Fish Tales Jingle Bass

Fish Tales Jingle Bass: Slot Overview

So monumentally unstoppable is Pragmatic Play's Big Bass range that it can sometimes feel like it's the final word in online fishing slots. However, there are plenty of other casino game makers dangling worms before angling-oriented gamblers. One such developer is Booming Games, the author of a burgeoning range of its own, possessing the words Fish Tales in the title. The studio has even designed one for the Christmas season, built off of Fish Tales Monster Bass, and reformed it as Fish Tales Jingle Bass. In this angling slot, players can expect to find fish money symbol collection, including a full reel Christmas Bass that likes a bit of push and pull as it nudges up and down its reel before hopefully adding a juicy catch to lucky gamblers' nets, or slipping back into the deeps.

The background is a lot more detailed than Monster Bass was, not to mention a heck of a lot colder. To celebrate the season, Booming Games has crafted a frozen patch of water that'll need to be busted through in order to haul out fish from beneath the icy layer. Symbols of Christmas dot the screen, a bauble here, a Santa hat there, while a jolly jingling tune plays from the speakers. Santa gets into the mix too (or at least a guy dressed as Santa). If it's him, then he's taken a day off from overseeing present production to appear as the fisherman symbol, which is needed to collect fish money symbol values. This he can do in the base game and the bonus round, which takes place in the same spot, but at night, blanketed by a glowing aurora in the sky. It all adds up to Christmas at a frozen lake charm.

Gaming takes place on a 5-reel grid, with 3 rows of symbols and 20 paylines evaluating winning combinations. The volatility is medium/high, while the RTP clocks in at 96.1%. Players may choose a stake of $/€0.20 to $/€100, and if activating the Boost+, the stake increases by 50% to benefit from a higher chance of triggering all features.

The pay symbol consists of 10-A minors, then worms, rods, wreaths, baskets, and boat majors. A winning combination of 5 matching royals pays 5x the bet, and a 5 OAK premium symbol win pays 10x to 100x the bet. The fisherman symbol is wild, so it substitutes all symbols except fish or scatters. 

Fish Tales Jingle Bass: Slot Features

The features that Fish Tales Jingle Bass dangles as bait are the Fish Collect, Big Net, Value Add, Barrel Boost, free spins, and feature buys.

Fish Collect 

Fish symbols can land as normal, gold, or Christmas Bass, with values of 0.25x to 1,000x the bet. Each fisherman symbol on the reels collects the values of fish in view. The Big Net may appear in the base game to collect all fish symbols on the reels. The Value Add feature may also trigger in the base game to add fish symbols where the fisherman symbol has already landed.

Barrel Boost

Each scatter that lands in the base game is collected in the pot above the reels with a chance to trigger it. It can activate on any spin, adding extra scatters to the reels to trigger free spins. The accumulation of scatters in the barrel over time and its appearance does not affect the chance of getting free spins.

Free Spins

Hitting 3, 4, or 5 scatters awards 10, 15, or 20 free spins. During the round, the Fish Collect and Christmas Bass features are available. Each fisherman symbol that lands is collected. Collecting 4 fisherman symbols awards +5 free spins each time. Up to 15 extra free spins can be awarded.

The Christmas Bass is a cash symbol 3 positions high that lands fully in view with a value of 50x to 1,000x the bet. It only appears in free spins. It is collected by the fisherman symbol when it is fully in view. The Christmas Bass nudges down 1 position after each spin when it is not collected and nudges up by 1 position each time a fisherman symbol lands. If two or more fisherman symbols land, the Christmas Bass is collected only once.

Feature Buys

The two feature buys are a free spins trigger for 75x or free spins with Christmas Fish guaranteed to appear for 100x the stake. 

Fish Tales Jingle Bass: Slot Verdict

Fish Tales Jingle Bass is a festive reworking of Booming Games' Fish Tales Monster Bass, bringing back the fisherman-led fish collection mechanics with a suitably wintry makeover. While the Christmas setting gives the game a splash of seasonal charm, the underlying gameplay will feel immediately recognisable to anyone who has tried its predecessor or, broadly speaking, a number of other fishing-themed slots. That is not necessarily a bad thing, as the combination of fish money symbols, fisherman collector symbols and retriggerable free spins could be an appealing proposition for certain keen angling gamblers, even if it is not exactly an original one.

Players do benefit from being able to collect fish symbols in the base game as well as the bonus round, and side extras like the Big Net and Value Boost help prevent Fish Tales Jingle Bass from being a totally one-sided affair. However, free spins are where the oversized Christmas Bass gives the bonus round a hook, which can produce amusing tugs-of-war when the symbol nudges down, fisherman symbols nudge it up, and so on, till it falls off the grid or gets caught. Have to say not adding an increasing multiplier when the round retriggers might be a contentious decision. Some gamblers may not mind; some may be rueing the omission, even if Fish Tales Jingle Bass seeks to compensate in other ways.

Even without the multis, Fish Tales Jingle Bass comes with a win cap of 5,000x the bet, which is the sort of respectable amount you'd expect from a game like this. It gives players a worthwhile target to aim for, though reaching anything close to the maximum will likely require a particularly productive haul. All in all, there isn't much originality in Fish Tales Jingle Bass being a reskin and all, but that doesn't stop it from being a cheerful catch for the Christmas season, even if it doesn't land the biggest fish in the pond.