Quackers Slot Review – An Avalanche of Rubber Ducks

Quackers is a Slot from ELK Studios set around a pond that has been taken over by four very quirky rubber ducks. Each Duck has its own feature, including increasing multipliers, upgrading payout symbols and turning symbols into Wilds.

Quackers, played on PokerStars, uses a 6×6 grid with cluster wins and Avalanches. Winning symbols disappear, new ones fall into the empty spaces and another win can keep the same round going. Coins also build towards a separate Coin Game, while three Bonus symbols trigger Quack Drops on a larger 8×8 grid. There is also a Super Bonus where all four Ducks start on the grid.

Theme and Design: From the Bathtub to a Pond

Quackers takes place around a colourful pond filled with flowers, lily pads and four rubber ducks. There is a glamorous Marilyn Monroe-inspired Duck, a Princess Duck, a leather-wearing Pilot Duck and a scruffy Dynamite Duck carrying a stick of explosives.

The Ducks aren’t just there for the theme, however. Each one can land on the grid and use its own feature before a win is calculated. Their different outfits also make it pretty easy to tell which one is currently involved.

Four Ducks with Different Features

Each of the four Ducks has its own job in this online slot. The Pilot Duck increases the Global Multiplier. The Dynamite Duck converts payout symbols into Wilds. The Princess Duck upgrades every payout symbol of one selected type into a more valuable symbol. If the highest-paying symbol is picked, those symbols are turned into Wilds instead. The Marilyn Duck adds a symbol multiplier or increases one that is already sitting on a payout symbol. All four Ducks can be on the grid during the same game round, although only one of each character can show up at a time.

Core Gameplay: Clusters and Avalanches

Quackers uses a 6-column by 6-row grid, with cluster wins instead of traditional paylines. A winning cluster needs at least five matching symbols connected either vertically or horizontally. If several connected symbols of the same type are touching, only the largest cluster is paid out to the player.

Once a cluster pays, those symbols disappear. Everything above them falls into the gaps and new symbols drop in from the top of the grid. Another win calculation then happens.  If another cluster has formed, the same thing happens again. These Avalanches keep coming until no new winning combination shows up.

Symbols and Payouts

Quackers uses flowers and buds for its normal payout symbols. The Red Flower is the highest-paying regular symbol. A cluster of 20 or more Red Flowers pays 200x the bet. The Pink Flower pays 150x for the same size cluster, while the Purple Flower pays 100x and the Blue Flower pays 75x.

Wins begin from five matching symbols. Five Red Flowers pay 1x, five Pink Flowers pay 0.75x, five Purple Flowers pay 0.50x and five Blue Flowers pay 0.40x. The four Bud symbols sit below the Flowers in the Paytable. Their payouts also increase as more matching symbols become part of the same cluster. At the top end, a cluster of 20 or more Red or Pink Buds pays 40x the bet. Purple and Blue Buds pay 30x for clusters of the same size.

The Global Multiplier

Every paid spin starts with the Global Multiplier at x1. The multiplier is applied to every win during that game round. The Pilot Duck can increase its value before another win calculation takes place. If the Pilot Duck triggers during a run of Avalanches, the higher Global Multiplier can carry through the rest of that round.

Wild Symbols

Wild symbols substitute for any normal symbol that pays out. When a winning cluster has only Wilds, it pays as the highest symbol of this online slot. Wilds can also be added through some of the Duck Features. The Dynamite Duck converts payout symbols into Wilds, while the Princess Duck can also turn symbols into Wilds when her feature picks the top-paying one. A Duck also leaves a Wild behind after using its feature three times during a normal spin.

Duck Feature Meters

During the base game of this online slot, each Duck has a meter that keeps track of how many times its feature has activated. A Duck can trigger a maximum of three times during the same ongoing spin. Once the third activation has happened, the Duck is removed from the grid and replaced by a Wild. That limit is only used in the base game, however. Once the Bonus Game starts, Ducks stay on the grid, and their features can keep triggering without the normal three-use limit. When a Bonus Game is already waiting to start, the Ducks don’t use their features before it starts.

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Collecting Coins in Quackers

Coin symbols work towards a separate Coin Game. When a Coin symbol lands, it may be collected and added to the running Coin total. Once 20 Coins have been collected, the Coin Game is triggered. The Coin total doesn’t disappear at the end of a base game round and is saved even between separate gaming sessions. Coins can also be collected during the Bonus Game, so the total can build in both modes.

The Coin Game

The Coin Game uses a separate 6×6 grid, with an individual mini-reel in every position. All of the mini-reels spin when the feature begins. Instead of the normal flower and bud symbols, the Coin Game uses Coins, Chests, Multiplier Increase symbols and Seaweed.

A Coin adds the value printed on it, while Chests collect the values of the Coins and Chests already showing on the grid and add the combined amount to their own value. Multiplier Increase symbols can add a multiplier to one of the eight Coin or Chest positions around them at the end of the feature. If that position already has a multiplier, the existing multiplier is multiplied by the new value.

The Three-Heart Counter

The Coin Game starts with three hearts. One heart is used for every new spin, and only the positions with Seaweed symbols continue to respin. Landing at least one new feature symbol refills all three hearts. The Coin Game finishes when there are no more hearts left or when every position on the grid has been filled with a feature symbol. At the end, the values of the Coins and Chests are counted, with any individual multipliers applied before the final Coin Game win is calculated from the selected bet.

Bonus Game and Quack Drops

Landing three Bonus symbols trigger the Bonus Game with five Quack Drops. The grid increases from 6×6 to 8 rows by 8 columns, with four positions reserved for the Duck characters. When a Duck shows up, it moves into its reserved spot after the current spin and stays there for the rest of the feature. The Ducks can also keep using their features. Unlike the base game, there’s no limit on how many times each Duck can retrigger while the Bonus Game is active.

The Duck Features can keep triggering while Quack Drops are still in play. The Pilot Duck can raise the Global Multiplier, the Dynamite Duck can create Wilds, the Princess Duck can improve payout symbols and Marilyn Duck can add or increase symbol multipliers. The feature keeps going until no Quack Drops remain or the maximum win cap has been reached.

The Super Bonus

Three Bonus symbols can also trigger the Super Bonus when one of those three is a Super Bonus symbol. The feature starts with five Quack Drops and uses the same 8×8 grid as the normal Bonus Game. This time, all four Ducks are already sitting in their spots when the feature starts. The Pilot Duck, Dynamite Duck, Princess Duck and Marilyn Duck can then use their features throughout the bonus without first having to land on the grid. As with the standard Bonus Game, the Ducks stay in place until the feature ends and their features don’t have the normal three-trigger limit.

X-iter Modes

Quackers includes ELK Studios’ X-iter feature, with five different game modes available with increasing costs. The lowest is Bonus Hunt at 2.5x the selected bet. This gives more than three times the normal chance of triggering the Bonus Game. Mega Hunt costs 5x the selected bet, while the other X-iter modes run from the 2.5x Bonus Hunt up to the 500x Super Bonus.

Final Verdict: Rubber Ducks Take Over the Reels 

Quackers, played on the PokerStars casino,  mixes cluster wins and Avalanches with four Ducks that can change the symbols and multipliers on the grid. The Coin Game, Quack Drops and Super Bonus add several other features around the main Slot. The four rubber ducks give the game a lot of personality, while the disappearing clusters are a popular returning feature of ELK Studios.

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