Flying Hippo

Flying Hippo Slot Review

A deep indigo night sky, stars scattered across it, banks of pink and purple cloud below, and a smiling cloud with rosy cheeks grinning in beside the reels. Flying Hippo’s artwork is soft, bedtime-story stuff, but the design underneath it is one of the more uncompromising builds Pragmatic Play have shipped: no free spins, no bonus buy, no second mode of any kind.

The argument this game makes is that a tumble chain can do a bonus round’s job. Every winning cluster on the 7×6 grid spawns a wild, wilds feed a multiplier meter that climbs through three levels, and the whole thing resets the moment the chain dies. The numbers are 93.99% RTP, high volatility, bets from 0.20 to 86.00 per spin and a 5,000x cap. That’s an unusually heavy load to put on a single spin, and whether the base game can carry it is the interesting question here.

Clusters, Tumbles and the Paytable

Flying Hippo pays in clusters rather than on lines. All symbols pay in blocks of a minimum five symbols connected horizontally or vertically, and only the highest win is paid per winning combination. When multiple blocks land on the same spin, all of them are added together. It’s a familiar setup, and the game doesn’t complicate it.

Every symbol value below is a multiple of the total bet:

• Hippo: 50x for 25+ symbols, 20x for 21-24, 10x for 18-20, 5x for 15-17, 3x for 12-14, 2x for 9-11, 1.25x for 7-8, 0.75x for 5-6
• Orange Star: 40x for 25+, 15x for 21-24, 7.5x for 18-20, 3.75x for 15-17, 2.25x for 12-14, 1.5x for 9-11, 0.9x for 7-8, 0.6x for 5-6
• Red Star: 30x for 25+, 10x for 21-24, 5x for 18-20, 2.5x for 15-17, 1.75x for 12-14, 1x for 9-11, 0.75x for 7-8, 0.5x for 5-6
• Green Star: 20x for 25+, 7.5x for 21-24, 3.75x for 18-20, 1.75x for 15-17, 1.25x for 12-14, 0.8x for 9-11, 0.6x for 7-8, 0.4x for 5-6
• A and K: 10x for 25+, 3x for 21-24, 1.5x for 18-20, 0.8x for 15-17, 0.6x for 12-14, 0.4x for 9-11, 0.2x for 7-8, 0.15x for 5-6
• Q and J: 5x for 25+, 2x for 21-24, 1x for 18-20, 0.6x for 15-17, 0.4x for 12-14, 0.2x for 9-11, 0.15x for 7-8, 0.1x for 5-6

The gap between the top and bottom of that table is steep. Five hippos returns less than your stake, while a 25-symbol hippo block pays 50x it. The game wants big clusters, and it wants them late in a tumble chain, when the multipliers are up.

The eight pay tiers make cluster size matter more than usual here. On a 7×6 grid a five-symbol cluster is a modest shape, and the value of a block roughly doubles and doubles again as it grows through the tiers. Tumble chains are what turn minimum clusters into maximum ones: every collapse drops new symbols into the holes, and a chain that survives five or six collapses can assemble blocks the opening spin never looked like paying.

The wild is a smiling cloud that appears on all reels and substitutes for everything. That’s the whole of its day job, because the interesting part of what wilds do here belongs to the feature that spawns them.

Tumble Feature

After every spin, winning combinations are paid and all winning symbols disappear. The remaining symbols fall to the bottom of the grid, and empty positions are filled with new symbols dropping in from above.

Tumbling continues until no new winning combinations appear as a result of a tumble. All wins from the chain are credited only after every tumble from the base spin has finished. A single spin, then, is really a sequence: cluster, collapse, refill, repeat, until the well runs dry.

Every winning cluster also feeds the Spawning Wild feature, so each tumble does two jobs at once. A dead tumble is a double loss: no pay, and no progress up the ladder either.

Spawning Wild Feature

Whenever a cluster of symbols hits and explodes, it leaves behind a wild symbol in a random empty spot. Those spawned wilds can carry multipliers, and the multiplier a wild gets depends on the level the current spin has reached.

Whenever a wild contributes to a win, it’s collected in a meter. Every six wilds collected increases the level of the spin, first to level 1, then level 2, and finally level 3. The ladder, per level:

• Before level 1: wilds appear with no multiplier or a 2x multiplier, at random
• Level 1: wilds appear with 2x or 3x multipliers, at random
• Level 2: wilds appear with 3x, 4x, 5x or 6x multipliers, at random
• Level 3: wilds appear with 3x to 6x multipliers, wild collection stops, and when no more tumbles are possible two Colossal 2×2 wilds land in random positions with multipliers of 3x, 5x, 7x, 10x, 15x, 25x or 50x

How the Multipliers Stack

A wild’s multiplier applies to the win of any future cluster it’s part of. If the same wilds form part of more than one cluster, their multipliers apply to all of them. And when more than one wild sits inside the same winning cluster, their multipliers combine additively.

The Colossal wilds have their own stacking rule. If a 2×2 Colossal lands overlapping an existing wild, the smaller wild’s multiplier is added to the Colossal’s. Two overlapping 50x Colossals absorbing a cluster of 6x wilds is the shape of the biggest wins this game can produce.

One detail does the heavy lifting in the design: after all tumbles from the same spin end, the meter resets to level 0. Progress never carries between spins. Everything the game offers has to be built inside a single chain, from nothing, before the tumble sequence dies.

Reaching level 3 takes eighteen wild collections in total, and wilds only enter the meter by contributing to wins, so a spin has to keep tumbling and keep winning to get there. That’s the real difficulty spike in the game: the Colossals arrive only after a long, unbroken chain of clusters, which is precisely what high volatility makes rare.

The 5,000x Cap

If the total win of a spin reaches 5,000x the bet, the round ends immediately, the win is awarded, and all remaining tumbles are forfeited. It’s a clean stop rather than a soft landing, and it means the ceiling can arrive mid-chain.

Our Honest Verdict

Overall Rating: 7/10

Every spin of Flying Hippo starts from level zero, builds or dies, and then has the slate wiped clean. That’s the whole appeal, and it’s a real one: a long tumble chain with the meter climbing is a genuine stand-in for a bonus round, and the dreamy night sky above it never quite prepares you for how tense the maths gets.

The strength is the escalation. Multiplied wilds stacking through the levels into a pair of Colossals is a payoff worth the wait, and because multipliers add rather than multiply, the biggest chains stay believable rather than lottery-flavoured. The weakness is how little there is on the way there: minimum clusters pay crumbs, most spins stall early, and with no second mode there’s nothing to break up the quiet.

It suits players who want their risk compressed into single spins instead of spread across a wait for scatters, and who can sit through a quiet sky for the chain that runs. Anyone who measures progress in triggered bonuses will find the clouds here empty. For everyone else, there’s more than a smile floating up there.

Flying Hippo FAQs

• What is the RTP of Flying Hippo?

  Flying Hippo runs at an RTP of 93.99%.
• Is Flying Hippo high volatility?

  Yes, Flying Hippo is a high volatility game, so wins tend to be less frequent but with more potential for larger payouts.
• What is the grid size of Flying Hippo?

  Flying Hippo is played on a 7×6 grid, with symbols paying in clusters of five or more connected horizontally or vertically.
• What is the minimum and maximum bet on Flying Hippo?

  Bets run from 0.20 up to 86.00 per spin.
• How does the Spawning Wild feature work?

  Every winning cluster that explodes leaves a wild symbol behind in a random empty position. Wilds that contribute to wins fill a meter, and every six wilds collected raises the spin’s level, increasing the multipliers new wilds can carry. At level 3, collection stops and two 2×2 Colossal wilds with multipliers up to 50x land once the tumbles end. The meter resets to level 0 after each spin.
• Does Flying Hippo have a free spins round?

  No. Flying Hippo has no free spins or separate bonus round; all of the action takes place in the base game through the Tumble and Spawning Wild features.
• What is the maximum win on Flying Hippo?

  The maximum win is capped at 5,000x your bet. If a spin’s total win reaches that amount, the round ends immediately and the win is paid.
• Do wild multipliers multiply together in Flying Hippo?

  No. Wilds sharing a winning cluster contribute their multipliers as a sum, not a product. A 2×2 Colossal wild that covers a wild that’s already on the grid also takes that smaller wild’s multiplier on board.
• When is Flying Hippo released?

  Flying Hippo’s release date is 27 January 2023.