Jaguar Drop

Jaguar Drop: Slot Overview

Scatter-paying slots continue to mushroom through the online gambling realm like an unstoppable ooze, and its popularity has caught the attention of numerous casino game makers. One of those developers is Push Gaming, which first gave the mechanic a whirl in the retro-designed, pixelatedly presented scatter wins slot Rat King. A solid slot it was, too, but Push Gaming clearly wasn't done with the feature, as scatter wins drive the base game action of Jaguar Drop before sending players on a Tetris in reverse odyssey of Coins, special symbols, and multipliers when the bonus round has been triggered.

Jaguars reside throughout Central and South America, which is where players are flung when opening up the game. Push Gaming has put on a pleasing view, even if it's the sort of thing experienced players will have seen many times before. But, as mentioned, it's pleasing, and players are free to let their eyes wander over misty foliage, Aztec-style stonework, and, what is it, a sloth, maybe, hanging upside down from a tree branch; a nice touch.

Jaguar Drop is played on a 5x5 gaming grid with scatter wins and a cascade mechanic. Gamblers are able to wager 10 c to $/€100 per base game spin, and switching on the Push Bet adds 20% to the stake, increasing the chance of winning the feature by 55%. With the Push Bet off, Jaguar Drop has an RTP of 96.31% and is mathematically medium volatile.

Jaguar Drop creates a winning combination when at least 6 matching symbols are visible on the grid in any position. Winning symbols are removed and are replaced by dropping symbols as part of the cascade feature. For lows, Jaguar Drop has clubs, hearts, spades, and diamonds; for mediums 3 gem in stone shapes; and for highs, a frog, a monkey, and a jaguar. Scatter wins of 6-7 OAK award 0.3 to 2.5 times the bet, while a 15+ OAK gets you 20 to 500 times your bet. Wild symbols are present in the base game only, substituting for anything except Coin symbols.

Jaguar Drop: Slot Features

One main point of Jaguar Drop is to drop on into its free spins round, which is a hold 'n win game with twists, extra bells and whistles.

Coin Symbol & Second Chance

The Coin symbol is a scatter symbol. Hitting 6 or more Coin symbols in the base game triggers the free drops round. Coin symbols are also bet multipliers carrying values of 1x to 1,000x. When 4 or 5 Coin symbols are in view in the base game, the Second Chance feature may trigger at the end of the spin. When activated, the Second Chance feature removes all pay symbols and wilds from the reels and cascades again.

Free Drops

The Free Drops feature is triggered when 6 or more Coin symbols land in the base game. The round always begins with 6 free drops and contains Coin, Boost, Heart, and Collector symbols. All of the triggering Coins start the bonus at the bottom of the reels. On each free drop, one Coin, Boost, Heart, or Collector symbol is dropped onto the reels. These symbols are available only in the Free Drops round:

• Boost Symbol - applies a multiplier of x2, x3, or x5 to adjacent Coins. Each multiplier acts independently of each other.
• Heart Symbol - awards an extra life, retriggering the feature when the free spins count goes to 0. After a life is awarded, the Heart turns into a random Coin.
• Collector Symbol - becomes the total value of all other Coin symbols that form part of a complete row. Collectors are also Coin symbols and cannot land if an entire row has not been completed.

Completing a whole row with symbols resets the free drop count to 6. Completing 4 full rows activates an x2 multiplier, which increases as more rows are completed. The possible multiplier values are x2-x5, x8, x10, x15, and x20. When the free spins count reaches zero, and no extra lives have been awarded, the total of all Coin symbols in completed rows is awarded along with the highest achieved multiplier. When the grid has symbols in all available positions, the max win is awarded.

Jaguar Drop: Slot Verdict

Jaguar Drop might start off fairly conventionally, that is, as a scatter wins slot with a basic base game covered in a Central/South American theme, albeit a pleasant-looking one. As an aside, the sound symbols make as they drop on the reels like bricks clinking together is particularly satisfying, too. And for a while, that's how it is. The base game is quite vanilla, though Jaguar Drop does have wild symbols, which are often omitted from scatter-paying slots, so it's a case of hacking away through regular spins on the hunt for a 6+ Coin bonus round trigger. The Push Bet came in handy here since, on an unofficial eyeball basis, the Free Drops round did seem to trigger quite often when it was switched on.

Then you're in, and the Free Drops round brought back thoughts of previous Push Gaming slots like DJ Cat or DJ Fox with their Push-Up mechanic working its way up the reels and pulling in multipliers. There were also memory links to Nailed It! Games' climbing the reels slots Rome Supermatch or Grim Reaper Supermatch. Though to be clear, Jaguar Drop is by no means a copy of any of those games. Pushing the metaphor further, Jaguar Drop delivers a Tetris-type bonus round, except you don't want to clear symbols off the reels but rather grow them ever upwards, not only building a larger Coin win pot but accessing higher multipliers (when rows are complete) in the process. Make it all the way to the top, filling all positions, and the 10,000x max win payout is yours.

According to the docs, Jaguar Drop is targeted at UK players, which would explain why it's so light on gambling options compared to a lot of Push Gaming slots. Bonus buys are gone, pre-feature gambles are non-existent, and so on. Jaguar Drop isn't exactly one of Push Gaming's genre-defining releases, but what it's got is a simple base game bolstered by a uniquely enjoyable bonus round.