Carnival Cat: Bonus Combo

Carnival Cat: Bonus Combo Overview

Carnival Cat: Bonus Combo is a Chinese-themed slot from NetGame, built around a golden lucky cat and three bowls of coins. NetGame’s official game data gives a release date of 20 September 2023, an RTP of 96.55%, medium volatility and a maximum win of 5,200x the stake. The grid starts at 5x3 with 243 ways and can grow to 5x6 with up to 7,776 ways. Stakes run from 0.22 to 110.

SlotCatalog lists slightly different figures – 96.21% and 4,660x, with a release date of 21 August 2023 – so we follow the studio’s own numbers here.

The Numbers From NetGame

NetGame publishes more detail than most studios. The hit frequency is 36.8%, so more than one spin in three returns something. The feature hit rate is 1 in 113 spins and the big win hit rate 1 in 206. The maximum exposure is capped at €250,000. The symbol set is six high-paying symbols, five low ones, one wild and four coin symbols.

The Symbols

The six premium symbols are the Golden Carnival Cat, a bonsai tree, a golden carp, a junk ship, golden bamboo and a Chinese fan. The low symbols are the card royals A to 10. The wild is a gold ingot with a WILD banner, and it lands on the middle reels in our screenshots.

Four Fixed Jackpots

Four jackpot plaques run across the top of the screen, each with a character portrait. At a 22.00 USD bet they read Grand 44,000, Major 4,400, Minor 440 and Mini 220. At a 1.10 USD bet the same plaques showed 2,200, 220, 22 and 11. The ratio is identical at both stakes: the jackpots are fixed multiples of the bet – 2,000x, 200x, 20x and 10x.

The Bonus Combo Bowls

On the left of the reels stand three bowls filled with gold coins – one green, one red and one purple. According to NetGame, special coin symbols during the base game turn golden coins into coloured ones, and the coins fly into the bowls. Each coloured coin triggers its own bonus game, and the best outcome is all three at once: the Pick’em Jackpot bonus comes first, followed by free spins on the largest grid. That combination is what the “Bonus Combo” in the name refers to.

What Our Spins Showed

We played at a 22.00 USD bet, and the 243-ways engine paid regularly:

• 18.00 for three golden bamboos with the ingot wild on reel two;
• 18.00 for a run of junk ships, again completed by the wild;
• 12.00 and 48.00 for lucky cats, with the wild in the middle of the reels;
• 51.00 when the top row filled with five cats and three bamboos added a second combination;
• 8.00 for three cats with a wild.

The lucky cat is clearly the symbol that matters: the largest base wins in our session all came from cat combinations, and a full row of five cats plus a bamboo line paid more than twice the stake.

The Coin Symbol

The trigger for the bowls is easy to spot once you know what to look for. In our low-stake session a round gold coin with a square hole – the traditional Chinese cash coin – landed on the middle reel. This is one of the four coin symbols NetGame lists, and it is the symbol that sends coins towards the bowls on the left. Its job, according to the studio, is to feed the Bonus Combo feature.

Playing at Different Stakes

We tried the game at two very different stakes, 1.10 and 22.00 USD. Nothing about the layout changes between them: the same 243 ways, the same symbols and the same four plaques at the top. Only the amounts scale. That makes it easy to judge the jackpots at any bet – the Grand is always 2,000 times the stake, the Mini always ten times – and it means the game plays the same whether you are testing it at the minimum or playing at a higher level.

Ways, Not Lines

Because the game uses 243 ways rather than fixed lines, a symbol only needs to appear on adjacent reels from the left, in any position. That is why a single wild on reel two or three so often completes several combinations at once, and why the win amounts above are often small multiples of the same value. When the grid grows during the free spins, up to 7,776 ways are in play.

Graphics and Setting

The reels sit in a carved red-lacquer frame against a blue night landscape with mountains and a pagoda. The premium symbols are rendered in polished gold, the card royals in gold-edged frames, and the bowls on the left gently overflow with coins. The control bar shows balance, bet and win in USD, with quick-spin and autoplay buttons on the right.

More From NetGame

NetGame builds many of its games around fixed jackpots and collecting mechanics. Golden Tree uses a Jackpot Bonus with sliding wilds, and Golden Dragon: Hold ‘N’ Link combines a Hold ‘N’ Link round with free spins.

Who It Is For

Carnival Cat: Bonus Combo suits players who want frequent small wins with a clear long-term goal. The 36.8% hit frequency keeps the base game ticking over, the three bowls give every spin a reason to watch the left side of the screen, and the fixed jackpots – up to 2,000x – are known in advance at any stake. Medium volatility and a 5,200x ceiling put it in the middle of the range.

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