Penguins Christmas Party Time

Penguins Christmas Party Time: Slot Overview

Maybe not known for celebrating the festive season, penguins nevertheless are busting out the eggnog and mistletoe for Pragmatic Play and Reel Kingdom's seasonal slot Penguins Christmas Party Time. Since most penguins reside in the Southern Hemisphere, players used to hanging with Rudolph and Santa in the snow while having a spin can enjoy pretending they're down under for a change, throwing another shrimp on the barbie since it is summertime in that part of the world at Christmas. While there, gamblers can also enjoy, or try to enjoy, a feature-free base game and a bonus round with three modifying features to choose from.

If anything, this party does look loud on account of the stacks of speakers resting on either side of the gaming grid. Suppose if the rage-up is taking place in Antarctica (or thereabouts) there won't be too many neighbours to annoy with any late-night doof doof tunes shaking their houses about. The rest of what can be seen in the background is in-season party stuff - decorations and so forth. The penguins look happy, too, so the melted ice has clearly been flowing for a while, or whatever it is that penguins consume when they're celebrating.

This penguin party is held on a 5x3 matrix, with 25 paylines lining up winning combinations from the leftmost reel onwards. Showing a 5 out of 5 bolt of lightning rating on the payable means Penguins Christmas Party Time is a highly volatile shebang, knocking out an RTP of 96.54% (on the highest configuration) when betting 5 c to $/€250 per spin. For an extra 100% on the wager, players can activate the ante bet, which doubles the chance of triggering the free spins feature.

Ten to Ace card royals, shaped like twisted balloons, are Penguins Christmas Party Time lower paying symbols, awarding 0.8 to 2 times the bet for a 5 OAK hit. Up from them are 3 penguin symbols in various stages of partying it up, awarding 4x to a frankly astonishing 1,000x the bet for a 5 OAK winning line. Wilds have the same value as the highest pay symbol if making their own wins, as they are present on all reels. Otherwise, wilds substitute for all symbols except the scatter.

Penguins Christmas Party Time: Slot Features

The party doesn't really get started in Penguins Christmas Party Time till free spins are granted. Then, players pick 'n click to reveal a modifier for the round.

Free Spins

The scatter symbol hits on the leftmost, middle, and rightmost reel. When 3 scatters land, players get 10 free spins. Before free spins start, players pick 1 of 3 balloons to reveal a modifier for the feature:

• Snowball Booster - on each spin, random symbols in view get an x2 multiplier. Multipliers apply to winning combinations that pass through them. Multipliers multiply each other if more than 1 is part of the same win. Also, random reels may be marked with snow behind symbols. If all 5 reels are marked at the end of a spin, 10 extra free spins are awarded.
• Wild Party - on every spin, at least one random reel displays all wild symbols. This feature cannot be retriggered.
• Boogie Back - at the end of the initial 10 free spins, a wheel appears with a winning and a losing side, showing 10 free spins and a random multiplier of x2 to x8. If the wheel spins to reveal the winning side, the round is retriggered for 10 free spins, and all wins in this batch of free spins are multiplied by the multiplier. If it stops on the losing side, the round ends.

Bonus Buy

Those hoping to get amongst the penguins in the bonus round can buy entry to the feature at a cost of 100x their bet.

Penguins Christmas Party Time: Slot Verdict

It feels bad to say this, especially with all those smiling, happy penguin faces on display, but Penguins Christmas Party Time just wasn't that great. It was the sort of party you pop into for a while, politely say hi to the one or two faces you recognise, then quickly sneak out the back door and make a run for it. The base game is about as low-key as it gets, which can happen when a studio chooses not to inject extras, features, or modifiers into it. The session might well devolve into a case of spot the top premium symbol (or wild) since a full line of them will plant a 1,000x the bet win in your pocket.

That's pretty darn chunky for a single line win, and since 2 of the bonus round modifiers involve multipliers - up to x8 in the Boogie Back or multiplying multipliers in the Snowball Booster, then hey, there might be something to this game after all. Alas, not really; since a win cap of 2,000x the bet is the most anyone is going to squeeze out of this shindig. Shame because things were looking up after inspecting certain bonus rounds, only to be crushed by the low ball cap.

Ah well, those penguins look like they're having fun even if other guests at the party are wishing they were somewhere else. It's a funny game, in parts putting in the effort to keep gamblers entertained, in other ways hobbling its desirability through a tedious base game and unexciting win numbers.