With the way the Earth's climate is going at the moment, it's not hard to envisage a future where people who currently pine for somewhere hot to visit on their holidays will start fantasising about relaxing somewhere cooler. For those already desiring to escape the heat, here is Frozen Tropics from developer Pragmatic Play. If you're reading this in the middle of summer, with cicadas thundering and the heat beating down like an anvil, dipping your body parts into snow probably doesn't sound like the worst thing in the world to do. And so, if you're keen to metaphorically chill out, feel free to join us as we take a look at Frozen Tropics which features tumbles, frozen symbols, a rising win multiplier, free spins and a bonus buy.
One thing immediately apparent after a cursory glance at Frozen Tropics was how closely it resembled ELK Studios' slot Tropicool. Not only because players are transported to a wintery wonderland with plants but also because the host is a bird in a top hat, much like the star of Tropicool - Tony Toucano, though there's no Fiona Flamingo doppelganger, sadly. Another noteworthy characteristic is Frozen Tropics' gaming grid, made up of 6 reels displayed in a 3-4-4-4-4-3 formation. The rest of the scenery isn't bad either, but it's not a patch on the visual feast on offer in ELK Studios' game.
On the statistical side, Frozen Tropics is a highly volatile online slot, available in more than one RTP configuration, defaulting to 96.15%. Participants are able to load up bets of 20 p/c to $/€240 per spin, and a bonus buy is on hand if they would like to fast-track their way to the free spins round. With 2,304 ways to win, winning combinations must begin from the leftmost side of the grid and land across adjacent reels.
The tumble feature removes certain winning symbols from the reels when they've made a winning way. Any spaces this creates are filled by symbols tumbling down from above. If a win is created after a tumble, the feature will repeat itself, ending when no new win appears. As for symbols, chunky looking 10 to A card ranks make up the lower 5 paying symbols on Frozen Tropics' paytable, followed by a bunch of bananas, a watermelon slice, grapes, a plum, and a strawberry as the higher value picture symbols. Hitting a winning way with 6 low pay symbols awards 0.4 to 0.5 times the bet, or 0.75 to 2 times the bet for a 6 premium symbol win. 'W's are the game's wild, substituting for anything on the reels except the scatter.
Stirred up in this fruity, icy cocktail of a game are frozen symbols, free spins and the bonus buy.
Symbols in Frozen Tropics randomly land in 3 possible states. A level 3 symbol is frozen, a level 2 symbol is partially frozen, while a level 1 symbol is completely unfrozen. Frozen symbols do not disappear from the reels by the tumble feature. Instead, they go down 1 level, from 3 to 2, and from 2 to 1. When a level 1 symbol is part of a win, it disappears and leaves behind a multiplier that is added to the total win multiplier. The total win multiplier applies to all subsequent wins in the current tumbling sequence.
Any non-wild symbol which disappears levels behind a +1 multiplier. Any wild symbol that disappears on reels 2 and 5 leaves behind a random multiplier of x5, x8, x10, x12, x15, x20, x25, x50, x75, or x100. Any wild that disappears from reels 3 and 4 leaves behind an x2 multiplier. In the base game, the total multiplier resets after each spin.
Hitting 3, 4, 5, or 6 scatter symbols triggers 10 free spins and awards a payout of 2x, 5x, 20x, or 100x the bet, respectively. During free spins, the total multiplier does not reset, and hitting 3 or more scatters awards an extra 10 free spins.
Free spins can be bought from the base game for 100x the bet. The RTP when doing so is 96%.
Pragmatic Play had been on a busy release binge of late, dropping doozies like Pub Kings and Candy Blitz, interspersed by less impressive games such as Mustang Trail and Racing Joker. Frozen Tropics sort of sits in the middle of that lot. It's a bit of a downer because the last 3-4-4-4-3 slot from Pragmatic Play of note was the ice-cool Western-themed number Cowboy Coins. The reason why Frozen Tropics didn't excite as much is because it felt a little rushed, as if it was made on an incredibly tight time schedule, so tight that the team, usually quite original, nicked a bunch of ideas from its competitors. And no, we are not singling out the Pragmatic Play team as the only studio to do this. However, the game just looked a little too close to Tropicool for comfort, plus the melting symbols idea smacked of Hacksaw Gaming's slot Keep 'Em Cool, making Frozen Tropics teeter dangerously on a knife edge between imitation and original thought.
Frozen Tropics is a Pragmatic Play slot, though, and this means a slick, polished, professional production. Players accustomed to the studio's general style get all of this in Frozen Tropics. When looking past the copycat parts, there is a decent amount of gaming to experience here. Decent multiplier action too, which is one of the key weapons in the game's arsenal, especially the useful values possible when wilds disappear from reels 2 or 5. Stack them in free spins, and who knows what might happen. Well, we know the most that can happen is hitting Frozen Tropics' 9,000 times the bet.
Frozen Tropics doesn't possess the same level of sophistication found in Tropicool nor as refined artwork. Added all together, Frozen Tropics also didn't give off the impression it was a Pragmatic Play slot that would break out and find greatness, but it does pack the sort of muscle which can brute force its way to solid results when all goes according to plan.
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