Great Blue Slot – Free Demo

The 5x3 grid Great Blue never leaves

Great Blue's free spins hand out two picks from a row of five sea shells, and those picks set both how many spins you get and the multiplier they run at. Playtech concluded it would be a sound step to craft yet another slot constructed on the plainest possible arrangement. The only feature layered on top of it is the Sea Shells Bonus. The cause is only familiar to them. Dolphin Reef and Safari Heat are Playtech line games built on the same 5x3 frame, the first over 20 lines and the second over 15. The traditional 5 by 3 arrangement is admittedly enjoyable every now and then, and I'm certain some gamblers adore it. Above the card ranks sit the shark, the turtle, the seahorse, the starfish and the butterfly fish. But examining what's in demand right now, the arrangement is hopelessly dated.

So how does Great Blue hold up? I wagered 1,725.00 finding out. That's what I'm going to discover.

This Playtech driven slot arrives with 5 reels, 3 rows and 25 pay lines. Only the highest win counts on each line, and line wins are multiplied by the line bet rather than the total stake. All of them pay left to right only, and it has been present since June 2013. The two shell picks are the only point in the game where it asks you to do anything other than spin. The 96.03% RTP is about what you'd anticipate. My balance peaked at 956.75 on spin 40, roughly 124 above where it started. The hit rate I recorded isn't much better - across my own session only 24% of spins paid anything at all, and nearly half of those paid under the stake. The longest stretch without a win was 22 spins, and it was the stretch that finished the session off.

The game does a fair job of evoking the vibrant atmosphere of the open sea, and the animations played above the reel set are a pleasant addition that helps to heighten the overall feeling of being somewhere deep and blue, while the underwater background is motionless.

Shark, turtle and the whale that doubles them

Symbols on the reels comprise the high paying shark and turtle, alongside the butterfly fish at 400, and the shell scatter. Underneath them come the seahorse and the starfish, then the A, K, Q, 10 and 9 that fill out the rest of the reel. Both the shark and the turtle pay 750 for five across a pay line. The seahorse and the starfish share a level of their own, with the butterfly fish between them and the top pair. The scatter pays anywhere in view. Two shells already return something; three or more start the bonus.

The killer whale wild plays a key role in the game, and it substitutes for everything except the scatter and doubles all wins it takes part in. That doubling covers the card ranks as well as the fish. So the shark and the turtle are worth 1 500 when a whale finishes the line. It cannot stand in for the shell, so a whale never helps trigger the feature. Five wilds on a line is the highest pay in the game at 10 000. That one asks for five whales on the same line and nothing else on it.

Eight free spins before the shells are picked

The Sea Shells Bonus is triggered by a grouping of three or more shell symbols anywhere on the reels, with 8 free spins and an x2 multiplier on everything the spins pay. The multiplier is running before the first free spin turns, so there's nothing to build up. The game then asks for 2 of 5 sea shells. The picking happens once, on entry, and what it hands over stands for the rest of the run. These grant additional free spins and/or a larger multiplier - all the way up to 33 free spins, or up to x15. Reaching either ceiling needs both picks pulling the same way.

Three or more scatters during the free spins retrigger it, so it's also feasible to keep the feature running, and if so happens, 15 more free spins are granted at the same multiplier. That's almost twice what the bonus opens with. There's no cap on how often that can occur.

Final Minty Score: 138 spins at a 12.50 stake returned 900.00 against the 1,725.00 that went through, and 362.50 of that came back on spin 33. The shells never opened, so the 8 free spins and the x2 they start at are the game's own account of the feature rather than anything I watched run.

138 spins without a shell trigger

The question was, how does it hold up? I ran 138 spins at a 12.50 stake and never saw a single shell trigger. The largest win of the run landed on spin 33, 362.50 or 29.0x the stake, which put the balance at 939.25. Considering I ended the session with a 52.2% return and a balance down from 833.00 to 8.00, I have to say the session was a poor one. Of the 900.00 that came back over the whole session, more than a third of it arrived on that one spin.

Although it's quite possible that it will float someone else's boat, regrettably, Great Blue didn't stir my senses.