The Big Dawgs

Theme and Design

A Fun Back-Alley Design And Cracking Hip Hop Sound Track

The Big Dawgs is a hip-hop themed game featuring a pack of rough-looking back-alley dogs all wielding dangerous weapons and led by a vicious cigar-smoking pit bull. In the back drop its night time, street lights flicker and trash cans and graffiti tell you this is not the kind of place you want to be hanging around on your own, whilst the cartoon style still keeps things fun. There’s a nice hip hop soundtrack for those who like their beats, complete with scratching and barking dog sounds. Animations are fun too and production is of a high standard. As far as audio and visuals go, I’d say it’s one of Pragmatic’s better efforts.

RTP and Variance

The Big Dawgs has THREE RTP settings – 95.97%, 95.01% and 93.99%. It will be your slot sites’ choice which level you play at so check the game info page once you load up to find out where the RTP level is. I don’t recommend playing at less than 95.97% which itself is just a little under average. My research has shown that MrQ from Lindar Media consistently offers the best RTP for Pragmatic Play slots. That would be a good place to play this game.

And the volatility is cranked up to the max – no surprise there as Pragmatic Play are on a roll with their high variance games. Expect an uneven win distribution like we found in testing.

Maximum Win

This game has a maximum payout of 5,000x. That is not impressive for a high variance slot, certainly well short of the highest potential games available right now, but it is what we are used to from this developer.

Symbols and Paytable

The Big Dawgs plays out on a 5 reel and 5 row grid with a unique and innovative win ways game engine. You can score wins by landing 3 or more identical symbols on adjacent reels from left to right starting from ANY reel, or on adjacent rows from top to bottom starting on any row.

That gives you 2,304 win ways on each spin.

Pay symbols have great value in this game. There are 10 in total. Low value ones are the paw print, scissors, baseball bat, knuckle duster and grenade. These are valued at from 0.15x for 3paw prints on a line up to 5x for 5 grenades on a line.  The 5 premiums are the dogs themselves, valued at from 0.25x for 3 of the dozy one up to 25x for 5 of the toughest-looking of all!

There are also TWO types of wilds to look out for. The standard wild substitutes for all pay symbols to help complete win ways. The multi wild does the same but also carries a 2x multiplier which comes into play when two or more are part of a win.

Features and Gameplay

There is some exciting feature action to understand before you start spinning, including tumbles, colossal wilds and TWO free spins rounds. Here is how they work.

Special Tumble Win Sequences

First up is the Tumble Win which is a little different to what you might expect. After each win, winning symbols drop off and existing ones drop down to fill the spaces. However, this is not a game where new symbols drop in too. Instead, any new winning combinations are simply paid out and the process repeats until either no more wins are formed OR the grid is totally clear.

You get a helping hand here from the wilds.

So, if a win way is formed which is made up of low paying symbol then the middle position in the line is replaced by a standard wild before the other symbols are removed. And if a win way is formed made up of premium symbols then the middle position is replaced by a Multi Wild before the other symbols drop off.

Look Out For Random Colossal Wilds

Watch out for The Big Dawg colossal wilds which comes in 2x2 or 3x3 size and drop at random. They perform the standard role of a wild .. just bigger!

Extra Multiplier For Screen Clears

I like this one! There is a special bonus if you clear the grid completely of all symbols except for wilds and multi wilds then you will have a random multiplier of 2x, 3x or 5x applied to the total win value.

Two Free Spins Rounds With Extra Multipliers

Another feature that makes this game stand out from the crowd is the free spins configuration. As you are playing you will notice that the word DAWGS is printed on both middle reel and middle row.

If by the end of your spin and tumbles you can reveal the word EITHER horizontally OR vertically then you will get the Dirty Dawgs Free Spins. If you can reveal it BOTH horizontally AND vertically then you get into the Double Dawgs Free Spins

Dirty Dawgs Free Spins

How does it work?

You start with FIVE free spins and you have a progressive multiplier on each one. Every tumble will increase your multiplier by 1x. Sadly, it RE-SETS between spins which is kind of annoying. However, you can get yourself an extra FIVE spins by revealing the word DAWGS horizontally or vertically. And, again, if you reveal the word BOTH horizontally and vertically then you will set up the Double Dawgs Free Spins to be played when your current free spins round ends.

You can actually line up multiple Double Dawgs Free Spins in this way.

Double Dawgs Free Spins

So, the headline feature is this one. It works the same as the rest of the game but you have TEN free spins in this instance and your progressive multiplier that grows by 1x with each tumble DOES NOT re-set between spins. So, you can see how you can grow a huge multiplier here and score some really big wins.