Sugar Rush 1000 Slot Review

If you've played online slots in the last couple of years, you've definitely seen Pragmatic Play slapping the "1000" label on remakes of their older games. This one, released in March 2024, is exactly what it sounds like: it's the exact same candy-themed game as the 2022 original Sugar Rush, but on steroids.

The base game is identical to the first one. It's a cluster-pays grid where winning symbols explode and new ones tumble down. The fun really starts when you get back-to-back wins in the same spot. The first explosion marks a square, the second adds a x2 multiplier, and every win after that doubles it.

The big difference here is the cap. While the original stopped at x128, this version lets those multipliers double all the way up to x1024. If your winning cluster covers several multipliers, they add together.

I decided to test out the feature buys. I started with the standard free spins, which cost 100x my bet. During the bonus, the multiplier spots don't reset between spins, which is where the game's potential really lies.

Playing this bonus can be a nail-biter. The multipliers take time to build, meaning the feature usually relies almost entirely on your last couple of spins. For most of my round, the board was pretty dead and paying very little. Fortunately, on my final drop, a cluster landed on spots that had built up to x36 and x24, turning what looked like a bust into a slight profit.

I also took a deep breath and tried the new Super Free Spins buy, which costs a hefty 500x your bet. The only difference here is that every single square on the grid starts with a x2 multiplier. I actually had a great run on this one, walking away with about 2.8x what I paid for the feature. The pre-loaded grid helps a lot, but in my round it was the re-trigger and its extra spins that pushed those multipliers to the limit. I got lucky with an early re-trigger, which allowed a few of my spots to hit that massive x1024 cap.

To be completely fair, the game can be incredibly unbalanced and a bit frustrating. Because the game builds the multipliers on the spots rather than the symbols, you are completely at the mercy of whatever candy happens to land there.

For example, I had a massive x728 combined multiplier that landed under five cheap gummy bears, it paid out 145x. Later, a much smaller x288 multiplier landed under nine high-paying stars and paid out 360x. Seeing a massive multiplier on the board is exciting, but it doesn't guarantee a huge payout if it lands on the cheapest symbols.

Pragmatic Play has got a lot of mileage out of this mechanic. They've made seasonal clones like Sugar Rush Xmas, pushed the max win to 50,000x in Sugar Rush Super Scatter, and Microgaming's Whale Rush runs almost the same doubling spots and buys with a 10,000x cap.

So what does Sugar Rush 1000 add over the original? The max win is bumped from 5,000x to a massive 25,000x, and the RTP gets a tiny bump to 96.53%. The upgrade is entirely about giving those multipliers room to run. It is still a high-volatility game, though, and it pays properly only when those multipliers line up under the right symbols.