3 Lucky Hippos: Slot Overview

In spite of its title, 3 Lucky Hippos isn’t a follow-up to 3 Lucky Witches or 3 Lucky Leprechauns. It actually comes from a totally different studio. While those two games were released by provider 4ThePlayer, 3 Lucky Hippos was developed by Games Global partner Pear Fiction Studios. Whether 4ThePlayer will take issue with the similar naming remains to be seen. For now, it’s time to spin, and 3 Lucky Hippos brings a whole bunch of LockNWin variants – Multiply, Jackpot, and Supreme, plus combinations of these.

The setting may be the African wilds, yet the game still delivers the vibrant, punchy palette Pear Fiction Studios is known for. Think along the lines of Granny Vs Zombies, with its neon-drenched undead and bandana-wearing granny. Pear Fiction Studios also has a clear fondness for jackpot rewards, and 3 Lucky Hippos includes 5 of them, displayed beside the main play area. Behind the reels sits a pond, rich grasslands, acacia trees, and Mt Kilimanjaro-style peaks, creating a colourful African scene that feels more like midday than the sunrise/sunset vibe many slots lean into.

The playfield uses 5 reels with 3 rows, offering 243 ways to win, though Split symbols can expand this to grow to 6 rows high, putting 7,776 ways to win into action. This is a very highly volatile slot, with a default RTP of 96%, though it also comes in two reduced RTP versions, and it supports stakes of 20 c to $/€50 per spin.

Winning ways start from the far-left reel and pay left to right across adjacent reels. The symbols in 3 Lucky Hippos are certainly colourful: 10 to A card ranks serve as the low pays, followed by dice, chips, a bag of loot, gold bars, and a safe as the higher-value icons. Not exactly typical African wildlife imagery, but that’s the theme here. Landing a 5 OAK low symbol way returns 0.6 to 1 times the bet, while a 5-of-a-kind premium symbol win pays 2x to 5x. Acting as the wild is a golden vault-door style symbol, which substitutes for all standard pay icons.

3 Lucky Hippos: Slot Features

Out on this safari, keep an eye out for Cash collects, a Multiplier, Split symbols, Lotus symbols, LockNWin rounds, Jackpots, and feature buys.

Cash Collecting

Green Cash symbols can appear carrying values from 0.2 to 100 times the bet. If the frog Collect symbol lands on reel 5, it gathers up any Cash symbols currently on the screen.

Multiplier

Hitting Orange Coins increases the Multiplier up to x10. This Multiplier affects Cash collects, and it also boosts any Orange Hippo LockNWin round. Once the Multiplier has been used, it resets to x1. The Multiplier is saved separately for each bet level.

Split Symbols

Split symbols appear on the top row. Each one can add up to 3 rows to whichever reel it lands on, and any Split symbols are carried into LockNWin features.

Lotus Symbol

The Lotus symbol also lands on the top row. Gathering a Lotus symbol on each reel activates all 3 LockNWin features. Lotus symbols may be collected across multiple spins.

LockNWin

When Orange, Yellow, or Pink Coins hit, they may start a LockNWin. Once triggered, you receive 3 respins, and every symbol is cleared away except Cash, which locks to the reels as it lands. Whenever a Cash or Jackpot Coin lands, the respin counter is reset back to 3. The feature ends when respins are exhausted or the grid fills up. Each LockNWin can activate on its own or together with the others.

• The Multiply LockNWin – can be triggered by collecting the Orange Coin. The Multiplier is carried over to the Multiply LockNWin, and at the end, it is applied to all Cash.
• The Jackpot LockNWin – can be triggered by collecting the Yellow Coin. When all spaces of a Jackpot are completed during the round, the corresponding Jackpot is awarded at the end of the feature. The Mega (5,000x) takes 6 spaces, the Major (500x) takes 5 spaces, the Minor (100x) takes 4 spaces, the Mini (20x) takes 3 spaces, and the Micro (10x) takes 2 spaces to fill. Jackpots are not multiplied by the Multiplier or collected by the Orange or Purple Cash symbols.
• Supreme LockNWin – can be triggered by collecting the Pink Coin. Orange Cash collects all Green Cash, and Purple Cash collects all Green and Orange Cash.

Buy Feature

In the feature buy menu, players can purchase single features or bundled combinations, with each option’s cost shown on the screen.

3 Lucky Hippos: Slot Verdict

Pear Fiction Studios clearly has a taste for LockNWin rounds, having used them with zombies, squealin’ piggies, piranhas, and now hippos. Each has felt fairly distinct, especially in theme, while still revolving around different methods of landing and locking symbols during bonus play to gather Cash prizes and Jackpots. In a few respects, 3 Lucky Hippos also resembles All For One Studios’ POWER COMBO line. As with POWER COMBO slots, 3 Lucky Hippos lets you trigger LinkNWin rounds with separate abilities, or you might land 2 or even all 3 Coins to activate the feature with multiple powers at once. Alternatively, the bonus buy allows you to mix and match the features you prefer.

All of this makes 3 Lucky Hippos a fairly action-packed slot, with Split symbols expanding the reels and the Multiplier building up over time. With the right luck, some of these additions can carry into a LockNWin round to potentially level up the bonus. At its core, though, 3 Lucky Hippos is a hold ‘n win style game, so the main excitement is in hunting Cash symbols and Jackpots – building up to a 5,000x the bet maximum win. Still, there are plenty of routes to get there, which is a familiar hallmark of Pear Fiction’s LinkNWins.

So far, none of the studio’s LinkNWin titles have tried to be top-tier heavyweights or to go head-to-head with the biggest names in the category, and they’re more at home in the crowded middle of the market. That means this isn’t really a Money Train 4 rival, but anyone drawn to the variety and bright colour schemes of Pear Fiction’s earlier games can get another helping of that with 3 Lucky Hippos.