Smooth Sailing: Slot Overview

This is a bit of a throwback, but does anyone remember the Thanksgiving classic ‘Planes, Trains, and Automobiles‘ with Steve Martin and the late John Candy? One person remembering it is enough to keep the idea alive. In the film, bad weather throws the pair off course, and they end up having to make their way across half of the USA by whatever transport they can find to get home for thanksgiving. Total guesswork, of course, but it’s not impossible that Gold Coin Studios had something similar in mind when creating Smooth Sailing. The studio has been building travel-themed slots to highlight its Connectify Pays system. At the moment there’s Smooth Sailing, plus another train-focused slot said to be on the way – so far.

Some players love boats and the idea of gliding over the ocean to far-off places on a neatly planned cruise. Others can’t imagine anything worse than spending days at sea with thousands of fellow passengers, paying too much for drinks and hoping the buffet doesn’t fight back. If you’re in the first camp, Smooth Sailing may fit the bill, since it’s set on a ship headed somewhere that’s presumably warm and bright—commanded by a cheerful captain holding a handful of golden tickets used to start free spins. The overall vibe is one of those highly scheduled holidays where guests are marched from beds to breakfast, then morning activities, lunch, afternoon events, dinner, and finally some carefully inoffensive evening entertainment. The soundtrack is upbeat, at least.

Running on a 5-reel, 20-payline layout, wagering is split into two approaches. Standard stakes go from 20 p/c to $/€40 per spin. Turn on the Gold Coin Bet feature, though, and the wager is multiplied by 1.5x. In return, ticket scatters are introduced to the base game reels, doubling the chance of triggering free spins. There are also two RTP variants, so it’s worth checking you’re playing the 96.22% version instead of the lower 94.19% one. It may look light and breezy, but underneath sits a highly volatile math model, paired with solid—if not spectacular—winning potential.

For whatever reason, Smooth Sailing seems to have a thing for doing everything in pairs, and that includes how the royal symbols behave on the paytable. In the base game, the 9-A tiles pay 5-7.5x the bet, then jump to ten times those values in free spins. In the bonus, royals even outpay the premium bell, wheel, anchor, and captain’s hat symbols, which return 25 to 50 times the stake for five of a kind. Wilds complete the line-up here, appearing anywhere on the grid during the base game only. Wilds replace any regular pay symbol and can pay as much as 1,000x the bet for five in a row.

Smooth Sailing: Slot Features

The Connectify Pays mechanic is the key route to bigger wins in Smooth Sailing, and it’s found in free spins, which can be triggered in two separate ways:

• If the Gold Coin Bet is activated, then 10 free spins are awarded when 3 ticket scatters are in view on the grid.
• Otherwise, if 3 ship scatters symbols land, whether the Gold Coin Bet is on or not, they award 10 free spins.

Free spins is where Connectify Pays takes over. On the left side of the screen, there’s a display of boats of varying colours and sizes alongside their prize values. Take the top yellow boat as an example: it’s divided into 5 segments, meaning if 5 yellow boat symbols land on winning paylines from the leftmost reel through to the right, the corresponding prize is paid. In addition, if an x2 icon shows up on the last reel, any five-symbol Connectify Pays wins are doubled. Finally, free spins can be retriggered too.

Smooth Sailing: Slot Verdict

If you enjoy messing about on boats or you’re after a slightly different style of jackpot game, Smooth Sailing could be a decent match. It also earns its title, since the base game tends to drift along in a fairly calm, uneventful way. The rules didn’t appear to call this out, but there was a clear difference between playing small stakes and larger ones. Free spins seemed to arrive much more frequently as the bet increased. Whether that was just luck or something else isn’t certain—just worth noting.

Free spins were reasonably entertaining once boats hit the first reel and then progressed along paylines through the Connectify system. Three-reel boat connections happened quite often. Anything longer than that was uncommon. Five-symbol boat hits were extremely rare. That makes sense for the yellow boat, since landing five of them pays 6,000x the bet. The red and blue boats are far less exciting: five red boat symbols pay 250x, while five blues return 50x. In fact, our strongest outcomes during testing came from 5 royal symbol wins, because they pay 10 times their base-game values. A surprising twist.

Overall, Smooth Sailing landed in the “fine” category, with a definite holiday vibe. The base game can feel like watching a flat horizon between stops, but free spins add more pressure thanks to Connectify Pays wins and strong royal payouts. The upside for anyone who likes the look of Smooth Sailing is that Gold Coin appears to be developing more in the same style. There’s a train version, for example, and it wouldn’t be shocking if they eventually apply the format to other types of transport too.