Old Fisherman

When I first came across this Old Fisherman game from Gamomat, I was quite surprised at its uniqueness and originality, because I have never come across such a game before. What surprised me the most was how a free spins feature game would be triggered – by stacked Salmon Scatter symbols on each reel! Getting 3, 4 or 5 Salmon symbols on one winning line would award 5, 6 or 7 free spins, so the number of free spins that could be won at any one time could vary quite a lot. Getting 5 winning lines with 5 Salmon each would award 35 free spins, 10 winning lines would award 70 free spins, but I really don’t know if it would be possible to get it on all 20 lines. Nonetheless, this is quite an interesting idea! The only setback is that there are no win multipliers in the game to boost up the wins, so huge wins may not be possible at all.

What I like is that the playlines can be selectable, either 10 or 20 lines, with a starting bet of 10 or 20 cents per spin. The Old Fisherman is the Wild symbol, appearing only on reels 2, 3, 4 and 5, but a non-paying one unfortunately, and doesn’t double up any wins with it either, so this part I don’t really like. It would have made a much greater impact on the game if the Wild could double any win with it, or have a random win multiplier instead, like in some other games. As for the win values of all the other symbols, they pay from 50x down to 5x, which aren’t that good but still acceptable, although on the low side. The other regular symbols may appear in stacks too, but not as fully stacked as the Salmon symbol.

There are no other special features in this Old Fisherman game, so satisfaction, or otherwise, can only come from the basic game itself, or from the free spins feature game. More free spins can be won during the free spins play, but the initial triggered number of free spins can be as little as 5 or 6 free spins, which is much too little for my liking. It should start with 10 free spins instead, considering that there are no win multipliers in play.

In short, my first ever play on Old Fisherman turned out to be quite a good one indeed. My best win came not from the free spins feature game but in the base game itself, when 12 Boat symbols appeared on the reels, giving me a nice 251x win. That was really unexpected but enjoyable, hehehe. From the free spins however, I could only manage to get a decent 121x win. Bigger wins are indeed possible no doubt, but I wasn’t really interested to keep on playing the game, simply because of the lack of big win potentials. This Old Fisherman is probably a medium variance game, so should be treated as one when playing it.

“Old Fisherman” is a video slot manufactured by Bally Wulff, the German subsidiary of the company Bally Technologies, Inc., and whose images remind me a lot the book “The Old Man and the Sea” written by the famous American author Ernest Hemingway.

Bally Wulff on its website says it offers a wide range of entertainment games with interesting special features, and this last statement is something I completely agree as I have noted in this game.

Here all the symbols may appear stacked, and during the base game we are particularly hoping that the symbol that appears stacked is the fish because, in addition to providing payouts in the same way as other ordinary symbols, lines made with fish have the power to award free spins massively, the longer the number of lines and the number of stacked fish on it, the greater the number of free games awarded; the largest number of turns this feature may grant is 140; an overwhelming amount in my opinion. I have personally managed to get up to 37 free spins, but I've also had several rounds of more than 30; besides, it must be said, mechanism designed by Bally Wulff to trigger this round is witty, original and generous too because the truth is that triggering free games has been, to some extent, a relatively simple task to me because during my first session I could gain access to these on several occasions, and only once, my round was less than 10 spins.

During free games, I have also been fortunate to form many lines of 5 of a kind with different stacked symbols each time and I’ve gotten big wins touching the 170x my total bet for the end of one of my free rounds.

I have to admit that “Old Fisherman” is a slot that has reached to surprise me because it is not very common to see a slot that combines a quite sustainable financial game system with great potential for providing profits, or at least that is from my point of view. Recommendable!