Member Reviews

December’s already here, and we all know what that means. It’s the time of year when Christmas jingles play on the radio, when snow and cold weather slowly become more prominent, and everyone’s mood seems to brighten up at the concept of spending some quality times with their family and friends. It’s the most wonderful time of year, and to celebrate, NetEnt have released Jingle Bells, in which you help Santa get his workshop ready for Christmas.

The game has access to one special which that can award several prizes as a result, determined by winning special baubles, and having them appear in the same reel as Wilds.

Symbols include playing card icons, which include 10, J, Q, K and A, as well as special Christmas time decorations, such as pine cones, rain-deer cookies, and various different baubles which are used to decorate the tree. Special symbols include red baubles, green baubles, yellow baubles and multi-coloured baubles, which all have their own special effect.

Developer

Founded in 1996, NetEnt is a Swedish company that’s been the premier provider of gaming solutions to online casino operators. Despite it’s humble beginnings, the company pushed forward with clear understanding of the internet being the future.

The company launched the first online casino software based in Java, and has continued to grow since then. Today, all of their games are backed by HTML5, and their software is the backbone of over 300 licensed portals. NetEnt’s talented employees deliver flexible digital casino solutions, which is what powered the company’s growth to become the #1 name in video slots.

With over a thousand employees and more than two hundred prominent online casino operators using their games and software . Overall, 2018 was a good year for NetEnt, having won the #1 spot in the Innovation in Mobile category at the EGR B2B Awards, and Best Casino Supplier at the EGR North America awards.

How to Play it

The game is played on a 5×3 playing field with 20 fixed paylines. This means gamblers cannot turn some of them on or off at will to decrease their minimum bet. Instead, they can only adjust the wager by increasing the bet level and the coin value.

The standard NetEnt user interface is still in play, though it’s been given a festive treatment, with red and gold dominating the buttons, while the semi-transparent part of the reels continue to be so. We’d have liked to see them be fully transparent, and have the grey status bar beneath the reels also follow the festive decoration.

You can bet between $0.20 up to $200 per spin, which is an awesome bet spread for both casual gamblers and high rollers alike. As with all NetEnt titles, you have an Autoplay option available, with the ability to set a win or loss limit, as well as a single win threshold. If you’d like, you can also make auto spins pause when free spins are activated, or on any win.

The background image is that of a cosy little cabin. You have a pretty Christmas tree to the left, five elves sitting on top of a large window, which are the reels, from which you can see the dark night outside, and the snow falling. To the right of the reels, Santa’s hard at work cranking the wheel, which can award some of the bonuses, meaning you can get your gifts this year early with a bit of luck.

Special Features

When Santa pulls the lever, it spins a bonus wheel, which has a chance of landing on a blank field, or on one of the baubles. When a bauble is selected, it’s picked up by the elves sitting above the reels, and is carried one reel to the left each turn. If a bauble lands on the same reel as a Wild, it drops and awards its bonus. Gamblers will have access to four different minor special features this way.

Spreading Wilds come in the form of red baubles. When it is activated, it will turn all diagonal and adjacent symbols around the Wild into additional Wild symbols. However, these cannot spread the Wild further.

Coin Win come from golden baubles, and reward that prize in coins.

Free spins come in the shape of green baubles. Gamblers will win between seven to fifty free spins, depending on the number written on the bauble.

Surprise, which is a multi-coloured bauble, and rewards one of the three above mentioned special features at random.

Maximum Payouts

The largest jackpot you can win in Jingle Spin is worth 473.75x the stake, which is a decent win for a middle volatility title. The RTP for this NetEnt release is 96.48%, which is above average for video slots.

Summary

We didn’t expect to like the game as much as we had. The baubles aren’t in any way more or less random than using Scatters to trigger the features, but doing things differently proved to be a nice change of pace compared to what we’re used to. The visuals are top notch as you’d expect, and the jackpot is quite nice for the volatility.