Pine of Plinko 2: Slot Overview

Pine of Plinko 2 by software provider Print Studios arrived at roughly the same time as another title from the developer, Royal Potato 2, which had just produced a €1 million hit for a fortunate high roller. That kind of win video inevitably gets players dreaming of repeating the feat, and Print Studios will also be aiming to recreate the impact it achieved with Pine of Plinko. The first game was as cute as they come, centred on a falling-ball Plinko Bonus round that could be downright hypnotic when things clicked. The Plinko Bonus round returns here, the adorable style is still present, and there are a couple of tweaks to the way the game plays.

At first glance, it was easy to assume Pine of Plinko 2 might be an Xmas reskin of the original. The heavy snowfall and the slightly department-store-at-Christmas muzak vibe of the soundtrack certainly pointed that way. After a handful of spins and bonus rounds, though, it’s clear Pine of Plinko 2 isn’t really a Christmas slot; it’s simply set in winter, with snow covering a tiny, charming treetop village. That same storybook feel from the original—like everyone lives inside a cuckoo clock—returns in full force.

Pine of Plinko 2’s base game and its bonus round feel like two completely different experiences. During the base game, the highly volatile action plays out on a 5-reel, 3-row setup with 10 paylines used to calculate wins. In the bonus, the reel grid disappears entirely and balls are dropped into a Plinko machine – as you will see. Stakes range from 10 c to $/€50 per spin, and activating Scatter Boost delivers more scatters on the reels, although it also doubles the bet. If preferred, the bonus can be purchased for 92x the base bet. As a result, the standard RTP is 96.32%-96.49%; with Scatter Boost enabled it becomes 96.42-96.53%; and when buying free spins it lands at 96.5%-96.56%.

The smaller paylines count is balanced out by stronger symbol payouts. The lower-paying green, yellow, and purple symbols aren’t the main attraction, paying 2-3x the bet for a 5 OAK win, but land a line of 5 Waleys, Coneys, Kinglys, or Pineys and returns jump to 10x to 200x the bet. One notable point is that there’s no wild symbol available to assist in completing winning lines.

Pine of Plinko 2: Slot Features

Hitting 3 or more scatters sets off the Plinko Bonus. Each scatter displays a number, and when those values are totalled, the total represents the number of starting ball drops in the Plinko Bonus. If you don’t like the number shown on any scatter, you can re-roll it by paying the cost shown on that specific scatter. Re-rolling is disabled if the number is too high.

Pine of Plinko 2: Plinko Bonus

In the bonus round, the goal is to release balls into the play area by pressing the Drop Button. The balls tumble down into 15 gaps at the bottom, each awarding a corresponding prize value. Every ball pays up to 1,000x. As balls hit the bumpers across the middle, a meter is gradually filled. Once the meter is filled completely, the bonus round moves to its next stage. If the meter isn’t filled, the round ends when the Drops for the current stage are used up. Each new stage grants 10 drops and doubles the amount of balls per click up to 256.

Pine of Plinko 2: Bumper Buckets & Golden Ball Pockets

Bumper Buckets can trigger at random at the beginning of any stage. When balls land in Bumper Buckets, they bounce back up onto the board. Golden Ball Pockets can also activate randomly at the start of any stage. Dropping a ball into a Golden Bucket awards a Golden Ball Drop at the end of the current stage, with the chance of winning up to 10,000x. A single ball is dropped into an area featuring more lucrative prizes, but the bumpers are removed. After the Golden Drop finishes, the Plinko Bonus continues.

Pine of Plinko 2: Slot Verdict

The original Pine of Plinko felt like a breath of fresh air arriving on a grimy, smog-filled day. There was pure fun in watching waves of balls ricochet down the Plinko board, drop into prize gaps, smack bumpers, and fill the meter until a little character levelled things up by whacking something with his hammer. When a level-up happened, the sheer volume of balls pouring down could be genuinely grin-inducing. The visuals were top-notch, the concepts felt new, and the overall ride was excitingly different. As a sequel, Pine of Plinko 2 can’t deliver that same shock of novelty, which is only natural, but the rest of the compliments aimed at part 1 transfer smoothly to this follow-up too.

Players not only get to dive back into the world of Pine of Plinko, but Pine of Plinko 2 also introduces a handful of additions that improve the package overall. The first appears when 3 scatters land, as players can now reroll any scatter values they’re unhappy with. That can be a total game-changer—turning a 5 into a 63 (or thereabouts), for instance, can be massive when extra ball drops matter so much. Naturally, nothing is guaranteed. Gamble-style mechanics aren’t famous for kindness or mercy, but this one gives players an interesting lever to pull and test out. The two new bonus-round elements are also strong upgrades. Bumper Buckets were extremely useful for firing balls back onto the board to build extra bumper hits, and the contrast between stages with Bumper Buckets and stages without them is obvious. The Golden Ball Drop will probably show up less often than Bumper Buckets, but when it does, it has all the ingredients for a high-intensity moment.

Finally, there’s the win potential: the max win is now double the previous game’s, taking it to 20,000x the bet, which is the finishing touch on an excellent sequel that takes the original’s playful fun and pushes it up a level.