I’ll be honest and say that the first thing I think about when I think of 1960s and the height of the Flowerpower movement, is not surfing. In fact, it would come pretty far down my list of things to do with the 1960s and the hippy generation. However that hasn’t stopped NetEnt coming up with a slot game that combines a beach/surfing theme with the height of flower power in their exciting new Wild Water slot.
The game is immediately recognisable as a NetEnt slot given the layout of the console, even though the subject matter of the slot is a little unusual. The game boasts a total of 5 reels with three symbols of each and the standard 20 fixed paylines in play on each spin. You can wager from Ā£0.20 up to a maximum bet of Ā£100 per spin depending on your bankroll and the jackpot is a somewhat small 500 coins, although you can win this jackpot across multiple paylines which radically increases the maximum size of a potential win.
On the reels you have a selection of symbols and not a playing card low symbol in sight. Ā There are five stacked Surfer symbols on the reels which offer a range of payouts from 4 coins up to 500 coins if you can land five of the Red Surfer symbols on all five reels stacked and remember, that win is for just one payline when you would activate the full 20 paylines with the largest possible win. There’s also a blue, green, yellow and orange surfer to accompany the red surfer and beyond that, the rest of the symbols on the slot are all allied to the key features of the game.
The highest value symbol is the golden surfer symbol which is only a single symbol and which offers payouts of 2,000 coins if you can land five on a payline.
Key Features
There are two base game bonus features you can trigger with the Wild Water slot. The first of these is the Surfs Up Bonus feature which is activated when you land any combination of surfers in full across the full five reels. When this occurs you earn a win of 20 times your stake. The Surf Team Bonus is a similar feature but this bonus is only triggered when you land one of each colour of surfer symbols stacked in full across all five reels. When you get this, you trigger a bonus of 200 times your stake, which is certainly not an amount to be sniffed at.
Helping you land wins in the base game is the Wild feature which is the Shark symbol. This symbol can substitute for any of the standard surfer symbols in the base game and the golden surfer symbol. The Wild symbol can appear on any of the symbols in the main game and is very helpful when trying to trigger wins when you have only bit parts of stacked surfer symbols on the reels, which is what happens on most spins.
The main feature which will give you better chance to win the higher value prizes available on the slot however is the Free Spins bonus round. To trigger this you need to land three, four or five of the surfer scatter symbol anywhere across the reels. That will trigger 15, 30 or 60 free spins respectively depending on how many of the scatters that you landed. Ā The free spins game is very similar to the base game when you play through it with one notable exception and that is that the Wild symbol during free spins becomes an Expanding Wild and when used in a winning payline will expand across the reel to create more winning paylines.
If you can land several of these Wild symbols on the reels during free spins then this is the main way to achieve some of the bigger value wins on the slot.
How to win at the Wild Water Slot
The key to achieving some of the bigger wins in the Wild Water slot are to try and hit the Free Spins game as often as possible. You do tend to win considerably more when the Free Spins round is triggered than in the base game, especially if you can land four or five of the scatter symbols on the reels. Those 30 or 60 free spins are so much more lucrative than 15 free spins. During the free spins bonus, if you can land multiple of the now Expanding shark Wild symbols then you can really start to earn some of the top prizes available on the slot.
The base game bonuses, particularly the two surfer bonuses are good ways to pick up some valuable wins in the base game while you play through to try and trigger the free spins bonus game but they are unlikely to give you the kind of returns you are looking for. However they are excellent for ‘topping up’ your account from time to time especially if you have played through a number of spins and not earned a decent sized win in a little while.
This is a medium variance slot in my view and it does benefit from a player that is able to play through a lot of spins and has patience enough to try and trigger the key bonus. That does require wagering smaller amounts to eke out your bankroll, but in the end, Wild Water can be worth it, especially if you can hit one of the bigger multiple payline wins during the free spins round.
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