Hot Potato

Hot Potato is a Thunderkick slot released on November 8, 2023, running a 7-reel, 7-row cluster-pays grid set in a fast-food city street. The theoretical RTP is 96.16%, volatility is rated Very High, and the win cap is 10,000x the bet.

Wins form when 5 or more matching symbols connect horizontally or vertically anywhere on the grid, clearing away and refilling the space above. There are no paylines and no fixed wild in the base game beyond the Exploding Wild itself, a potato character that appears naturally or after a win.

Exploding Wilds and the Multiplier Grid

When the Exploding Wild appears, it detonates across a 3×3 area, clearing whatever symbols sit there and leaving behind a multiplier grid that starts at 2x per cell. Overlapping explosions double a cell’s value again, up to a cap of 128x, and any winning cluster landing on a multiplied cell has that value applied to its payout.

Free Spins and Bonus Buy

Landing 3 scatter symbols triggers 10 free spins, and 3 more scatters during the round retrigger it for another 10. Inside the bonus, the multiplier grid turns sticky, so cells built up on one spin carry into the next instead of resetting, letting a hot run compound toward the 10,000x cap. A Bonus Buy option is available for 100x the bet, guaranteeing direct entry into the free spins round.

Hot Potato Review

Hot Potato takes a large grid and a straightforward cluster-pays base and puts nearly all of its personality into how the Exploding Wild interacts with the space around it, since the multiplier grid it leaves behind is really the game’s whole engine. A single 3×3 explosion landing early in a free spins round can seed a meaningful chunk of the grid with 2x and 4x cells before the round has properly started, and because those values stay sticky rather than clearing between spins, a session with several overlapping explosions can climb toward the 128x per-cell cap in a way that feels earned rather than scripted. The Very High volatility rating fits a game built this way, since the base grid without a wild landing pays comparatively little, and the bulk of what Hot Potato can offer sits inside a free spins round that either catches fire or doesn’t. Pricing the Bonus Buy at 100x, in line with most direct-entry purchases at this volatility, gives players a way to skip straight to the part of the game where the multiplier grid actually gets to build.

The 7×7 grid itself is worth calling out on its own, since a cluster-pays format this large gives Hot Potato considerably more surface area for a natural win than a standard 5×3 or 6×4 layout, and that extra space is exactly what the Exploding Wild needs to make its 3×3 detonation feel consequential rather than incidental. A city fast-food setting, complete with a taxi, a fire hydrant, and a corner store awning, gives the theme a lighthearted identity that contrasts with just how punishing the Very High volatility actually plays, and that contrast between a cartoonish presentation and a genuinely swingy math model is a recognizable Thunderkick signature carried over from earlier releases like Esqueleto Explosivo. Anyone drawn to the series later through its 2026 sequel, Hot Potato: Battleground, will find the original still holds up as the simpler, more focused half of the pair.