretched symbol are already on any of the other reels.
As well as paying you multiples of the total stake rather than just the line bet, the scatter symbol also triggers a free spins feature when it’s seen on two and up to all five reels. The number of spins awarded depends on how many scatters landed, so you could get 10, 15, 20 or even 40 bonus games playing out. Whatever the amount of spins won, there’s a good chance of the wild symbol completing combinations throughout them. This is so because any time the wild turns up, the reel will be nudged until the symbol is seen in all positions. You can still be awarded the Sparkle feature during the free games, and the whole round can be retriggered if the scatter icon is seen in enough places.
Play for Free or With Real Money
You also have the chance to get some practice in when you play the free Solstice Celebration video slots mode. But if you want to brighten your day with winnings, play with real cash instead. Although it’s a 30-payline slot game, because the features can be so rewarding you’ll actually need to wager at least 0.45 per spin. By increasing the coin values to the maximum of 0.50 and playing with 10 coins on each payline, the stakes can be raised to the high limit of 225.00.
The autoplay button gives you the option to spin the reels without any input needed for between 10 and 500 times. However, there’s no way to preset win or loss limits – which is a pity as it means you will still have to keep an eye on the bankroll as these games play out. A turbo button speeds thing up a bit to hopefully bring in those winnings even faster.
Other Sunny Slots
While the Solstice Celebration slot appears to be unique in its treatment of the solstice event, the Summer Queen game from Novomatic shares a similar summertime theme. It’s a five-reel, 25-line game that’s filled with the bright colors that we associate with the season, giving you a warm glow as animal and high card symbols line up in winning combinations. The Summer Queen herself is a wild symbol, and her crystal ball will predict 10 free spins coming your way whenever it lands in three or more places.
The Summer Smileys video slot from Mobilots is a fun way to enjoy the heat. The symbols are largely made up of cartoon suns looking a lot like yellow emojis, a surfboard wild symbol, and waves which will leave you awash with free spins. A cocktail glass launches a bonus game that lets you drink in instant real cash awards, although there are plenty more winning opportunities created by the main symbols landing across any of the 30 paylines in this five-reel game.
Enjoy the Sunshine
The summer solstice falls on June 21st, but fortunately we can enjoy this slot machine at any time of the year. Even in the middle of winter, a few spins could be enough to remind you of balmier times to come. Plus, with so many opportunities to collect prizes, this is a game that should certainly give you a warm feeling. Playable on desktop computers, Android and Windows devices as well as on iPhones and iPad tablets, the Solstice Celebration video slot is fun, fair and comes with a high return to player percentage of 96.03%. Check it out and celebrate today.
