‘Club Tropicana’ has to be one of the best two-word combinations for conjuring mental pictures of an endlessly festive establishment where everyone is cheerful, carefree, and up for anything. Pragmatic Play and its affiliate Reel Kingdom have released a video slot game with the same name as the 1983 Wham! hit song, which has also been used to name at least one hotel and many nightclubs. While the music and visuals of Club Tropicana are fun, the game itself is not particularly innovative. Because Club Tropicana is a carbon copy of Bigger Bass Blizzard, both games share features such as a collecting money symbol and a free spins round in which collecting wild symbols results in a multiplication of the player’s initial wager.
Let’s start with a query. Is there a name for the guy with the sunglasses and beard who seems to have been in every Bass-related starting role? If not, he has certainly worked hard enough to merit one. This guy seems to be the bartender at Club Tropicana, however he has been seen reeling in fish elsewhere. He bobbles from side to side, shaking drinks now and then, as palm trees and other vegetation wave on the opposite side of the grid. The addition of a jazzy soundtrack makes Club Tropicana a pleasant place to relax for a while; it’s corny, but in a nice manner, and despite the inverted theme, it’s clearly related to Big Bass. It’s possible the link was purely psychological, though.
In the introduction, we used the term “straight clone,” and it was no exaggeration. In contrast to its predecessor, Bigger Bass Blizzard, this game is mechanically identical to Bigger Bass Bonanza. For one, the maximum RTP while playing regularly or utilizing the Ante Bet is 96.08%, reducing to 96.07% when purchasing free spins, and the math model is equally erratic (ranked 5 out of 5). Activating the Ante Bet, which boosts scatter by 50%, raises the cost to £/€240 each spin, making for a very odd range of betting options.
Club Tropicana may be accessed from any digital platform, and it has a 5×4 grid with 12 fixed paylines. Generally, on an active payline, payouts occur from left to right beginning with the first reel. Cherries, lemons, oranges, plums, and watermelons are the game’s lows, while a pool ring, a cocktail, cocktail umbrellas, and a pouring drink are its highs. When you get a low pay combination of five of a type, you get 10 times your wager; when you get a high pay combination, you get 50 to 200 times your bet. When money symbols appear, their payouts range from 2x to 4x the wager. If a winning payline consists entirely of Money symbols, the payout is the sum of their individual values.
Slot Machine Features in Club Tropicana
The scatter symbol, represented by the grouping of three glasses, appears on all five reels. Free games are triggered by getting 3, 4, or 5 scattered anywhere on the board. If 2 scatters occur in the base game, the third scatter may be dragged into view by a hook.
Wild symbols appear more frequently during free games. Wilds can be used in place of other pay symbols to create more viable winning combinations. Each wild symbol that is in view at the same moment will gather the value of any Money symbols that have landed. When wild symbols fall, you may collect them, too. Free spins and multipliers for all Money symbol totals are increased by one for every four wilds amassed. For the first retrigger, the multiplier is x2, for the second retrigger, x3, and for the third retrigger, x10. When the current round of free spins concludes, the triggering event is replayed with the corresponding multiplier active. There is a hard limit of three retriggers. In addition, after a free spin, Money symbols may be added to random cells if there were either one or two wild symbols on the board. Wild and Money symbols can also be revealed by pushing up reels at the end of a spin.
Finally, when available, free spins may be purchased for 100 times the initial wager. Three, four, or five scatters may appear on a triggering spin for a fee.
Club Tropicana: The Slots’ Final Say
The proverb “make hay while the sun shines” comes to mind. You can get a little more money out of the cash cow by using Club Tropicana, Reel Kingdom, and Pragmatic Play. Players who adore the Big/Bigger Bass series are likely to find Club Tropicana entertaining as well. Since this game is a straight transfer of Bigger Bass Blizzard, fishing—or more accurately, catching fish—is once again on the menu. The inverse is also correct. Club Tropicana follows the same formula as the rest of the Bass films, so if you’re sick of the genre, you should probably avoid it.
Since the release of Big Bass Bonanza in late 2020, millions of people have loved the Big/Bigger Bass theme that the slot machine employs. A pleasant surprise, despite seeming like a very simplistic Fishin’ Frenzy ripoff. But it connected with the audience, and here we are at Club Tropicana for a repeat performance following multiple follow-ups. No mechanical or numerical changes have been made, including the 4,000x win ceiling, so Bass enthusiasts will know exactly what to anticipate if they decide to stock up on Club Tropicana.
The Big/Bigger Bass slot machine collection is so often played that a detailed explanation of how it works is probably unnecessary. Newcomers may be assured, however, that the numerous offerings from Pragmatic Play/Reel Kingdom in the vein of Fishin’ Frenzy are as excellent as it gets in terms of Money symbol collection gameplay. Anyone who is tired of waiting around Club Tropicana may call it a night, while those who are eager to earn Money symbols can get ready for another Bass-style party.