Crank It Up is a party-themed slot by Pragmatic Play. It comes with big beats and a dancefloor in the background where you can show off your dancing skills. The slot is all about the disco era, with symbols such as dancing shoes, microphones, and cool glasses gracing the reels.

Specs-wise, it’s a highly volatile slot game with 20 paylines. The action takes place in an exquisite club, and the gameplay is very low-key. There’s a standard base game with regular symbol wins and a bonus round where the slot’s special features start to shine through. It also has that familiar Pragmatic Play look and feel, so you could say that this slot doesn’t reinvent the wheel.

And that’s OK with me. Some free online slots are deliberately too complex, and they miss the point. Not Crank It Up, though. It’s a slot from the disco era with straightforward but rewarding gameplay. Keep the reels spinning and your heels gliding on the floor by playing it after reading my detailed Crank It Up review below.

If you’ve played a Pragmatic Play slot recently, you probably know what to expect. With a few exceptions, most of the studio’s slots are laid out the same. The controls in Crank It Up are under the reels for easy access, so playing it is easy. As for the art direction, the studio has nailed it all down once again.

Symbols include shutter-styled party glasses, dancing shoes, a golden mic, and a boombox and vinyl as the specials. The reels are set directly against massive speakers, and the whole thing sits inside of a snazzy club. You can guess that the audio perfectly captures the immersive atmosphere, with big beats in the background and old-school coin-clanking effects. Everything fits together like a glove, making it as immersive an experience as you can expect.

Playing Crank It Up is easy. The first thing you need to do is choose a bet between 20c and $240 per spin, which is the usual Pragmatic Play bet range. You can easily adjust the bet in tiny increments to whatever you feel is satisfactory. I started with a bet of $1 for this review and found it ideal.

The base game is pretty straightforward and has no major surprises. You need 3 or more matching symbols across the screen for a win. Wilds can link wins together by replacing missing symbols. The boombox wild appears on reels 2, 3, and 4. There are 4 premiums and 4 card royals, and they pay solid prizes.

Unfortunately, there’s no special feature at all in the base game. Even the wild doesn’t pay itself, so if you’re looking for a slot with specials from the get-go, it’s best to look elsewhere.

The vinyl record is the Crank It Up scatter. Three or more of these trigger the bonus round. You’ll receive 10, 15, or 20 free bonus spins depending on the number of triggering scatters. This is where things get interesting. Whenever the wild hits the reels, it will mark each spot. If a wild lands in that particular spot, it increases its multipliers. The first boost is x2, followed by x3, x5, and x10.

When you run out of free spins, the slot will award 3 final spins. All marked spots will turn to sticky wilds with the multiplier you’ve reached so far. Multipliers apply to all symbol wins that pass through them. Landing 3, 4, or 5 scatters during the bonus feature will retrigger it.

If you don’t want to wait for the natural free spins trigger, you can buy the bonus round for 80x the bet.

I loved the classic experience Crank It Up offered. By classic, I mean a straightforward, no-fuss slot experience with no complicated features. I still believe the base game would have been much better with a wild feature or something of the sort, but the bonus round makes up for it slightly.

With that being said, I didn’t manage to land the bonus round organically, so I had to buy it. The price of 80x is lower than the average 100x, and awards 3 scatters on the next spin. It proved a good buy as I was able to hit 5x multiplier wins several times with a few retriggers, winning 110x in the process.

Crank It Up has an RTP of 96%, which is the average for highly volatile slots. The maximum you can win is 10,000x the bet.

Crank It Up is a decent slot by Pragmatic Play. It doesn’t offer new ideas and won’t impress players looking for big special features. However, it has an irresistible charm and a cool bonus multiplier wild feature that can deliver some great wins.

If you’re looking for festive alternatives, you can try Big Time Gaming’s Fireworks Megaways. Heart of Rio offers a fun slot experience by Pragmatic Play at the Rio Carnival if you’re looking for a snazzier party.