Big Catch Craze

AvatarUX's Big Catch Craze brings the studio into fishing-slot territory with a realistic rather than cartoon presentation: play takes place on a river or lakeside setting styled after somewhere like the Canadian wilderness, autumn-coloured trees lining the water in front of snow-capped mountains, with a fisherman visible in his boat beside the reels.

The reels themselves are transparent and arranged 5x4, with 20 fixed paylines used to judge wins. Betting runs from 10c up to 300 per spin, and an optional ante bet costing 1.5x the stake triples the odds of triggering the free spins round. The maths sit on a high-volatility model, with a listed return to player of 96.02% and two lower alternate settings of 94.01% and 90.49% also on offer. Hit frequency comes in at 26.74%, and the maximum win is capped at 10,000x the stake.

Card values from Jack to Ace, set against a muted background, make up the entry-level paytable, paying 1x to 4x the bet for five in a row. Above them are fishing-themed pictures — a rod, a lure, a tackle box and a basket of gear — worth 6x to 10x for a five-symbol line, topped by a fish icon that doubles as the game's money symbol for the collection mechanic.

Big Catch Craze layers several features on top of that base paytable. A Fisherman's Net can fire off at random on any base-game spin, scooping up whichever cash-value fish are showing on the reels at the time; during the bonus round the net grows larger and fires more often, and multiplier fish start appearing alongside the regular cash ones, boosting whatever the net collects. Landing five or more fish symbols on the grid separately triggers Sticky Fish Respins, where any newly landed fish stay in place and keep the respins running, any line wins pay out along the way, and the net itself is still able to fire during this sequence — caught fish are removed from their sticky positions in the process. Three or more scatters open the free spins round proper, where every extra scatter that lands adds a free spin and nudges the net up to its next size stage, tracked via an indicator at the top of the screen, until the largest stage covers the entire grid.

Players who don't want to wait can buy into individual features directly through an Xpress menu: a guaranteed net throw on every spin costs 10x the stake, sticky respins cost 25x, and the free spins round can be bought outright for 75x for a shorter seven-spin version or 500x for a longer twelve-spin one.

With the net, the sticky respins and the free spins all offering separate routes to the same fish-collecting payout, plus multiplier fish adding extra value once the bonus round is reached, Big Catch Craze spreads its collection mechanic across more of the game than the standard single-net format most fishing slots use.