Pragmatic Play has announced the launch of its latest slot, the festive-themed Santa’s Wonderland.
The brand new casino game was developed to ramp up excitement for Christmas early, and it follows Santa Claus as he sets out to deliver presents and, if lucky, collect some riches too.
Santa’s Wonderland uses an 8×8 layout with a Cluster Pays mechanic, where you’re required to make a cluster of five or more matching symbols to make wins. The game has an RTP of 96.23% with high volatility, which means you’re more likely to make infrequent large wins over frequent small ones.
The slot requires a bet of between £0.20 and £100, and its symbols include Santa Claus himself, teddy bears, toy trains, planes, and orange, red, green, and blue baubles.
The Santa’s Wonderland slot comes with numerous special features. For example, the Santa Claus symbol acts as a Wild and substitutes for all symbols. However, the symbol only appears as the Wild Santa and Lucky Santa features, which we’ll discuss later.
The game also comes with a tumble feature where winning symbols are removed from the reels and replaced with new symbols that can create another win. If they create another win, they are removed and new symbols replace them. This chain reaction continues until no new winning combinations land, requiring a fresh spin.
During the base game, five special snowflake markings can appear randomly behind symbols. Whenever a symbol with the marker triggers a win, a special feature is triggered. For example, the Blue marker triggers a Refresh, where the screen is cleared of symbols except for Wild symbols after a tumble. The Purple marker triggers a Wild Santa, where one random symbol is transformed into a Wild after all tumbles.
The Yellow marker triggers Blocks, where random blocks of 2×2 of the same symbol are added to the reels after all tumbles. The Red marker triggers Supersize, where a random block of between 3×3 and 5×5 is added to the reels after all tumbles. Finally, the Green marker triggers Lucky Santa, where up to 15 Wild symbols are added to the reels.
Alongside the above, the game has its Midnight Riches progressive feature, where the number of winning symbols that explode during a tumble are counted and fill a meter. When the meter is filled, the Midnight Riches feature is triggered starting at level one.
During the feature, all above modifiers are guaranteed to play, and all wins have a starting multiplier of 3x, growing up to a maximum of 15x. Alternatively, you can purchase entry into the Midnight Riches feature for 100x your bet.
Julian Jarvis, the Chief Executive Officer at Pragmatic Play, said in a statement: “Though we designed the new slot with Christmas festivities in mind, we wanted to include a bunch of exciting mechanics that will allow it to be enjoyed throughout the year.
“Santa’s Wonderland offers a truly bespoke experience that is set to amuse audiences across the globe, featuring a unique Midnight Riches feature that can reward players with sizable wins.”
The release of Santa’s Wonderland follows the release of other holiday-themed slots, such as Relax Gaming’s Santa’s Stack and Greentube’s Diamond Link – Mighty Santa.
It also comes after Pragmatic Play released new live casino games Sweet Bonanza Candyland and ONE Blackjack 2 – Indigo, as well as the launch of slots such as Book Of Fallen, Super X, Bounty Gold, and Big Juan.
