ABOUT ICE JOKER SLOT
You’ll need your warmest clothes for this winter release from Play n Go. Alongside their Holiday Spirts Christmas slot, Ice Joker represents the Swedish game studio’s seasonal output for 2020. And this time they’re taking us to the North Pole, not to meet up with a Jolly Santa, but instead to stand under a starry night sky on the Arctic Tundra by the looks of things. It has smart graphics, but this slot will freeze your socks off just looking at it!
The action plays out on a very traditional set up of 5 reels and 3 rows, with 20 fixed paylines in play at all times. Despite its slick modern look this is old skool slots action. Wins are triggered by landing three or more matching icons on a payline from left to right and bets start at 20p per spin.
RTP, Variance and Top Payout
This is a medium variance slot, so the distribution of payouts is fairly regular, which will not please the high variance slot fanatics out there, but it will appeal to casual slots players. The top payout is a pretty modest 3,000x, not a blockbuster in today’s slots market, but the 96.23% RTP is sound enough. Overall, this is more of a crowd pleaser with a broad appeal than a specialist slot for big risk takers.  Â
Symbols and PaytableÂ
Ice Joker is a classic fruit machine in its essence, and all the icons that populate the reels are familiar, but with a frosty addition. Lower icons are represented by frosted Cherries, Lemons, Grapes, and Plums, delivering from 1.5x to 2.5x times the bet for five of a kind.
The Bar, Star and Lucky Seven represent the premium icons, and they will get you 5x, 10x, and 50x for the maximum combination of 5 on a line.
Look out as well for the Ice Joker which is a Wild that substitutes for all regular symbols and activates Frozen Free Spins, and the Snowflake which is the Scatter, required to trigger the Winters Wild Wheel feature.
Gameplay and Features
There are two additional features on the offer in the Play’n Go title. The Frozen Free Spins is triggered every time an Ice Joker Wild appears on the reels, while the Winters Wild Wheel starts once three Snowflake Scatters land on the reel grid.
Frozen Free Spins Feature
The Ice Joker Wild can only appear on reels 2, 3, and 4. Its main role is to substitute for all regular symbols, but the Wild also triggers the Frozen Free Spins feature. Land at least one Ice Joker on the reels, and you will trigger 3 Frozen Free Spins. The Joker is locked in its place, and with each free spin, it will expand to cover an additional cell in the same row.
With three free spins, the Ice Joker Wild will grow to cover an entire reel. The feature continues if you manage to land an additional Wild on one of the two remaining central rows. Players can trigger up to 3 Frozen Free Spins in succession.
In total, it is possible land up to 51 free spins.
Winters Wild Wheel Feature
The Snowflake Scatter appears only on reels 1, 3, and 5. Players are required to land three Snowflake Scatters on the reels in order to trigger the Winters Wild Wheel feature. This is a nice moment in the game and the wheel itself looks impressive. You will get a chance to spin it once. Depending on how successful your spin is, you will get between 2 and 7 Ice Joker Wilds.
After that, players get 1 free spin.
If an Ice Joker lands on that free spin then the Frozen Free Spins are activated. If no Ice Joker lands on that free spin, one of the Ice Joker Wilds from the Wheel will be added to the reels instead. More free spins ensue, and every time one ends without an Ice Joker landing, one is taken from the Wheel and added. This continues until no more Joker Wilds are available from the Wheel.
This is a nice feature – it gives the opportunity to land plenty of free spins with win-boosting wilds and expanding wilds in effect.
Our Verdict
Appearing as a neat combination of a classic fruit machine and a modern video slot, Ice Joker is a pretty decent game, although without any ground-breaking gameplay. It’s all about hitting that bonus round and triggering as many free spins as you can. If you get with wilds and top paying symbols it is genuinely possible to land that 3,000x top payout in the free spins round.
