Pond of Plinko

Pond of Plinko: Slot Overview

Plinko is a game where balls fall from the top of a screen, bounce their way down, hitting pins before landing in prize buckets at the bottom. Simple, entertaining, kinda plain? Well, not if your name is Print Studios, because the casino game maker revolutionised the format in cutely lethal slots, Pine of Plinko and Pine of Plinko 2, and is set to revolutionise it further in the third instalment, Pond of Plinko. The way it has done so is by adding a pre-Plinko bonus Enhancer Game where players may collect multiple power-ups, as well as fine-tuning the math model based on in-house data and player feedback to make the game, in its words 'more action-packed and dynamic.'

Magically enchanting was the phrase that sprang to mind when beholding Pond of Plinko's game world. All of Print's Plinko slots have been really, from the living in a pine cone type thing of the original release to the snow pine cone cuckoo clock of the sequel, to Pond of Plinko's dwellings near the mountains aquatic environment. It's all just so darn charming, on the outside, and it can be charming financially, but also brutal, depending on how those balls and pearls be dropping.

Pond of Plinko is split between a reel-based main game and a Plinko board bonus round. The base game gets a 5x3 gaming grid with 20 paylines, which creates winning combinations from the leftmost reel onwards. The math model is 10 out of 10 for volatility, so it's as high as it gets, while the default RTP comes in at 96.1% to 96.49%, depending on how players re-roll the number on each landed scatter (this will make sense soon). When choosing stakes, the bet range is 10 c to $/€30 per spin.

Swirly whirly shapes in green, yellow, and purple colours are Pond of Plinko's low pays, awarding players 2.5 to 3 times their bet for a 5 OAK hit. Up from them are 4 character symbols paying 5 to 200 times the bet for a 5-matching symbol win. Pond of Plinko does not deploy any wild symbols on its reels.

Pond of Plinko: Slot Features

Joining Pond of Plinko's main Plinko Bonus round is a base game River Prize Feature, an Enhancer Game, 6 Enhancers, and feature buys.

River Prize Feature

On any spin, water may flood the reels and reveal prizes worth up to 10,000x. When a ball lands in one of the holes, its prize meter increases. When a prize meter is full, it awards its prize and the feature ends. Possible prizes range from 10x to 10,000x.

Plinko Bonus & Enhancer Game

Landing at least 3 scatter symbols triggers the Plinko Bonus. Scatter symbols display a number, and the sum of the numbers determines the number of pearls available in the Enhancer Game. Before continuing, players have the choice of re-rolling the number on each scatter for a displayed cost. Now, the Enhancer Game determines how many Enhancers will be available in the Plinko Game. Pressing or holding the button drops pearls. When pearls hit a bumper, the corresponding meter increases. When a meter is filled, +1 Enhancer is granted. When the drops have ended, the Plinko Game starts.

Enhancers

Pond of Plinko has 6 types of Enhancers. Each collected Enhancer applies to one of the stages in the Plinko Game, and up to 3 Enhancers may be collected per stage.

• Bumper Buckets - transforms 2 of the centre prize buckets into bumpers. When a ball lands in a Bumper Bucket, it returns to the top.
• Golden Ball - activates 2 Golden Pockets on the board. If a ball lands in one of the pockets, a Golden Ball is awarded at the end of the stage. For the Golden Ball drop, a single ball drops, and all buckets have higher prizes of up to 10,000x.
• Extra Drops - up to 7 extra drops are awarded.
• Progressive Prize Buckets - picks 2 random buckets and increases their multiplier by their initial value each time a ball drops into them.
• Enhanced Prize Buckets - multiplies 1 of the prize buckets by 10.
• Barriers - activates 2 barriers on the board, forcing balls towards the sides.

Plinko Game

The Plinko Game has 9 stages. Each stage starts with 10 drops, and when a ball lands in one of the 15 prize buckets at the bottom, the displayed prize is awarded. A meter at the top displays the available Enhancers, the stage progress and the current stage. The figure on each stage indicator indicates how many balls will be released per drop on that stage. The number of balls doubles per drop when moving to a new stage up to 256 per drop.

Hitting a bumper in the centre of the board progresses the progress bar. When the progress bar is filled, the next available stage is unlocked. When all drops in the current stage are used, the next unlocked stage begins, or if there are no more unlocked stages, the Plinko Bonus ends.

Feature Bet

The Feature Bet has these options players may select: Scatter Boost (1.2x the bet) - increases the frequency of triggering the Plinko Bonus by a factor of 50.05%, Enhanced Scatter Boost (2x the bet) - increases the frequency of triggering the Plinko Bonus by a factor of 239.36%, or Plinko Bonus (100x the bet).

Pond of Plinko: Slot Verdict

Well, hats off to Print Studios for taking what was already a hugely entertaining Plinko series and adding depth to make it a more nail-biting experience. The base game, well, you know, it's not the main reason players are here, yet it's not a bad warm-up session, and you never know; the River Prize Feature may trigger something decent, providing something to keep an eye out for. But, the Plinko Game bonus round is by far the main event, and the upgrades Print Studios has popped in have enhanced the feature in several ways.

It starts with the scatters themselves, and as in Pine of Plinko, they land displaying numbers. However, the numbers do not determine the number of drops in the Plinko feature but rather the number of drops in the Enhancer Game. The higher, the better, though maybe beware of slamming the bet button on each scatter too much because that can quickly rack up a deficit, with no guarantee you'll get a better result. Such is gambling, however, and there is a chance one of the larger numbers will appear. And having a big number of drops in the Enhancer Game and activating more Enhancers did appear to have a significant impact on the Plinko Game itself. Fun enhancers, too, each one playing a part in potentially boosting the final result. As in the previous two Plinko slots, the magic of Pond of Plinko is seeing masses of balls drop downwards, pounding bumpers to move to the next stage where there are even more balls to drop, and racking up a chunky winning total in the process.

Three Plinko games in a row might have been a tedious proposal if executed by a 'lesser' developer, for want of a better word. But, in the hands of Print Studios, Pond of Plinko takes what worked in the past, adds a bunch of exciting extras, and boosts the win cap out to 30,000x the bet to produce a thrilling, tantalising, possibly frustrating, potentially rewarding emotional roller coaster.