Candy Land

Capecod Gaming, the game design company, founded in 1987, has produced a rather saccharine slot in Candy Land. Based on a world made of candy, or at least one with a candy-based economy, this title is surprisingly bland: it’s light on bonus features, and comes up short in visual design as well. Contrary to what children have believed for generations, a candy-based diet does indeed have some shortcomings.

Theme

Candy Land takes place in a delightful world filled with bright colors, gentle music, and sweets. Gaming symbols include flans, jelly beans, gummy bears, lemon drops, mints, and other varieties of sugary goodness. In the background, a rainbow spreads across an otherwise blue sky (a rare meteorological phenomenon), while lollipops grow in the landscape like trees, large dwellings resemble delicious baked goods and an all-day-sucker-airship float across the background. There is no scatter symbol to be had, but the candy cane symbol acts as expanding wild. All this sweetness does not make for attractive graphic design, however: gameplay looks like an endless parade of ill-defined pastel shapes. The soundtrack is calm and collected, reflecting none of the high sugar content one might expect.

Betting Options, Functions and Features

While other elements successfully bring the famous kid’s board game to mind, the betting structure is purely business and is kept simple. There are ten adjustable paylines, with bet per line ranging from 0.01 to 1.00 times the betting currency. This leads to a modest overall betting range of 0.01 to 10.00 times the betting currency per spin. Autospins are available for up to 100 turns of the reels, and the overall theoretical return to player is a well-above-average 96.80%.

Candy Land lacks both free spins and bonus features of other kinds, but there is a notable wild symbol. When the candy cane symbol appears, it immediately expands to fill the entire reel on which it appears. Shortly after that, the other four reels will spin again, with the wild reel staying in place. Should another candy cane wild appear, this process will repeat, with very tasty results for players.

Though it may provide little consolation within gameplay, there are three separate jackpots available: silver, gold, and platinum. These can be won on any spin. While they are far less likely to hit than free spins in most games, players can be sure that jackpot wins blow any base or bonus wins right out of the water.

Our Take

It’s always tempting to root for the underdog, and the team at small-but-fierce Capecod Gaming certainly fits this bill. However, they’ve taken a theme explored by many other developers in the past, given no great attention to visual design, neglected to add any unique bonus features or design elements, and left players with a profoundly uninteresting game. Like off-brand bags of candy, this slot may well be worth a try but is unlikely to leave players feelings satisfied for long.