In Bloom Pokie
Anyone who likes horticulture will love the appearance of In Bloom, which is a classic 5-reel pokie from IGT that’s decorated with flowers of all shapes, sizes and colours. It isn’t just the looks that should appeal however, as it comes complete with a few extra treats including free spins and a unique way that flowers blossom into extra symbols to boost any winning combinations.
Laid out in a traditional format, with symbols across 3 rows, there’s 40 lines running left to right across the game, although players will need at least 0.50 to start spinning the reels, which is an indication of how rewarding the features can be. With just 1 coin per line, the bonuses wouldn’t be possible.
Like most IGT pokies, this game has been designed with a great attention to detail and looks truly unique, with everything appearing to be translucent, as if made from stained glass. A nice scene of mountains, trees and colourful flowers sits behind the reels which are framed by a simple carved wood effect surround, and the decorative control buttons are where they belong, underneath the main game.
Playing In Bloom
Although the flowers give this game its distinct style, many of the wins will be created by the playing card symbols 9, 10, J, Q, K and A, all of which are designed to blend in with the theme. Landing 4 or 5 of any matching playing card icons will win 2x or 15x the line bet respectively, which is a departure from standard practice where pokies usually pay out for lines of just 3 of a kind.
Bigger wins come from the flowers and we see a water lily, calla lily, rose and poppy. Landing these is where In Bloom gets really interesting, as any time a flower creates a winning combination a Symbol Burst feature will come into effect. Standard flower symbols consist of a single bloom, but each flower in the winning line can transform into 2, 3, 4 or 5 blooms per position, which can potentially lead to the equivalent of 15 symbols.
The details of how each flower can bloom on different reels is carried in the paytable, but essentially 1 or 2 flowers can be on any reel, 3 flowers can be on reels 2, 3 and 4 only, while symbols of 4 or 5 flowers will only be on the middle reel. The end result is that the poppy, for example can pay anything from 10 coins, when just 3 appear on a line, right up to 1000 coins if the best case bloom occurs.
In Bloom
Unable to connect to MySQL: SQLSTATE[HY000] [2002] No such file or directory
Bonus Features
This isn’t the only bonus feature however, as In Bloom has more to come, asa garden ornament with a butterfly on it pays 60x the bet amount when it fills the middle reel. If only 1 bonus symbol stops on the reel, the butterfly may land on it and trigger the payout. Like much of this game, there are some unusual aspects to the free spins, as players will need to pick a flower garden before they commence.
The number of spins varies depending on which garden they choose, but as their selected flower will be the only one to appear on the reels during the spins, the potential payouts are also varied. The water lily will appear during 12 free spins, but as it’s the least valuable flower, any prizes won’t be as big, while the calla lily sees 10 free games play out, the rose round consists of 8 spins, and the high-value poppy will turn up in just 5 free games.
But that’s still not all, as once the free spins have finished, assuming something has been won during them, the Bonus Bump is activated. This takes players to a picture of a flower garden, where different flowers and butterflies are highlighted. All that’s needed is for one of them to be selected and a multiplier of between 1x and 50x will be applied to any prizes collected in the free games.
The Verdict
Few pokies have such distinctive and potentially rewarding features as In Bloom. From the winning symbols growing into lines of up to 15, to the way in which players can pick their own flowers for a free spins game, to the multiplier at the end, this is one of those rare games that pretty much has it all.
The only thing missing is a wild symbol, but when there’s so much else going on, few players are going to get upset by this.
In Bloom not only plays well, it also looks great and unless someone really doesn’t like flowers for some reason, or has a severe allergy to them, it’s a game that comes highly recommended.