Starlight Christmas

Starlight Christmas is an online video slot developed by Pragmatic Play and released in December 2022. It combines the festivity of Christmas with an anime aesthetic. The game is set against a snowy mountain backdrop with a Christmas theme and an anime-style princess character. Festive elements are subtly incorporated, with baubles and gifts scattered throughout the game area, and a Santa hat for the princess character.

The core gameplay revolves around a scatter pays mechanic on a 6×5 reel layout. Wins are generated by landing 8 or more matching symbols anywhere on the grid. Winning symbols disappear from the reels and are replaced by new symbols that drop from above, offering the chance for consecutive wins (tumbling reels).

There are no wild symbols in Starlight Christmas. However, the key mechanic is the multiplier symbol, represented by a heart of various colors. It appears on every spin and has a value between 2x and 500x. The multiplier value is not applied to individual symbols, but rather to the total winnings at the end of a tumble sequence. All displayed multipliers are added together before being applied to the total win.

Scatter symbols are represented by white cats wearing Santa hats. Getting 3, 4 or 5 Scatters anywhere on the reels triggers the Free Spins bonus. Players get 15 free spins with a payout based on the number of scatters that triggered the bonus (3 scatters: 3x bet, 4 scatters: 5x bet, 5 scatters: 100x bet). The Free Spins round features a cumulative multiplier mechanism. The value of each multiplier symbol that lands during the free spins is added together and this total multiplier is applied to all wins throughout the bonus round. An additional 3 or more Scatters during the Free Spins award 5 additional Free Spins.

Optionally, players can activate an ante bet feature, which increases the chances of triggering the free spins bonus by 25% at the cost of a higher wager.