Hope you like creepy crawlies for this one, folks. Frogs & Bugs is an online slot built by prolific software designer Pragmatic Play. Built might not be the best word to use in this situation, as Frogs & Bugs is a reskin of an earlier release called Tropical Tiki - a game that didn't pull off anything especially wow at the time of its review. In other words, hopes weren't exactly soaring high up there in the clouds when the Frogs & Bugs test run began. But optimism is an inherent human trait; if we didn't think the future could be better than it is today, who knows where humanity might have ended up? In that spirit of optimism, let's see what Frogs & Bugs can do.
First up is the Frogs & Bugs setting and sensory impact. The game takes place in a lily pad-coated pond, all vines, lotus flowers and such like. Visually, the game has a Wild Hop & Drop look about it, which makes sense as both slots have a froggy focus. Frogs & Bugs also has the bug thing, too, represented mainly by a snouted winged character displayed on the free spins scatter symbol. A cute, cartoonish, friendly look got Frogs & Bugs off to a pretty positive start, though nothing completely shrugged off the doubts it would perform much better than the original slot did once in motion.
>Frogs & Bugs do have a fairly unusual grid set-up, consisting of 6-reels, holding 3 rows each, in the base game, and is able to expand further in the bonus round. For the main game, players get 729 ways to win, though, in free spins, this can jump to 6,400 at the most. A highly volatile machine (4.5 out of 5 on the bolt meter), Frogs & Bugs has a maximum return to player of 96.43% or 96.2% when buying free spins. When picking a stake, the default options range from between 25 p/c to $/€125.
Wins are awarded when identical symbols land left to right, starting at the first reel. From the low pays upwards are spades, hearts, diamonds, clubs, kiwifruit, watermelon, lemon, cherries, and 3 frog character high pays, where hitting a 6-of-a-kind winning way puts a win worth 0.16 to 2 times the bet into your pocket. Not great values, but Frogs & Bugs' peculiar tumble system can help augment payouts. Wild symbols don't, though, as there are none in the game at any time.
>One of the most important things about Frogs & Bugs is its tumble win mechanism which functions differently than they usually do and is joined by free spins plus a bonus buy.
When a winning combo lands on the grid, the symbols forming it and any scatters in view lock to the screen, and all non-winning symbols are removed. The locked symbols drop to the lowest possible positions on their reels, and new symbols tumble in from above. If more winning symbols appear, they lock as well, as do any extra scatters. This process continues until no new winning symbols or scatters land, or all positions are filled, then a win evaluation occurs, and the next spin can take place.
Landing at least 4 scatter symbols (on reels 2, 3, 4, or 5) triggers the free spins round, where players get 8 free spins. During free spins, the game grid grows to 6-reels, 5-rows in size where at best, 6,400 ways to win may become active. However, in the beginning, the top 2 rows have all of their positions locked. On each spin, one of the locked positions is randomly opened, allowing symbols to land there, increasing the number of ways to win. At most, 8 positions can be unlocked in a round.
Players may buy their way into the free spins section for some of that grid expansion/unlocking action for the cost of 100 times the bet. When buying free spins, the number of triggering scatters is always 4, and no tumbles will occur.
>There you have it; as far as enjoyment levels go, Frogs & Bugs was about on par with its template slot Tropical Tiki. Totally makes sense since the two games are exactly the same in terms of gameplay, with just the front end getting a shuffle around. The bugs, or bug, and frogs theme is okay, but Pragmatic Play has hardly done anything overly special with it to give Frogs & Bugs a major personality. There's a pond, a bit of wildlife and some cartoon critters. It all felt a little too low effort to get very excited about.
If we put on our positive hats for a minute, the winning symbols tumble system has merits and makes a nice change from the usual way tumble features function. As in, hit a winning combination, and watch it get removed from the grid as the remaining symbols on the reels sail down to fill in the empty spaces. One system isn't necessarily better than the other, though you can imagine the regular method has greater versatility, perhaps. Frogs & Bugs' tumble system does offer something different, though, and is close to the way games like Serial function. Blending it with ways to win rather than paylines potentially adds to the thrill ride, too. The thrill ride only goes so far, though. Meagre symbol values and a modest max win of 3,000x the bet sees to that.
And so, Frogs & Bugs was about as fun as it was the last time we bumped into this gaming set-up. That is, not massive fun, and the low effort it feels went into making Frogs & Bugs hardly encouraged major exertion on our side to really dig in and uncover Frogs & Bugs' finer points.
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