Print Studios has never looked like a factory line developer. Since the studio was formed in 2020 and started releasing games in late 2021, it has preferred a smaller catalogue with louder ideas, tighter maths and mechanics that actually give a slot its own spine. One of the smartest examples of that approach is the Growing Jumbo Symbol concept. It is not an official branded franchise stamped across half the portfolio, yet it clearly works like a mechanical family inside the wider Print range.
The core idea is simple enough to grasp in seconds and nasty enough to stay interesting for much longer: a Jumbo Symbol lands as a sticky wild, starts small, then grows step by step as certain symbol conditions are met. Every upgrade expands its reach, unlocks more substitution power and usually adds extra life to the feature. In plain terms, the bonus round at https://wildies.org.uk/ stops being a flat set of free spins and turns into a chase. That is exactly the kind of thing Print Studios does well.
A mechanical line that thrives on escalation
What makes this mini line work is not just the sight of a big symbol getting bigger. Plenty of slots can do that trick and still feel dead behind the eyes. Print Studios gives the mechanic a proper growth logic. The Jumbo Symbol is tied to symbol activation, staged progression and some real pressure. It starts with limited usefulness, then slowly turns into the centre of the whole board. That means the player is not waiting for one lucky hit and then zoning out.
The round keeps asking for the next upgrade, the next substitution set, the next extra spin. The best games using this idea also connect it to the studio’s flagship SuperSpinners system, so the expanding wild does not work in isolation. It grows into a board that can already multiply wins in several places at once. That combination is why the Growing Jumbo Symbol line feels like more than a novelty. It has a proper sense of momentum.
Royal Potato and the first glorious rise of the giant spud
Released on 1 December 2021, Royal Potato was the game that properly introduced this mechanic as a headline event rather than a side feature. It runs on a 5x4 layout with 30 paylines, carries high volatility, and reaches a maximum win of 30,000 times the stake. The theme is gloriously daft in the best possible way. Instead of leaning on dragons, gods or recycled treasure maps, the slot builds an entire royal court around potatoes. There are kings, queens, noble spuds and a full tuber hierarchy, which sounds like a joke at first and then somehow settles into its own internal logic. That oddball storyline matters because the game treats the potato not merely as a mascot, but as the centrepiece of the whole bonus structure.
In the base game, Royal Potato already carries enough bite to avoid feeling like a wait room. Fourteen SuperSpinners can appear between reels and multiply any line win that crosses them, while the Royal Levy feature can trigger when king or queen symbols appear and reveal cash values boosted by the total visible multiplier sum. That creates a nice contrast between random punch in the base game and longer-form progression in the bonus. Then the free spins round lands and the slot becomes something else entirely. Three, four or five scatters award 10, 12 or 14 free spins, and a sticky 2x1 Jumbo wild is placed in the centre of the reels before the action starts. At first, it substitutes only for a limited set of highlighted symbols. That is the catch. It is useful, but not yet terrifying.
The real fun begins when those highlighted symbols start producing wins. Every successful stage makes the Jumbo Potato grow, expand into more reel positions and substitute for more valuable symbols. In Royal Potato there are six growth steps, and each major upgrade throws in extra free spins as well. The symbol starts at 2x1, then swells through 2x2, 3x2, 3x3 and 4x3 until it finally reaches full-screen size across the whole 5x4 grid. By the last stage it can even substitute for the top king symbol, which is where the game starts looking seriously dangerous. A good bonus in Royal Potato is not just about landing a wild. It is about building that wild into a monster while keeping enough spins alive for the last stages to matter. That is what made the original slot such a cult favourite. It did not overcomplicate the idea. It just sold the chase beautifully.
Royal Potato 2 and the sequel that finally lets the mechanic go feral
If Royal Potato planted the flag, Royal Potato 2 grabbed the original idea and turned the dial several clicks higher. It was released on 28 September 2023, keeps the 5x4 and 30-payline structure, runs at high volatility with an official 5 out of 5 rating, and raises the top win to 40,000 times the stake. Story-wise, the game returns to the same royal potato world and frames itself as a spud renaissance at court. That phrase sounds daft, obviously, but it fits. The sequel does not rip up the original. It polishes it, thickens it and gives the centrepiece mechanic more ways to explode.
The base structure remains familiar. SuperSpinners still handle multiplier duty, and Royal Levy returns in stronger form. This time, when at least two king or queen symbols appear, each can award a prize and all visible SuperSpinners combine to multiply the result. Royal Levy can also award access to the free spins, which gives the base game an extra bridge into the main event instead of making it rely only on ordinary scatters. That alone makes the sequel feel punchier, but the real reason it stands above the original is the way it reworks the growing potato feature without losing the clean logic of the first game.
The Spud Spins Bonus begins with a locked 2x1 Jumbo symbol in the centre. It acts as a wild for a set of active symbols shown beside the reels. When wins are made on all symbols in that active set, the Jumbo grows, covers more space, unlocks more substitution power and awards extra spins. On paper that is still the same ladder as the first game. In practice, the sequel makes the climb far more eventful because it adds the Potato Sack feature during the bonus.
The sack can land and trigger one of four modifiers: Golden Spinner, which upgrades a SuperSpinner into a golden multiplier worth at least 10x on each spin, Extra Spins, which does exactly what it says, Synced Reels, which aligns the first two reels for one additional spin, and Symbol Activation, which unlocks one symbol from the side panel while also giving an extra spin. That is the magic sauce. In the first game, the bonus chase could feel brutal because the Jumbo sometimes stalled before reaching its final form. In the sequel, the Potato Sack gives the whole mechanic more routes forward, more second winds and more proper comeback potential.
A good example of how Royal Potato 2 handles its bonus better than the original is a round where the Jumbo reaches an early growth step, then a Potato Sack drops and activates Symbol Activation or Extra Spins. That one little swing can completely change the arc of the feature. Instead of watching the chase run out of steam, the slot throws fresh fuel into the engine. Once the Jumbo gets close to max size, every extra spin becomes a genuine threat because the giant potato is now pulling more symbols into its substitution net while multiple SuperSpinners are still waiting to multiply the final line wins. That is why Royal Potato 2 is usually seen as the peak version of the Growing Jumbo Symbol concept at Print Studios. It is not just bigger. It is better paced, meaner and much more willing to snowball.
