The latest episode of Beyond the Reels witnessed CasinoBeats’ Danny Lee speak with Hubert Spala, Game Producer and Head of Studio at AvatarUX, to run through HelioPOPolis, the studio’s latest PopWins slot title.

HelioPOPolis places a futuristic spin on an Egyptian theme, utilising AvatarUX’s proprietary reel-expanding slot mechanic PopWins on a 5×3 reel slot with 32,768 ways to win and a maximum win of up to x20,000 the player’s stake. 

As PopWins allows for base game play to feel almost like a bonus feature due to its reel-splitting qualities, Spala explained that “the base game should be exciting”. 

“After all, this is where most players are testing the water with all the games, checking out how it feels, and PopWins is the perfect mechanic for it because it enhances the most important aspect of the game, which is the winning. 

“In other games that don’t have the PopWins mechanic, winning is the peak. You hit the win and it’s done. With PopWins, each win can explode into another win and another win and so we’re prolonging this high as much as possible.”

Moving on to the game’s bonus features, the company’s Head of Studio declared that: HelioPOPolis is “pretty rich”, noting that there are “quite a few features going on in there”.

“The major thing is that we divide them [the free spins game modes] into two sets of features that are being chosen by the player whenever they enter the bonus, either through the base game or the buy bonus. 

“The key features are the synced reels, matched with the big symbols, and the classic wilds with expanding wilds.

“On top of that, in both game modes, we have mystery symbols to either further spice up the games and together they make for exciting mixes of things that can happen during the bonus game that make the winning and hunting for symbols much more exciting.”

When questioned on a growing desire for buy bonuses in the slot industry, Spala noted that: “A lot of players want to win organically, but there’s also a lot of players who want to get right in the business and just get to the very end of the chase.”

Watch the episode above to hear the full interview, in which AvatarUX’s Head of Studio goes on to explain the inspiration behind the futuristic Egyptian theme and upcoming plans for AvatarUX and the PopWins mechanic.