Big Fin Bay

Theme and Design

Retro Fishing Slot Vibes But Still Highly Volatile

Big Fin Bay is an odd-looking game with a definite retro feel of back-to-basics graphical styles – you could almost be looking at something pinned on the wall of a seaside café in the 80s. The backdrop is a glistening Mediterranean seashore where fishing boats glide by, whilst front and centre sits your six-reel grid. On that grid are illustrated symbols that have a childlike quality to them and include a white bearded captain straight from a TV commercial.

Whether you enjoy this style will be a matter of taste but after a few spins I came to like it – there is something comforting about the simple graphics and sea shanty soundtrack.

RTP and Variance

Like many Thunderkick slots, Big Fin Bay has an RTP of 96.14%. That is about average and promises good return on your wagering. This is also one of Thunderkick’s more volatile games so it can be a tough play with an uneven win distribution. But of course, on the flipside, it can kick out some huge wins too!

Maximum Win

The top payout is a massive 15,040x. That is big, though in recent years Thunderkick have stretched the win potential of their games further. For example, Gods of Rock comes in at 20,000x and Esqueleto Explosivo 2, their Mexican Day of the Dead game, comes in at a whopping 50,000x. You can find more high potential slots in our list of games with the highest max wins.

Symbols and Paytable

Big Fin Bay is a 6 reel game with a variable number of rows per reel on each spin. There can be anywhere between 2 and 7 rows. But the number of win ways is always 5,040 in the base game. It will rise as high as 117,649 in the bonus round as we will see.

You need to land 3 or more identical pay symbols – except for the Captain who pays for 2 or more - along a payline from left to right, starting with the left most reel, to trigger a win.

If you browse the pay table you will notice that pay symbols have only moderate value, but that is offset by the fact that you have so many ways to win of course.

There are 11 pay symbols in total. The low payers are the cards 9 through to Ace. These are valued at from 0.3x for 3 9s up to 1.5x for 6 Aces. The premiums are the 4 fish and the captain himself. These are valued at from 0.8x for 3 of the blue fish up to 7x for 6 of the captain symbols.

There is also a Marlin Wild symbol that substitutes for any pay symbol to complete a win way but does not have any pay value of its own. It can also expand to fill a reel as explained in the next section.

Features and Gameplay

This is not a complicated slot. Everything happens around wilds and free spins. Here is how it works.

Expanding Wilds and Mystery Wilds

In the base game, if a wild forms part of a win then it expands to full reel height to potentially trigger further payouts. You may also see the Mystery Wild Feature trigger at any time. In this event, up to THREE reels become completely wild.

Up To 36 Free Spins With Re-Spins and Expanding Wilds

That’s all good but what you are really counting on for those big payouts is the free spins round to drop. You need three or more bonus anchor scatters to trigger this. For each scatter you will get up to SIX free spins.

Across six reels that makes up to 36 free spins!

Now the Wilds have added value – each time they land they expand AND trigger a re-spin. When that re-spin happens, the wilds expand their reel by 1 more row to increase the paylines in play. These expanded reels persist in expanded format for the rest of the free spins.

And … if you can expand a reel to seven rows high, then you earn yourself 3 extra spins.

And for those who like the numbers (and Megaways™), six reels expanded to seven rows high is equal to the magic 117,649 paylines!