Pink Elephants is a 2016 release from Thunderkick, a Swedish studio with a habit of making slots that look nothing like the rest of the lobby. The setting is a desert at night, the soundtrack is quiet rather than busy, and the whole game is built around a single idea — collecting peanuts until the ordinary elephants on the reels turn pink.
- Free spins
- Symbol upgrades
- Scatter collection
- 4,096 ways
- Studio
- Thunderkick
- Released
- 2016
- Layout
- 6 reels, 4 rows
- Ways to win
- 4,096 ways to win
- Volatility
- High
How It Plays
Six reels and four rows, which is a wider grid than the usual five by three. There are no paylines at all: with four positions on every reel the game pays 4,096 ways, so a combination counts whenever matching symbols land on consecutive reels starting from the left, wherever they happen to sit vertically. Nothing has to line up.
The stake is a single total-bet figure picked from a list, the arrangement Thunderkick uses across its catalogue — there is no separate coin value and no line count to multiply out. In most casinos the range runs from about 0.10 to 100 a spin, but the floor and ceiling are set by the operator rather than by the game.
Symbols
The symbol set splits cleanly into two groups. The low end is a run of small coloured symbols that pay very little on their own and matter mostly as raw material for the upgrade feature. The high end is four elephants — blue, green, orange and pink — in ascending order of value.
The pink elephant is the top symbol and the one the entire game points at. It is also the rarest, and in the base game it shows up far less often than the other three. The peanut is the scatter: it pays nothing by itself and exists to open the free spins and then to drive the collection meter inside them.
Bonus Feature
The free spins are the game. Three or more peanut scatters landing anywhere on the reels start the round, and the more scatters arrive on the triggering spin, the longer the round you begin with.
Inside the round the peanuts change job. Every scatter that lands is collected into a meter, and each time the meter fills, a symbol upgrade fires: the cheapest symbol still in play is taken off the reels and the elephants move up a step — blue to green, green to orange, orange to pink. Keep collecting and the grid gradually strips down until only the expensive symbols are left on it. Scatters that land during the round also extend it, so collection and length feed each other.
That is the tension of the feature, and it is also its weakness. A short round with two or three peanuts collected usually ends quietly, because the reels are still crowded with low symbols. A long one where the meter keeps filling can finish with pink elephants landing on a grid that has nothing cheap left to block them. Which of the two you get is not something you influence.
Controls
The panel is Thunderkick’s standard one: the spin button on the right, the bet selector beside it, balance and last win read out along the bottom. Picking a total bet per spin is the only setting there is — no coin value, no line count, no bet level.
Autoplay sits behind the same panel. You set the number of automatic spins and can tell the sequence to stop on a single win above a size you choose, on reaching a loss limit, or when the free spins trigger. There are no side bets and no feature buy in the original release.
Every game also carries an information panel with its rules and its return-to-player figure for the build running here. That panel is the accurate source; a number copied from elsewhere may describe a different build — see how to read RTP.
Pros and Cons
This is a high-volatility slot and it behaves like one. The base game is quiet, the low symbols crowd the grid, and everything worth waiting for sits behind the scatter. If long flat stretches bother you, this is not the game to sit through them in.
It suits players who want a feature with a shape to it: the upgrade meter gives the free spins a sense of progress that most bonus rounds do not have, and watching the reels thin out is genuinely more interesting than watching a multiplier tick. Worth saying plainly, though — a dry stretch does not bring the trigger closer. Every spin is independent of the last, and the game is never due. Pick a stake you can hold for a long session, or leave it alone.
- The free spin round has direction: the meter shows what you are working towards
- Six reels, four rows and 4,096 ways, so wins read positionally rather than along lines
- Distinctive art and a calm soundtrack, with none of the usual slot noise
- One stake control and nothing else to configure
- High volatility means long empty stretches in the base game
- Almost everything of value is locked behind the scatter
- A short free spin round with few peanuts collected often ends flat
- No gamble round, no jackpot, no extras for anyone who wants them
18+ or the legal age where you live. This game carries a house edge like every other. Play only with money you can afford to lose.
More From Thunderkick
Other titles by the same studio in our lobby.
Questions
- How do the free spins start?
- Three or more peanut scatters landing anywhere on the reels. The more scatters arrive on that spin, the longer the round you start with.
- What do the peanuts do during the free spins?
- They are collected. Each one fills the meter, and a full meter upgrades the symbols: the cheapest symbol on the reels is removed and the elephants step up towards pink. Scatters landing during the round also extend it.
- Which symbol pays the most?
- The pink elephant. It is the rarest of the four in the base game, and the free spins exist mainly to manufacture it by clearing everything below it off the reels.
- Is there a jackpot or a gamble feature?
- No. There is no progressive jackpot and no gamble round. The free spins with the symbol upgrades are the only feature the game has.
- Can I try it for free?
- Yes, most casinos offer a demo on virtual credits. Given how much of this game sits inside the free spins, the demo is the cheapest way to find out how the quiet stretches feel.