Wild Hop & Drop Slot Review

24/09/2022 | Categories: Pragmatic Play Slots | Published by: Joe | Last updated: 05/01/2024

A few days ago, like everyone else, we read the news that Pragmatic Play will launch a new live casino studio in Bulgaria. The new Pragmatic Play state-of-the-art streaming facility will be in Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital, with this studio, potentially employing more than two thousand people by the end of 2023.

Reading these headlines made us look up what slots Pragmatic has released since the last time we reviewed one of their games. By the looks of it, they have unleashed twenty-three titles during this period. Amongst these, Wild Hop and Drop caught our eye, released on September 22nd. Since we are writing this analysis on September 23rd, we cannot give you loads of player data on this slot. It just debuted on gambling sites, and some of its unusual design elements, by Pragmatic Play’s standards, prompted us to give it a look-see.

Theme & Design

Wild Hop & Drop has a pond and frog theme. What can we say more on this topic? Well, not much. Close to three hundred slots feature members of the carnivorous group of short-bodied amphibians of the Anura order, frogs, and around thirty have ponds as a central motif. To not leave this paragraph lacking in content, we’ll give you a few fun facts about frogs. They can see extremely well at night, were the first land animals to have vocal cords, and over six thousand species exist.

Wild Hop & Drop has Pragmatic Play’s signature painterly visuals, but it somewhat does not feel like a game from this developer. It reminded us of Fishing’ Reels, also from Pragmatic, and Frogs Fairy Tale, a 2015 title from Greentube. The backdrop here is a pond with a frog statue, illustrated in the typical fashion this provider’s design team likes to do backgrounds. The scene has depth, boosted by subtle animations complemented by exaggerated lighting effects. The reels in Wild Hop & Drop spin on a raft with a frog on a water Lilly leaf left of it. The logo font implemented is reminiscent of the one in the Mega Moolah-powered slot Absolootly Mad.

The main frog of Wild Hop & Drop, the Wild, feels a bit out of place, in our opinion. It does not appear to be in sync with the game symbols, style-wise, and that slightly took us out of the game. The base soundtrack is super mellow and hardly worth discussing. It goes too carnival-like in the bonus round, and it annoyed us that Pragmatic recycled some of the effects used here from previous slots. The button configuration is the same one this renowned Malta company has utilized for years. So we will not get into it.

Wild Hop & Drop Slot

Specs & Gameplay

Wild Hop & Drop incorporates the cluster pay system, boasting a max win of x5,000. For this title to produce prizes, you must land clusters of six or more matching symbols on its 6×6 grid on the same spin. The RTP of Wild Hop & Drop is 95.33% by default, but it can go up to 96.46% at some operators and 94.44% at others. The variance is high, with the lowest bet being $0.2 and the highest at $100.

The low-pay tokens of this Pragmatic Play release are A, K, Q, and J royals. These pay from x0.5 to x1.25 for clusters of six identical symbols. Three frogs, colored blue, violet, and green, are the premiums here, paying prizes of x2, x2.5, and x4, respectively, for six matching symbols in a cluster, the bare minimum. For those of more than twenty-six identical frogs, these three amphibians can yield rewards from x60 to x200.

The frog sitting on the water Lilly leaf is the Wild, substituting all other pay tokens except for the Bonus Symbol, which is a red bee. The Wild can land as a super symbol in the bonus round, with a size up to 6×6. If it lands as a 6×6 token, it will produce the max prize of x5,000.

Bonus Features

Four bee Scatters stopping in view on the same reel rotation will activate the Wild Hop & Drop Free Spins round. Inside it, you will get six free spins, and when this mode gets underway, a 1×1 Wild will get placed on the grid. It will move to random spots on the 6×6 layout from spin to spin. When a Scatter appears, the Wild will collect it, powering a meter right of the game setup. If you trigger this mode with five or six Scatters, then you will start with two Scatters already collected. Every four collected Scatters retrigger this round, and grow the Wild in size by x1. Note that after the fourth reactivation of this mode, you cannot retrigger it, and when you reach the last level, you only get one complimentary reel rotation. The goal is to grow the Wild to 6×6, so you can win this game’s top reward.

A bonus buy option is available in some markets, and it supplies instant access to the Free Spins Bonus Round for a cost of x100.

Wild Hop & Drop