Fish Tales: Halloween Slot Review
Blood runs down the timber frame and eyeballs bob in the green water beneath a rickety jetty, which is one way to say Booming Games have managed the rare trick of making a Halloween reskin feel like a proper setting rather than a costume.
Fish Tales: Halloween is essentially Fish Tales Monster Bass with the fisherman zombified, but the swamp is the least of the changes: unlike most cash collect games, its base game collects cash without a bonus trigger in sight, so the reels are doing the interesting work long before Free Spins arrive.
The numbers behind the fog are familiar enough: a 96.1% RTP, high volatility, and a 5,000x maximum win, with bets from 0.20 to 100 per spin. The cash collect format here doesn’t carry the growing multiplier of the Big Bass series, which changes what the bonus round is actually about.
Base Game & Features
It plays as standard fishing fare, in the vein of Big Bass Bonanza, with a hit frequency of 33.45% keeping the base game ticking over.
Wins form left to right across 20 fixed paylines, so nothing about the line structure will surprise anyone who has fished these waters before.
The fisherman Wild substitutes for every paying symbol except the Bonus and Cash Collection symbols, and he collects any cash values on screen when he lands alongside them. That collect works in the base game too, not only in the bonus round, which keeps things moving.
Cash Collection
Cash Collection symbols come in normal, gold and Monster Bass varieties, each carrying a bet multiple that a landing Wild hoovers up. The spread runs from pocket change to a prize worth chasing:
- 0.25x, 0.5x, 0.75x, 1x, 2x, 3x, 5x, 10x, 15x, 20x, 25x
- 50x, 100x, 250x, 500x and 1,000x total bet
The tier a symbol sits in decides how much a spin matters. A screen full of low values with a Wild is a nice top-up; a single gold symbol at 100x or better is the reason the reel spin after it has your attention.
Big Net and Cash Add
Big Net sweeps up every Cash Collection symbol on screen, the rescue for reels full of cash and no Wild to collect it.
Cash Add works the other way: when a Wild lands with no cash symbols in view, it adds some.
Barrel Boost
Every Bonus symbol that lands drops into a collection pot above the reels, and the pot can fire on any spin to add extra Bonus symbols and award Free Spins.
Filling the pot does nothing to your actual trigger odds. It’s just for pure aesthetics and acts as a visual tease for what could come at any moment.
Extra Bait
A toggleable side bet that raises the stake by 1.5x and improves the odds of triggering every feature.
Wins are still evaluated on the base bet, not the inflated one, so the extra stake buys trigger chances and nothing else. If you’re chasing the bonus rather than grinding the base game, it’s the cheaper route to the same door.
Fish Tales: Halloween Free Spins & Monster Bass
Landing Bonus symbols triggers the round, and the more you land, the more Free Spins you get:
- 3 Bonus symbols award 10 Free Spins
- 4 Bonus symbols award 15 Free Spins
- 5 Bonus symbols award 20 Free Spins
Inside the round, Cash Collection and Monster Bass are both live, and the fisherman Wild keeps his collecting job. Collected Wilds also fill a progress bar that hands out extra spins as it fills:
- 4 Wilds collected: +5 Free Spins
- 8 Wilds collected: +5 Free Spins
- 12 Wilds collected: +5 Free Spins
That’s up to 15 bonus spins on top of the starting count, so a 20-spin trigger can stretch to 35. The Wilds have to land alongside cash symbols to count, so a busy round feeds itself.
Monster Bass
The headline symbol of the round is a stacked cash symbol three positions high, holding 50x, 100x, 250x, 500x or 1,000x total bet. It only appears during Free Spins, and the Wild collects it when it’s fully visible.
It moves. Nudge down one position on any spin it isn’t collected, nudge up one position whenever a Wild lands. The push-me-pull-you creates a little duel: every Wild that lands drags it back towards full visibility, and every empty spin lets it sink away.
One guard rail on the payout: if two or more Wilds land with it, the value pays once rather than stacking. Multiple Wilds on a Monster Bass screen are still good news, just not double-counted news.
Buy Bonus
Two buys are on the counter, both guaranteeing their feature:
- Bonus: 75x the bet
- Monster Bonus: 100x the bet
Availability varies by operator and market.
Our Honest Verdict
Overall Verdict: 7.7/10
This is a base game you’d happily play on its own, which is not something fishing slots usually manage, and the fog-misted swamp with its zombified fisherman gives you a reason to pick it over the cleaner waters of the pack. Sessions move: cash collects land constantly, and the Wild doing his collecting outside the bonus round means the reels are always one symbol away from something.
The strength is those two modifiers. Big Net and Cash Add kill the two dead ends that make cash collect games stall. The weakness is the ceiling: with no multiplier climbing through the round, Free Spins pay what’s on the reels and stop there, which will leave Big Bass players wondering where the escalation went.
It suits Big Bass Bonanza fans after another studio’s take on cash collect, and anyone who wants their seasonal spooks to come with a functioning game underneath.
Multiplier chasers won’t find their fix here, and by spring the eyeballs in the barrel will look less like Halloween and more like leftovers – but for the season it’s aimed at, the swamp is worth the wade.
Fish Tales: Halloween FAQs
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What is the RTP of Fish Tales: Halloween?
The RTP is 96.1%, sitting just above the typical benchmark for a high volatility slot. -
How volatile is Fish Tales: Halloween?
It’s a high volatility game with a hit frequency of 33.45%, so wins land reasonably often even though the bigger payouts take patience. -
What is the maximum win on Fish Tales: Halloween?
The maximum win is 5,000x your total bet. -
How do you trigger Free Spins in Fish Tales: Halloween?
Landing 3, 4 or 5 Bonus symbols awards 10, 15 or 20 Free Spins respectively. The Barrel Boost can also add extra Bonus symbols on any base game spin to help complete the trigger. -
What does the Monster Bass symbol do?
It’s a cash symbol stacked three positions high that appears only during Free Spins, holding 50x to 1,000x total bet. It nudges down one position each spin it isn’t collected and up one position whenever a Wild lands, and the Wild collects it when fully visible. -
How do you get extra Free Spins?
Wilds collected during the round fill a progress bar. Every 4 Wilds collected awards 5 extra spins, at 4, 8 and 12 Wilds, for up to 15 bonus spins on top of the starting count. -
What does the Extra Bait side bet do?
It raises your stake by 1.5x and increases the chances of triggering all features. Any wins are still evaluated on the base bet rather than the side bet amount. -
How much does the Buy Bonus cost?
The Bonus costs 75x your bet and the Monster Bonus costs 100x, each guaranteeing its feature triggers. Buy options may be unavailable depending on operator or market regulations.
