: Dramatic TV shows and games with shocking plots are nothing new to our screens, yet this South-Korean Netflix series broke records everywhere. Squid Game may not be for all viewers, but BGaming’s slot interpretation of it is.
The 2021 Netflix drama, Squid Game, took the streaming world by storm and no one could anticipate the show’s success. This binge-worthy series became an instant hit for subscribers of the streaming service who clocked 1.65 billion hours of it within the first 28 days of its release. The Korean show held the first spot as the most-viewed TV series for quite some time, with a second season on its way.
Its explosive success sent tremors through the entertainment industry, inspiring Squid Game-themed game shows and now a gambling title from BGaming. YouTube’s most famous channel, Mr Beast, recreated the game show with remarkable success and other channels ride the Squid Game wave to generate millions of views.
The Netflix original opened the door for non-English entertainment as leading production companies now all look for captivating TV series from all over the globe. Taking a deeper look at ‘The K-wave’, we learn how South-Korean culture slowly entered Western markets and suddenly gained massive popularity.
Squid Game: A South-Korean Success Story
Squid Game is a dystopian South-Korean violent survival drama, and if we’re honest about the storyline – it is a brutal thriller series that will make you question your value system. Created by Hwang Dong-hyuk, the South-Korean film director, exclusively for Netflix, the title comes from a tag-type game where players draw a squid in the sand.
The story unfolds as a man who owes loan-sharks money gets an invitation to games that could rid him of his debt. A secret organisation abducts him and he wakes up in a facility with 456 others in a similar predicament. They essentially coerce these people into playing the deadly squid game with an ultimate prize worth 45.6 billion in their local currency. The players take part in children’s games with violent twists while wealthy VIPs, wearing mirrored animal masks, watch from above.
Players are at the mercy of the elusive host, and the masked Front Man runs the show with a hoard of masked workers doing the dirty work. The Front Man’s mask sets him apart from the workers as he wears a geometrical metallic one, resembling the original Guy Fawkes (think V for Vendetta) mask. Workers wear the same red uniform and black fencing masks marked with a circle, triangle, or square to show levels in the hierarchy.
With over 221 million subscribers from over 90 countries worldwide, Netflix positioned this South-Korean hit extremely well. Its popularity far exceeded everyone’s expectations. With a 2022 Actors Guild Awards nomination and three Golden Globe Awards, its impact on the entertainment industry is as sure as death and taxes.
Squidpot by BGaming
It was only a matter of time before a gaming studio released a slot inspired by the Squid Game series. From the creators of Elvis Frog in Vegas comes the Squidpot online slot and BGaming includes their best-performing mechanics into this exciting creation. Punters who aren’t fans of violence can breathe a sigh of relief as the slot game only includes colourful neon symbols from the series, minus the gore.
BGaming presents spinners with a great video slot suited for all experience levels and Squid Game fans can continue their fandom with some wagers. It has a classic layout and the medium to high volatility means more frequent payouts to keep players engaged. Place your bet, click spin, and watch how the neon symbols roll on to bring your part of €250,000.
✓ Let the Games Begin
A concrete wall backdrop mimics the bone-chilling theme of the inspiration behind Squidpot, as do hollow ambient sounds likened to crowd’s chattering in a concrete room. BGaming takes the sombre theme and livens it up with a neon-coloured frame around the grid and vibrant colours in the symbols. The five-reels, three-rows game has symbols inspired by the TV show and when you click on spin, techno music starts playing.
Play on all 25 fixed winning lines by placing your wager between €0.10 and €125 while praying to the slot gods for odds to be in your favour. Punters in some regions will be able to skip the base game and go right to the bonus. This comes at a premium though, so be sure to consider your budget before clicking on ‘Buy’. Spin for your chance in the lucrative bonus features with up to 100x multiplier, free spins, and three jackpots.
Above the reels are three jackpots that display prizes at multiples of the current bet. The Mini Jackpot is worth 30x, the Major 100x, and the Mega Jackpot can bring in 1,000x your bet. These prizes are possible during the Coin Respin feature, and all three can appear in one feature.
✓ Games with Masks and Shapes
Instead of traditional royals showing up on the reels, the developers used symbols from one of the games in the show. The four low-paying symbols are a triangle, circle, umbrella, and star. Fans will recognise these from the honeycomb event. Do not worry, as you don’t need to carve a shape out of the honeycomb this time round. These reward players anything from €5 to €50 for 3 to 5 of a kind.
Three VIP masks are mid-paying symbols and BGaming made colourful metallic versions of them. The green lion mask rewards €10 for 3 of a kind and €200 for 5 of a kind landing on one payline. An ocean-blue eagle mask pays €15 for 3 on a payline and up to €300 for 5 of a kind. The gilded lion mask pays anything from €20 for 3 of a kind up to €400 for 5 of a kind.
For the highest reward in the base game, punters must have 5 of a kind of the giant doll from Red-light Green-light or the Front Man’s mask – which is also the Wild. These two premium symbols reward up to €500 and a minimum of €25 for 3 of a kind. The Wild symbol may substitute all symbols except for the Scatters, represented by worker masks.
The base game has two non-paying symbols. Worker masks with the three different symbols on them are the bonus Scatter symbols which trigger Free Spins if enough appear on the reels in one spin. There is also the coin symbol that holds the key to the bonus Coin Respin game. These cartoons display different emotions on their faces and in the bonus game, it becomes clear why.
✓ Squidpot Bonus Features
If you find yourself in a jurisdiction where the Bonus Buy is available, you can skip right to the exciting special features at a cost. Buy Free Spins at a premium of 52 times your stake or pick the Coin Respin at 39.6 times your current bet. All bonus games continue at the bet level, which triggered the feature.
With three Scatter symbols appearing simultaneously on reels 2, 3, and 4, the Free Spins feature kicks off where Blazing Reels come out to play. Before the 8 Free Spins ensue, the three centre reels merge to create one gigantic symbol and so much more potential for big wins. What makes this giant 3x3 symbol more attractive is the payout equal to 9 symbols in the same space. If a mask Scatter lands in the Blazing Reels centre position, it adds 3 spins to the counter and this re-trigger is unlimited.
Six cartoon character coins appearing in one spin sequence launches the Coin Respin feature with four jackpots and tons of multipliers up for grabs. All other symbols disappear and only coins land during the 3 Respins. Each new occurrence of a coin resets the counter to three, which continues to happen until no new coins drop or until the grid fills with coins. This feature can trigger during the Free Spins feature as well.
Coins have number values or jackpots on them and to win the Mega Jackpot, the grid needs to be full of coins. The coin values vary and can be between x1 to x8, and x10, x14, x16, x18, x20, x24, x30, x100. Once no new instances of the coin symbol land, all values are summed up and multiplied with the bet for your prize.
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