Pond of Plinko Slot Review

Pond of Plinko takes its pond theme seriously, as seen through its finely painted visual style. The reels are set on the wall’s of a gnome’s house that’s surrounded by water. Here you’ll find the symbols making the slot. There’s the bearded gnome with an ornate shell on his head, together with three carved faces wearing shells in red, blue, and green as hats. The final set of paying symbols are three pebble patterns in purple, yellow, and green. 

When it comes to bonus symbols, Pond of Plinko only has one. The reels lack a wild, and all you’ll find is the scatter. This is a pearl with a number underneath, and landing 3 or more of these will trigger this slot’s special feature. Add some suitably plinky music and you’ll get quite the idyllic setting for what is, ultimately, a volatile and exciting game.

• Gnome: 3 -  1x / 4 - 5x / 5 - 200x
• Red shell: 3 - 0.5x / 4 - 3x / 5 - 25x
• Blue shell: 3 - 0.4x / 4 - 2x / 5 - 10x
• Green shell: 3 - 0.2x / 4 - 1x / 5 - 5x
• Purple pebbles: 3 - 0.1x / 4 - 0.6x / 5 - 3x
• Yellow, green pebbles: 3 - 0.1x / 4 - 0.5x / 5 - 2.5x

Pond of Plinko features two bonus features, one triggered randomly and the other by landing three or more scatters. The River Prize feature awards you with a cash prize of up to 10,000x the stake, but the Plinko round is where this game gets truly involved. Let’s take a closer look at these then, shall we? 

River Prize

The reels of Pond of Plinko might end up flooded after any random spin. This reveals prizes that can be worth up to 10,000x your bet. Following that balls drop, and each ball dropping in a hole will increase its prize meter. You’ll get a prize once its meter is full, after which the round ends and you’ll return to the regular, non-watery reels. 

Plinko Bonus

The Plinko round is what gives this slot series its name, and this game’s version is the most elaborate yet. You can trigger this by landing 3 or more scatters, which you’ll notice each hold a number. You can actually reroll your scatters before the round starts for a chance at bigger numbers, which is desirable since this is key for the Enhancer Round. 

The Enhancer round, as the name suggests, is a chance to unlock enhancements for the actual Plinko round. You get a number of pearls equal to the total of the numbers on the triggering scatters which are then dropped down a board filled with bumpers. As the pearls hit the bumpers they fill the meters that award you with an enhancer once full. There are 6 different types of enhancer, and you can get up to 3 to use in the Plinko round: 

• Bumper Buckets - Transforms the two centre prize buckets into bumpers. If a ball lands in a bumper bucket it is returned to the top. 
• Golden Ball - Adds two Golden Pockets to the board. If a ball lands in a Golden Pocket you’ll be awarded with a golden ball that can bring you bigger prizes to use at the end of the round. 
• Extra Drops - Awards you with up to 7 extra drops. 
• Progressive Prize Buckets - 2 random buckets get a multiplier that boosts the prize inside every time a ball drops in them. 
• Enhanced Prize Bucket - Boosts the prize of a random bucket by 10x. 
• Barriers - Activates two barriers on the left- and right-hand sides of the board that force balls to slice towards the sides. 

Once the Enhancer Round ends you get to the Plinko round proper. You get 10 balls to drop on the peg board, which has 15 buckets in the bottom with prizes ranging from 0.1x to 1,000x the bet. Notice the three blue bumpers in the middle? When balls hit these they’ll boost the progress bar with the gnome on top of the board. If the gnome reaches the end of the progress bar then you’ll get another round of Plinko, up to a maximum of rounds! The progress bar also holds your unlocked enhancers, which will be activated on their respective round. This way the Plinko round ends once you run out of balls and fail to unlock the next round, after which you’ll be awarded with the total prize collected from the buckets.

Print Studios’ two previous Plinko slots - Pine of Plinko and its sequel, Pine of Plinko 2 - were great surprises that remain hugely playable to this day, so we were delighted to see a next entry in the series. Admittedly we did think that these games’ shine might have dulled a bit over successive releases, but we’re very glad to report that’s not the case. 

While the slot part of the game is a bit standard with its 5 reels, 3 rows, and 20 paylines, the game gets truly brilliant during the Plinko round. The Enhancer round is a great touch, and the chance to unlock more rounds of this game will surely get the adrenaline going! This is a perfect slot for the thrill seekers, although the 96.10% RTP did end up docking it a point from the final score. Still, if you want to try something different that comes complete with big win potential of up to 30,000x the stake, then Pond of Plinko is hard to beat.

Rating: 9.0