Hugo Goal

Created to attract football fans during the World Cup 2018, Hugo Goal is an online video slot released by Play’n Go. Of course, putting the beloved children’s cartoon star Hugo in the leading role certainly wasn’t something anyone was expecting, but after the success of the previous title in which Hugo took the lead role, it’s no surprise that the developers thought it might be a good mix.

And we have to admit, while we were sceptical going into it, we were won over relatively quickly by the charming cast, the smooth and simple gameplay and the relaxing tone it takes. It offers gamblers a 3×3 playing field with 5 paylines and a medium volatility when it comes to risk and pays. With such a small reel, there’s not a lot of room for special features, but the two of them that are on offer are more than enough to spice up the imagination and secure some solid wins for the prospective gamblers. And if you’re lucky, it might just lead you to be the star player of the pitch.

We have to admit, the slot isn’t visually demanding, but it looks good, most of which boils down to the art style. Like in the previous title, Hugo will appear off from the side to comment on a feature being activated, or to check up on you if you have left the game idle for too long, and despite the small size, the reels get a big focus, making each icon clearly visible. The backdrop of a football field is a nice touch, especially with all the animals out to support their teams.

On the gameplay side of things, Hugo Goal is rather dependent on its special features to hook you. It’s not that the regular gameplay is bad, as it flows quickly, and has a decent amount of wins, but they simply can’t compare to what you can win from activating the features. At any given point that you have two fully stacked symbols, or one stacked symbol and a stacked Wild, the slot will keep re-spinning until a win is secured, and under specific circumstances, that also leads to penalty kicks, in which you control Hugo and can get your multiplier up quite high.

Without the multiplier, the highest your wins can get is 80x across the entire reel. Assuming you defend all five penalty shots, which will take a bit of luck, you make off with a 10x multiplier, which leads to the maximum win of 800x the wager. With your minimum bet being $0.05 while your maximum is as high as $100 per spin, it opens up the possibility of your largest score being a whopping $80,000 if you play at maximum bet.

Symbols follow the cartoony look of the rest of the game, and they’re rather high fidelity, which is clearly displayed on the desktop version. They also have small animations tied to them – so the ball will jump, the flags wave, and such. There are also show characters, though they only do minor bounces rather than anything more detailed.

When a player wins two fully stacked symbols, or a stacked symbol and a stacked Wild adjacent to each other, the third slot is continuously re-spun until a win is reached. In the case that this includes characters from the show, and all three reels are fully covered, beyond just having a solid win, it also leads to the penalty kicks. During this, you guide Hugo to jump up, left or right to stop the ball, and depending on your rate of success, the multiplier can climb as high as 10x.