Push Gaming’s developers once again prove they are masters at crafting cluster-pay slots with Retro Tapes, a high-octane release from 2022 cram-full of special symbols and bonus features that are guaranteed to satisfy even the most demanding players. Saucy cassette tapes dance on the reels to the beat of electronic music that is delightfully contagious and will surely get your feet tapping.
As is usually the case with Push Gaming slots, Retro Tapes pays for clusters of matching symbols landing next to each other rather than using the boring old paylines. The game gives you 6 reels and 9 rows to land winning clusters on. Its high volatility renders the release a perfect choice for risk-takers with larger bankrolls. The game has a maximum win exposure of 10,000 times the total bet, while the payback percentage averages 96.47% in the long run.
| Retro Tapes Slot Summary | |
|---|---|
| Software Provider | Push Gaming |
| Payline Number | Cluster Pays |
| RTP | 94.46% – 96.47% |
| Minimum Bet | $0.10 |
| Maximum Bet | $100 |
| Wild Symbol | Wild Tape Symbol |
| Scatter Symbol | No |
| Bonus Features | Prize Multipliers, Magnet Feature, Top Charts Feature with Free Spins |
| Jackpot | 10,000x Total Bet |
Symbols and Winning Combinations of Retro Tapes Slot
The game was obviously inspired by the dance music from the 1980s both in terms of soundtrack and visual presentation. Cassette tapes of different colors comprise the set of symbols players will encounter on the massive reel grid. The six reels spin against a vibrant backdrop dominated by bold neon colors that perfectly capture the essence of what this game is all about. The 6×9 grid can accommodate as many as 54 symbols on any given spin.
In the absence of standard paylines, the only requirement to win is to score a cluster containing at least five matching cassette symbols of any kind. The larger the cluster, the bigger the payout. The developers have opted for the cascading mechanic whereby winning combinations are removed from the reels at the end of each successful spin and new icons fall into the empty grid positions. This paves the way for multiple winning combinations occurring in succession.
The payouts for the smallest winning clusters of five matches are on the low side, ranging from 0.1 to 2 times the total bet. The largest clusters comprise 20 or more identical cassette symbols. The gray and blue tapes can bring you up to 5 times your bet for twenty or more matches, followed by the green and pink cassettes that award maximum payouts of 25 times the winning wagers. Look out for the orange and red cassettes as these are the highest-value symbols in Retro Tapes. Twenty-of-a-kind with them pays 500 times and 1,000 times your base wager, respectively.
Bonus Features of Retro Tapes Slot
Retro Tapes has several special symbols and features of interest, starting with the wild cassette tape. This one is easy to spot as it contains the word ‘wild’ in the middle. The wild cassette has an initial win multiplier of 1x and can replace all other symbols except for the wild multiplier and the magnet. Whenever the wild appears as part of one or more winning clusters, the value of its multiplier increases by one unit. The wild cassette spins off the reel grid whenever a losing spin breaks the series of successive winning clusters.
A star-shaped wild multiplier symbol can appear randomly both in the main game and during free spins. It comes with several additional multipliers (1x, 2x, 3x, or 5x) and distributes their values to all wild cassettes that land on the reel grid. Afterward, the star-shaped wild multiplier turns into an Instant Prize icon. Said Instant Prize symbols award payouts ranging from 1x to 1,000x whenever they form clusters of five or more.
Next up, we have the magnet symbol that also lands randomly and pulls in all cassette symbols of the same type around its position, forming more winning clusters. The magnet symbol will then turn into the paying symbols it has attracted. These magnets can also attract Instant Win symbols but only on condition four or more of them appear in a cluster.
If you think these special symbols are all Retro Tapes has to offer, you better think again. Three or more wild cassette tapes hitting the reels simultaneously unlock the access to the Top Charts feature, which consists of free spins. The triggering wilds will stick in their places, along with the instant prize icons (if any), for the duration of your free spins.
Depending on the number of triggering symbols you initiate the feature with, you will get between 6 and 12 spins at no cost. All vacant positions on the grid will spin through to award wild tapes, wild multipliers, magnets, instant-prize icons, blank tapes, or symbols awarding additional spins.
Our Verdict
Cassette tapes are nearly extinct as a recording and playback format but this slot by Push Gaming is highly unlikely to suffer the same fate. This enticing game definitely has some staying power and will continue to enjoy enormous popularity among players for many years to come. It is bursting at the seams with bold and highly rewarding features few other slots can offer, at least not in a single package. Just make sure you arm yourself with enough patience since volatility is high in Retro Tapes and the features trigger infrequently.