Big Bass Christmas - Frozen Lake Slot Review
Christmas-themed fishing games are peak holiday absurdity. Someone at Pragmatic Play looked at Santa Claus and thought, "You know what would make this better? Ice fishing." 🎅🎣
Because nothing screams festive cheer like drilling a hole in a frozen lake and yanking bass out of sub-zero water while wearing a novelty hat. It's the kind of holiday activity that makes you wonder if Santa's workshop ran out of actual toys and pivoted to sporting goods.❄️
But at least ice fishing has a purpose - catching dinner. This slot just has you catching multipliers while a cartoon Santa does the work. Which brings us to Big Bass Christmas - Frozen Lake slot from Pragmatic Play.
Gameplay
This is a very high-volatility, 5-reel, 3-row game with 10 paylines that pay left to right.
The high-paying symbols are a Christmas Sleigh (200x for five-of-a-kind), a Robin bird (100x), a Fishing rod (50x), a Tackle box (50x), and a Money fish (20x).
The Wild is a Fisherman Santa that appears on all reels during Free Spins. It substitutes for all symbols except Scatter and Money symbols. The Scatter is a Bass fish in a Christmas wreath that appears on all reels.
Money symbols are fish displaying bet multiplier values: 2x, 5x, 10x, 15x, 20x, 25x, 50x, 100x, 200x, 500x, 1666x, 2500x, or 5,000x total bet.
This game accepts all currencies except Japanese yen. You can bet as low as $0.20 and as high as $70. There's a 5,000x max multiplier that can lead to this game's $350,000 max win. The RTPRTP stands for “Return to Player.” The RTP describes the total bet amount that a game returns to players over millions of spins, and that figure is represented by a percentage. Table games, such as Roulette, typically have higher RTPs than many slots.
RTP needs to be considered in conjunction with a game’s volatility rate. is 96.07%.
Features
FREE SPINS:
Hit 3, 4, or 5 Scatter symbols to trigger the Free Spins feature and win 10, 15, or 20 Free Spins, respectively.
In the base game, whenever 2 Scatter symbols hit without a third, there is a chance for another one to be brought onto the screen by a random feature.
Randomly, if the Scatters on the screen move down one position without leaving the reel area, a Re-spin is triggered: the reels with Scatters move down one position, and the reels without Scatters Re-spin.
Also, randomly, one more Scatter can appear on the screen in a random position after the initial spin result.
Before the round starts, pick a card from 12 possible cards to reveal the type of Free Spins round won. If a Bonus card is revealed, a regular Free Spins round is triggered. If a Secrets Of The Frozen Lake card is revealed, the Frozen Lake Free Spins feature is triggered.
During the regular Free Spins feature, each Fisherman Wild symbol collects all the values from Money symbols on the screen. All the Fisherman Wild symbols that hit during the feature are collected until the end of the round.
Every 4th Fisherman Wild symbol collected retriggers the feature, awards 10 more Free Spins, and the multiplier for Money symbol collection increases to 2x for the second level, 3x for the third level, and 10x for the fourth level.
After the fourth level, the feature can’t be retriggered anymore. During any type of Free Spins, the following features can happen:
- Randomly, when there are Fisherman Wild symbols on the screen but no Money symbols, Money symbols can appear in random positions at the end of a spin.
- Randomly, when there are Money symbols on the screen but no Fisherman Wild symbols, at the end of a spin, a hook will appear pulling a random reel up to bring Fisherman Wild symbols onto the screen.
- Randomly, when there are Fisherman Wild symbols on the screen, but no Money symbols, at the end of a spin, an ice curtain animation can appear and change all the symbols on the screen, except for Fisherman Wild symbols, to something else.
FROZEN LAKE FREE SPINS:
During the Frozen Lake Free Spins feature, regular symbols fade away, and only an empty grid remains. The standard reels are then replaced with special reels containing only Money symbols, Fisherman Wild symbols, and blanks.
The round starts with 10 Free Spins. At every spin, all winlines or winning combinations with Money symbols are paid, and every Fisherman Wild symbol that hits collects the value of all Money symbols on the screen.
All the Fisherman Wild symbols that hit during the feature are collected until the end of the round.
Every 4th Fisherman Wild symbol collected retriggers the feature, awards 10 more Free Spins, and the multiplier for Money symbol collection increases to 2x for the second level, 3x for the third level, and 10x for the fourth level.
After the fourth level, the feature cannot be retriggered anymore. The same random features from regular Free Spins can occur during Frozen Lake Free Spins.
BUY BONUS:
The Free Spins round can be instantly triggered from the base game by buying it. There are two options to purchase the Free Spins:
Pay 100x total bet to trigger the Free Spins feature. When buying the Free Spins feature, before the round starts, choose a card from 12 possible options to get either regular Free Spins or Frozen Lake Free Spins.
Pay 270x total bet to trigger the Frozen Lake Free Spins feature. When buying this feature, there is no option to pick a card before the round starts, and the Frozen Lake Free Spins are triggered directly.
ANTE BET:
You can select the bet multiplier. Depending on the selected bet, the game behaves differently. The possible values are:
- Bet multiplier 15x - The chance to win the Free Spins round naturally is higher. More Scatter symbols are present on the reels.
- Bet multiplier 10x - Normal play.
When playing with Ante BetAn Ante Bet is an option that costs a percentage of your bet but increases your chances of landing triggering symbols that initiate a feature. on, there is a chance for 3 Scatters to be added in random positions on the screen at the end of a spin or Re-spin resulting from 2 Scatters hitting without a third.
These Scatters trigger the Free Spins feature, but the spin result does not pay for lines.
Performance
I took this game for a spin on my Android phone and gaming laptop. If you’ve played Big Bass games before, you already know this veteran series ironed out its bugs a long time ago. And their design scales brilliantly between small and larger screens.
Maximum Win
This game can payout a $350,000 max win if you can hit the game's 5,000x max multiplier while spinning with the highest bet. The betting starts at $0.20 and tops out at $70 per spin.
Conclusion
The upside here comes entirely from Frozen Lake Free Spins with Fisherman Wild collection multipliers at level 4, combined with high-value Money symbols.
The most important mechanic is the 4th Fisherman Wild retrigger system, which adds +10 spins and increases the collection multiplier.
At level 4 with a 10x multiplier, a single 5,000x Money symbol collected by a Fisherman Wild pays 50,000x total bet, but the 5,000x win cap terminates the feature immediately.
Regular Free Spins with pay symbols dilute Money symbol frequency and waste spin potential.
Frozen Lake removes all pay symbols; every position is either Money, Fisherman Wild, or blank, concentrating every spin on collection events.
The random features are value-adds when Wilds and Money don't align naturally.
Big Bass Christmas - Frozen Lake slot suits players who want Fisherman Wild collection mechanics with exponential multipliers and can stomach very high volatility with a 5,000x win cap.
If you want higher max multipliers, look elsewhere - this caps at 5,000x, period.
Slot Details
Game Provider: Pragmatic Play
Game Type: Video Slots
PaylinesPaylines are preset lines that run across the reels, and when you land matching symbols on them, that will result in a payout. The more paylines, the more ways you can win, but also the higher your bet per spin.: 10
RTPRTP stands for “Return to Player.” The RTP describes the total bet amount that a game returns to players over millions of spins, and that figure is represented by a percentage. Table games, such as Roulette, typically have higher RTPs than many slots.
RTP needs to be considered in conjunction with a game’s volatility rate.: 96.07%
Volatility RateSlot games can have low, medium, high, or extremely high volatility rates (or a combination thereof).
The less volatile the game, the more often it should pay out, but the lower the amount, the less the payout, as this is in keeping with the risk you’re taking. Volatility rate should be considered in conjunction with a game’s RTP.: Very High
Bonus Round: Yes
Progressive: No
Free Rounds: Free Spins
Max Multiplier: 5,000x
Max Win: $350,000
Published by
BitStarz, award-winning Bitcoin Casino
