Wild Fishin Wild Ways

Wild Fishin' Wild Ways: Slot Overview

How times change, huh? It wasn't long ago when it seemed like every other game hitting the shelves was Irish, Egyptian-themed or 'book' mechanised. Now it kind of feels like it's the time of the fishing (or fishin' as it's usually written) themed slot. However you feel about that, here comes another piscine-based option from software provider Jelly in association with Yggdrasil called Wild Fishin' Wild Ways. Going hand in glove with the theme is a money symbol collect feature which Wild Fishin' Wild Ways has, but to mix things up, Jelly has tinkered with the method of collection while dropping in an expanded ways, and reels feature in the process.

Wild Fishin' Wild Ways is rife with little (and larger) things which break the normal fishin' slot rules. Okay, maybe not break the rules, but how about bending them? One is that the base game takes place above water, near a quaint seaside town as the sun rises on a pleasant-looking day. A seaweed-coated 5-reel, 3-row game grid takes centre stage, and a counter on top indicates a starting value of 243 ways which grows when the panel expands. Jelly has painted an inviting picture to host the fishin' action, giving the game a vaguely Pixar, Finding Nemo quality - more so when free spins trigger and play moves beneath the waves.

The angling antics begin by picking a stake of 25 p/c to $/€100 per spin and casting off on any device. Be aware Wild Fishin' Wild Ways has a variety of RTP versions, where the highest one is 95.1%. The volatility is high, though max win not so much, while hit frequency comes in at around 1 in 4 or 5 spins depending on the RTP model.

Hooking fish might be more exciting, but normal ways wins are made up of three to five matching symbols. The lower portion of the paytable has four wooden J-A card ranks; then, there are fishing rods, worms, boats, and birds as the four high pays. Landing a five of a kind winning way is worth 0.5-1x the bet for the lower paying symbols and 2.5-10x the bet for five high pays. Wilds display a fisherman on them and can substitute for any symbol except the Bonus symbol.

Wild Fishin' Wild Ways: Slot Features

Another thing the wild can do is trigger the Wild Fishin' feature. This occurs when 2 wild symbols land on reels 1 and 2. During the Wild Fishin' feature, any fish on reel 3 are caught, and if a fish is caught on reel 3, reel 4 becomes eligible to catch fish on. If fish land on reels 3 and 4, then they can then be caught on reel 5. This left-to-right reel activation is called Wild Ways. Fish on reel three have prizes worth 0.5-4x, those on reel 4 have values of 4-15x, while fish on reel 5 have cash prizes of 15-250x.

Free Spins

There are two ways of winning free spins. One is to land a bonus symbol on reels 3, 4, or 5 while the Wild Fishin' feature is active. The other is by landing 3 bonus symbols on reels 3, 4, and 5. In both scenarios, 10 free spins are awarded. During free spins, when the Wild Fishin' feature is activated, reels 3, 4, and 5 can expand up to 6 rows high, creating up to 1,944 ways to win. Expanded reels reset for the next free spin. Lastly, when the feature is retriggered by landing a bonus symbol during a Wild Fishin' sequence, +5 additional free spins are awarded.

Wild Fishin' Wild Ways: Slot Verdict

Jelly's an interesting one. Since they burst on the scene with Savanna Roar, they've tended to flirt with conventionality while adding individual touches throughout their games. Wild Fishin' Wild Ways is another example. Being a fishing game, there's a fish symbol/money collect thing going on, but the way it functions with the Wild Ways element and the growing grid is unusual. The mechanics aren't entirely unique, as we saw a similar system used in Gold Coin Studios' slot Cairo Link & Win where two Eye of Ra symbols on the first two reels expanded the other three reels if you're interested in an Egyptian-themed version.

Back to fish, and for the most part, Wild Fishin' Wild Ways meets or exceeds what you'd hope to find in an angling themed slot. The atmosphere is sea-going, the fisherman looks the part, and there are opportunities to haul in prize-bearing fish. If you're used to collect symbols pulling in money symbols whenever they land might need a few spins to acclimate to the Wild Fishin' method. One reason is that Wild Fishin'/Wild Ways didn't trigger a whole lot in the base game, though as the rules state, it does theoretically occur more in free spins. Then again, some fishin' slots only offer a collect feature during free spins. Doing things this way can create a snowball effect when consecutively collecting prizes off reels 3-5 and is probably a contributing factor in Wild Fishin' Wild Ways' high volatility. It doesn't exactly have high potential, though, topping out at 2,000x the bet. A while ago, that relatively low figure would've been less of a possible issue, but fishing slot potential has been inching up lately, and one wonders whether Wild Fishin' Wild Ways would have benefited from a more enticing top prize.

If fishing-minded players are cool with that number, though, then taking Wild Fishin' Wild Ways for a spin should be worth their time. It's got the requisite fish/money collect activity, a salty situation to experience it in, and conducts itself in a rather unique way.