The Great Show Slot Review
You're on a boat at the bottom of Niagara Falls, and you look up to see a Frenchman on a tightrope who’s stopped halfway to make breakfast. 🍳 That was a dude named Charles Blondin.
One crossing wasn't enough for him. He went back blindfolded, then on stilts, then pushing a wheelbarrow, then with his manager Harry Colcord riding on his back.
On omelet day, he lit a little stove halfway over, cooked his eggs, and lowered them down to the passengers on the sightseeing boat ⛴️, Maid of the Mist.
The Great Show slot from [Backseat Gaming(https://www.bitstarz.com/games/backseatgaming) puts on what might also be considered a balancing act. If anything gets lowered down to me, I'd like it to be a fat stack of greenbacks. 💵
Gameplay
There are no boats, or waterfalls in this game. Instead, we have a wooden stage - circus style - and a ringmaster (is that what they’re called?) with a snake oil salesman smile on his face to the right.
The grid is 5x5 with 15 paylines, 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 96.01%, volatility is very high, and the max multiplier is 20,000x. The max win is $320,000, with bets running from $0.10 to $16. Oh, and btw, the Japanese yen didn’t get a ticket to this show.
Down at the bottom of the paytable, the 10 symbol, J and Q all pay 0.1x for 3 and 0.5x for 4. Land 5 and they split up a little: 1x, 1.2x and 1.5x, respectively. The K pays 0.2x, 1x and 2x for 3, 4 and 5, and the A pays 0.3x, 1.2x and 2.5x.
The high-paying symbols are a step up, if not a big one. The Balloon pays 1.2x, 3.5x and 7x, the Diamond 1.5x, 5x and 10x, the Star 2x, 6x and 12x, and the Heart tops the regular crowd at 2.5x, 7.5x and 15x.
The Wild substitutes for all regular symbols and it pays 20x if you land 5 of them.
The Ringmaster pays the same 20x for 5, but he's the base game's real act. When he lands, he expands into a full Ringmaster Wild Reel that acts as a Wild and substitutes for all symbols in the paytable.
And when that Wild Reel joins a winning combination, every square on the reel gets highlighted. Hang on to that detail, because highlighted squares are where the game keeps its money.
Features
CANNON FEATURE:
This is the engine of the entire slot. Every win highlights the squares behind the winning symbols, and if a Cannon symbol is on the grid, it activates those highlighted squares once the winning combinations have been paid.
The Cannon only fires on a spin that already produced a win, and only 1 Cannon can land per spin. It doesn't pay anything by itself, so bear this in mind.
Once it fires, the lit squares reveal Present symbols, and each Present reveals a multiplier. Those get added to a total multiplier one by one, top to bottom, then left to right.
A Blue Present can carry 2x, 3x, 4x or 5x. A Green Present holds 10x or 25x, and a Red Present holds 50x or 100x.
At the end, the total multiplier is applied to the Total Win before it's paid. All wins pile into that Total Win above the grid while they wait for any multipliers, and it gets paid out at the end of every spin.
The Presents stack into one sum rather than multiplying each other, so a board full of Blues makes a decent number.
FREE SPINS:
The Bonus symbol is how you get into this feature. It only shows up in the base game, 1 can land per reel, and it pays nothing, so its whole job is opening the door. How many you land determines which of the 2 rounds you get.
Gift Box Frenzy
Land 3 Bonus symbols and you get 10 Free Spins. All the base game mechanics come along, plus one change: highlighted squares stay lit until the Cannon feature activates them.
So a win that didn't get a Cannon isn't wasted anymore. Those squares sit there waiting for the next one to show up.
The Great Gift
Land 4 Bonus symbols for 10 Free Spins here too, with all the base game mechanics. The difference is that highlighted squares stay lit for the entire bonus game.
Why does that matter? The Cannon doesn't use them up, so the board keeps filling, and every Cannon after that gets more squares to fire at. The round ends after 10 spins.
BUY BONUS AND ANTE BET:
There are 3 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. modes, charged on every spin. Bonus Boost costs 2x and makes triggering a bonus 3 times more likely. Carnival Spins costs 30x and guarantees 1 Cannon symbol per spin, though winning combinations aren't guaranteed.
Scatter Spins costs 50x per spin and guarantees at least 2 Bonus symbols land. The menu labels all 3 modes as High Volatility.
Then there are the 2 Buy Bonus options. Gift Box Frenzy costs 100x, carries a High Volatility rate, and gives you 10 spins where highlighted squares stay lit until a Cannon fires them.
The Great Gift costs 400x for 10 spins with highlights that last the whole round. This is Medium Volatility.
Performance
The only thing that plummeted to the earth was my hope of winning enough money to buy myself that dream trailer park house. But that’s not the game’s fault. The software worked like a charm, though.
Maximum Win
Put the max multiplier of 20,000x on the $16 top bet and the max win is $320,000. The minimum bet is $0.10.
Conclusion
The money lives in the Cannon feature.
Free Spins is where things get interesting, because lit squares don't go dark between Cannons. The Ringmaster Wild Reel helps a lot too, since one win with him lights a whole reel of 5 squares at once.
Here's my own math on the top prize. So, 25 squares times a 100x Red Present is a 2,500x total multiplier, and that's if every square is lit and every Present comes up Red on the same shot.
And 20,000x divided by 2,500x is 8, so even that perfect board needs a Total Win of at least 8x on the spin to hit the max multiplier. Realistically that only happens in The Great Gift.
On the 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. modes, Bonus Boost is the one I'd run. Paying double for 3 times the Free Spins chance means each trigger costs you about 2/3 of what it does at the normal bet, and that's a good deal for anyone chasing the round.
Carnival Spins is a pass. Each spin buys a Cannon but not a win. The Cannon only fires on a winning spin, so that price can come up totally empty.
Scatter Spins is a pass too. Each spin guarantees 2 Bonus symbols on a round that needs 3, so you're still sitting there waiting for the third one.
The Gift Box Frenzy buy is a fair price for a Free Spins buy.
The Great Gift costs 4 times that for whole-round highlights, and with its Medium Volatility, it's the steadier buy for a big bankroll, plus the one the max multiplier path actually runs through.
Slot Details
Game Provider: [Backseat Gaming(https://www.bitstarz.com/games/backseatgaming)
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.: 15
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.: 96.01%
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: No
Progressive: No
Free Rounds: Free Spins
Max Multiplier: 20,000x
Max Win: $320,000
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BitStarz, award-winning Bitcoin Casino
