Big Boom Riches

Big Boom Riches: Slot Overview

The gold mining theme proves irresistible to developers once again, and this time it is Just For The Win leading players underground to scour for the stuff. It's a risky choice; on the one hand, you've got designers like Nolimit City blowing the genre wide apart with games like Fire in the Hole xWays, or Big Time Gaming with their timeless classic Bonanza, and others who churn out more generic gaming that barely raises an eyebrow. Let's not name any names. Big Boom Riches sits in the middle of the scale somewhere, being neither great nor a write-off. If you're keen on swinging a pickaxe at some rocks in the hopes of striking pay dirt, read on.

The game starts off a little differently than most, where the base game takes place above ground in a pastel rich environment bearing a strong North American feel. The prospector reinforces this notion as well. Not only do players get a stereotypical gold miner, all floppy hat, big white beard, overalls and one remaining tooth on the reels. He also comments on the action throughout, kicking off the game by pronouncing 'Welcome miners, a fine day for gold', or something like that through a friendly Southern drawl. Other audio includes a toe-tapping banjo led number, creating an enjoyable audio-visual experience on the whole.

One thing that's perhaps not so great is the diminutive size of the 5-reel, 3-row game grid, absolutely dwarfed by the mountainous background. Lining the grid are 20 betways where players land winning combinations of three or more matching symbols across. Wins occur at a rate of around 1 in 4 spins, or 27.34%, while the default RTP value is 96.06% - though it can be found low, so it pays to check. Just For The Win have branded the math model highly volatile, with the max win coming from a scatter feature awarding bigger prizes the more you can collect.

When winning combinations hit, they set off the Rolling Reels feature, which removes the winning symbols, allowing new ones to drop into the gaps. With Rolling Reels, it's possible to link consecutive wins from a single spin, only stopping when no new win lands and no TNT Wilds or X-Wilds are present. Eight symbols make up the game's paytable. Half are J-A royals; half are purple, green, orange, and pink gems – this latter group is worth a payout of 3 to 15 times the stake.

Big Boom Riches: Slot Features

Wilds play a critical role in Big Boom Riches for a number of reasons, partly because they are used to trigger instant cash prizes. There are 3 of them - a regular wild, an X-Wild, and a TNT Wild. All substitute any pay symbol to complete a win and possess the same values as the top premium. When TNT Wilds or X-Wilds land, they also explode, removing any adjacent symbols, triggering Rolling Reels.

In the base game, when 3 or more TNT Wilds land during a cascade (Rolling Reels) sequence, they award a cash prize. The value of the prize is between 1x to 5,000x the bet when 3 - 12 of them land in view.

The prospector chap appears on the scatter symbols, and when 3, 4, or 5 hit, 9 free spins are awarded, plus a payout of 2, 20, to 100 times the stake. During free spins, scatters land, but they do not pay. Instead, they award +1 free spin each. The bonus round begins with a win multiplier of x1, which increases by one for every X-Wild that lands throughout the feature.

Lastly, it may be possible to buy free spins rather than trigger them organically. If permissible, the cost is 50 times the stake to land three scatters symbols on the following spin.

Big Boom Riches: Slot Verdict

Big Boom Riches is a melting pot of influences from all over the place. First, there's the theme which is about as common as it gets in a slot. Some, like Fire in the Hole xWays, get away with it because they add something new to the mix. You can actually feel some of that game in Big Boom Riches due to the way wilds explode to clear symbols and trigger Rolling Reels. Big Boom Riches kind of gets away with it as well for a few reasons: the presentation is alright, it doesn’t all take place in a mine shaft, and the chatty miner adds personality.

However, Big Boom Riches is also quite closely related to Just For The Win's 'Gold' range of slots due to its collect symbols to trigger an instant prize feature. In many ways, it's a 'Gold' slot in all but name. The difference being, you get cascades to collect scatters rather than accrue them via a streak respin bonus round. When it comes to how much you can actually win, 5,000x the bet is a healthy total, putting it beneath Elven Gold or Emerald Gold, though above slots like 9 Masks of Fire, the game that helped sparked the scatter collection/instant prize trend in modern times.

Positives in Big Boom Riches include the trio of wilds which all do something different, the graphics are quite nice, and the exploding symbols are kind of neat. You get the feeling it's all been done before, though, denting desirability. If you're well keen on the theme or like the idea of playing alongside a mouthy miner, you'll probably enjoy your trip down the shaft. If not, there are stronger examples of both the theme and scatters leading to instant prize features out there.