Love Island

Dating has evolved along with humankind, hundreds of years ago the parents would set up marriages for their children, while nowadays people hook up through smartphone apps. We also have dating TV shows, where folks go to find a partner along with a bit of celebrity. 

Love Island is an award-winning British TV show, it has been around since 2015 and has spread to various other countries, from the United States to Finland. With such a popular inspiration, it must have been quite a challenge for Storm Gaming to bring the dating show to the online slots world. 

Let’s see if the game has as many thrills and twists as the show. 

Theme

The reels of this video slot are placed right on the beach and they are transparent, you can see the sand behind them and the blue sea in the distance. The game creates a beach-party kind of vibe, with colourful symbols and nice animations. 

The background music seems to have been taken from a busy beach in Ibiza, it adds a very nice touch to the relaxed atmosphere of the game. The symbols are all related to life on Love Island, there’s a palm tree, a cocktail glass, a pair of sunglasses and also the TV show logo. 

Betting Options and Functions

This video slot has a classic setup with 5 reels and 3 rows, plus 20 fixed paylines. You need at least three consecutive matching symbols to form a winning combination, starting from the leftmost reel. 

The most valuable symbol in the game is the Love Island logo, if you get five of them on a payline you will receive 25 times the stake. This title has medium volatility, while the return to player percentage was set at a fairly low 94.86. 

Features

The base game is not really as exciting as the TV show, but this video slot has plenty of bonus features that make it at least as complicated as dating. 

• Cashpot Cases

The Cashpot Cases symbol is a special icon in this game, it can only appear on reels 1, 3 and 5, and when you get three of them in a spin you will trigger this special feature. You will have to pick between 9 suitcases, which can either contain special symbols or cash prizes. 

You will be able to open several suitcases, the feature only stops when you get an empty one. The special symbols that you can find are a white water bottle, a pair of blue flip flops and a pink phone. If you manage to get three matching symbols before the end of the feature, you will be awarded the corresponding cashpot. 

• Couple Up

This feature can only be triggered by the Sunglasses symbol, each time this icon lands it will add more juice to the love meter on the right-hand side of the game screen and the feature kicks in when the gauge is filled. 

The feature itself puts you in the role of a matchmaker, you have to make two “love islanders” couple up. 

• Free Spins

There’s a special symbol that can trigger this feature, a colourful life buoy with “Free Spins” written above it. You need at least three of these to trigger the feature, and when you do there will be two Wilds locked in place to help you gather more winning combinations! 

• I’ve Got a Text

This is yet another special symbol in this game, three of these will trigger a mini-game on the mobile phone with emojis as icons. You can win up to 500 times the stake in this feature, so don’t take it lightly! 

• Pool Bar

This feature can be triggered by the Cocktail Glass symbol, the same way that the Sunglasses symbol triggers the Couple Up feature. In this mini-game you can either win multipliers or cash prizes, depending on the cocktails served at the bar. 

• Wheel Appeal

The Palm Tree symbol is responsible for triggering this one, when it’s respective gauge fills you will leave the reels behind and head towards the Wheel of Fortune. You can win up to 20 times the stake with each spin of the wheel. 

• Wild

The Wild symbol substitutes for any other icon in the base game, but if it lands on the third reel it will expand to cover the entire column and help form more winning combos. The Expanding Wild animation is quite nice, you will see a love islander diving into the crystal-clear water. 

Conclusion

Love Island is a video slot that is packed with special features, it’s even quite difficult to keep track of all of them. Probably the intention of the developers at Storm Gaming was to replicate the various TV show segments in the game, and they have succeeded. 

In fact, the real value of this title lies in the bonus features, otherwise the base game would become quite boring after a few spins. 

If you are a fan of the TV show you will most likely enjoy this game as well, but even those who have never seen the programme should have lots of fun with this slot’s bonus features.