Sticky Bees (Pragmatic Play) Slot Review

Sticky Bees: Slot Overview

We’re sure everyone of you has crushed a fly before. And don’t you find it annoying when they stick to your window? Now the window has a stain and looks ugly, now there’s no way around cleaning it, simply tidious. Alright, this is probably not what Pragmatic Play wanted to say with the title of this game we’re reviewing, but you’ll need to get a bit creative. Anyways, let’s take a deep look at Sticky Bees.

Playing Board

In Sticky Bee you will play on 7 reels with 7 rows, which means that 49 symbols will be on the grid at any time. The game makes use of the Cluster Pay mechanic. If you are unfamiliar with this mechanic, this basically means that at least 5 of the same symbols horizontally or vertically adjacent to another will form a win. Additionally, Sticky Bees uses Tumble Wins. This mechanic allows winning symbols, that were part of a winning combination, to be removed and new ones to drop in. Bet sizes range from 0.20€ to 100€ (or equivalent), though this may varies depending on where you play.

Winning Symbols

Sticky Bees features 10 more or less unique winning symbols, of which 4 are low-tier, 3 mid-tier and 3 high paying symbols. One thing upfront: Every symbol has its maximum payout with a cluster of 20. Getting any more than 20 symbols in one cluster will not increase the payout further.

With that being said, let’s take a look at the low-tier symbols. These will be occupied by Royals, which are classic winning symbols from J to A. And we can run through these rather quickly. J’s and Q’s will clock in at 12.5 times your bet size for a full cluster. Next up are already K’s and A’s, which will net you 17.5 times your bet size. This concludes our low-tier symbols.

Next we have the mid-tier symbols. Both mid- and high-tier symbols are shown by fruits. So as the lowest mid paying symbol we will find the cherries, which will pay you 22.5 times your bet size per full cluster. These are followed by the grapes for 30 times your bet size. And the last mid-tier symbol will be the orange, coming in at 40 times your bet size for a full cluster.

Last but not least we have our 3 high paying symbols. First is the melon, which pays 62.5 times your bet size per full cluster. Coming in next is the plum for 87.5 times your bet size. And as the top symbol you will find the strawberry, which will pay you a whopping 125 times your bet size for a full cluster. Not too shabby.

Sticky Bees: Special Symbols and Stats

Sticky Bees will feature a few special symbols that will help you to win big. Here’s a detailed list of all of them. Be sure to keep an eye out.

Scatter Symbol

The scatter symbol will be shown by a purple rectangle with lots of flowers on it as well as the label „BONUS“. Landing 4 or more scatter symbols in the same spin will allow you to enter the free spins feature. This counts in the initial drop as well as in tumbles. What exactly the free spin feature is will be covered later on in the Feature Overview section of our online slot review.

Wild Symbol

The wild symbol will help you a lot on your goal of winning big. This one is portrayed by a bee hive covered with honey, some flowers and the letter „W“. Wild symbols will substitute for any winning symbol except scatter symbols. These can appear naturally on any spin and any reel.

Super Wild Symbol

Bees are not only important in our daily lives, they are also important in Sticky Bees. Because the super wild symbol is actually a golden bee. But what makes the super wild symbol that special? First of all, it acts like a normal wild symbol, which means that it will substitute for other winning symbols. And just like its normal counterpart, it can appear on any spin on any reel. But the super wild symbol is directly tied to another feature we will explain in detail later on.

Stats

The base RTP of Stick Bees is set to 96.06%, barely on the edge of the average. The maximum win you can achieve in this game is capped at 10,000 times your base bet size. However, the chances of hitting the max win are rather small. On average a max win will occur every 10,869,565 spins. You don’t need to be a professor in maths to know that these are rather low chances. But this makes sense, since the game has received the highest possible volatility rating of 5 out 5 by Pragmatic Play. Speaking of low chances, your chances of getting free spins are 1 in 302.75 on average. But getting a win doesn’t seem that hard, as it will occur round about once every 4 spins.

Sticky Bees: Feature Overview

Sticky Bees comes with a variety of different features. Let’s delve right into it and see what they are all about.

Marked Positions

You might notice that on every spin, some positions will be marked with transparent bee hives. These marked positions are very important. Every spin there will 12 to 19 marked positions, which will be inactive in the beginning. In order to activate them you will need to land super wild symbols on them. In the base game, if a super wild symbol lands on one of the marked positions, through the inital drop or a tumble, it will send out 2 to 6 super wild symbols to other marked positions as well. These marked positions will then be activated, turning into regular wild symbols until the end of the current spin. Any symbol that lands on activated marked positions will automatically be transformed into a wild symbol. The marked positions will disappear when no more tumble is possible.

Free Spins Feature

Like we mentioned earlier, landing 4 or more scatter symbols in the same spin will allow you to enter the free spins feature. You will be granted 7 free spins, with 1 additional free spin for each scatter after the fourth. The principle of the feature game is pretty similar to the base game, but there is one very important difference. The layout of the marked positions is set for the whole feature. On every spin, 1 to 3 super wild symbols will fly onto the grid, guaranteed to hit marked positions. These marked positions will then be activated and stay like that for the rest of the feature. But be aware, super wild symbols can also fly to already activated marked positions, they are not guaranteed to hit unactivated ones.

Retriggering is possible, hit 3 or more scatter symbols in the same spin to get 1 additional free spin. While this might not sound like a lot, it can be a lot, depending on your marked positions. The feature will end once you have no free spins left or hit the max win of 10,000 times your bet size.

Bonus Buy Option

Sticky Bees will also feature a bonus buy option. If you are impatient you can pay a fee of 100 times your bet size to directly hop into the free spins feature. This is a welcome sight, given that it takes around 300 spins on average to trigger a bonus. But the thing that makes this a bit unusual, is the fact, that the bonus buy options comes with a lower RTP of 95.99%. Usually it is the other way around, with bonus buy options having a slightly higher RTP.

Sticky Bees: Conclusion

Sticky Bees is a game that we really enjoyed testing and playing. Something like grid games aren’t really new, but Pragmatic Play showed that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel to make a good game. Besides, the track record of Pragmatic Play’s popular grid games speaks for itself. Just take a look at games like Fruit Party 1 and 2, Sugar Rush or Rabbit Garden. And that were just a few.

Considering this, Pragmatic Play found a good balance between people who enjoy grid games like Fruit Party, but also enjoy features that you don’t see that often in these types of games. For example the sticky wilds mechanic,which you will rarely find in this environment.

All in all, Pragmatic Play delivered a very well-made slot with Sticky Bees. Great design, lovely mechanics, lots of fun, big win potential, what else could you want more from an online slot game?