Bubble Up!

Bubble Up! Review

Pragmatic Play heads back beneath the waves with Bubble Up!, a visually pleasing slot that’s set against a sunlit and bustling coral reef. You get to meet a selection of charming sea creatures that thrive in this environment, as well as a smiling octopus character perched atop an underwater monolith that looks like those stone heads found on Easter Island. It’s an inviting scene with a playful, cartoonish aesthetic and a soundtrack that keeps the mood lighthearted.

Bubble Up! plays out on a 6x6 grid with 40 paylines, and you win by landing matching symbols across these paylines, starting from the leftmost reel. The symbols consist of different colorful fish, as well as seahorses, shrimp, shells, and starfish. These pay 2.5x to 25x your stake for 6 of a kind wins, and there are no traditional royal symbols in this game. For 3 of a kind, the symbols pay between 0.25x and 1.5x your stake. There are no Wild symbols in the Bubble Up! slot, but you get a money symbol collection feature instead.

Bubble Up! Reels Screen

The blowfish money symbols land with values of up to 10,000x your stake, if you include the jackpot versions of these symbols. Frames land randomly to collect all money symbols within them, and these can land in sizes up to the full grid. What’s more, you can land 2 frames on the same spin, and these can overlap. If an overlap happens, the money symbols in the overlap area are boosted by a random multiplier of up to x10 before being collected. It’s possible to land 2 full-grid frames, meaning all present money symbols are boosted.

The bonus round awards 6 free spins regardless of the number of triggering scatters, as these determine how many modifiers you get instead. A pick game delivers up to 4 modifiers that become active in the bonus round, where a frame is guaranteed per spin. Scatters are collected during the feature to expand the frame as well as deliver extra free spins. Bubble Up! is a medium volatility slot game, scoring 3 out of 5 on the in-game scale. It features possible RTP settings of 96.52%, 95.55%, or 94.51%, a hit rate of 1 in 6.63 spins, a bonus round hit rate of 1 in 169.63 spins, and a max win of 10,000x your stake.

Bubble Up! Features

Before we look deeper into the details of the game’s features, we would like to remind you that the Bubble Up! free play demo is available at the top of this page. Head up there to check it out after finishing the review. Let’s get to it!

Money Symbols & Frame Collection

During base game play, a bubble-like frame of size 2x2 to 6x6 may randomly appear in any round. All blowfish money symbols within the frame are then summed up and paid as a win, and money symbols come with random values ranging from 0.5x to 15x your stake. In addition, you can land Mini, Minor, Major, and Grand jackpot money symbols, and these are worth 20x, 40x, 80x, and 200x your stake, respectively. The Maxi jackpot money symbol comes with values ranging from 400x to 10,000x your stake. If a second frame appears and overlaps the first frame, money symbols in the overlapping area are boosted by x2 to x10.

Free Spins Bonus Round

The Bonus Round triggers when you land 3, 4, 5, or 6 FS scatter symbols in view on the same base game spin, awarding 6 free spins with 1, 2, 3, or 4 modifiers, respectively. The modifiers are awarded in a pre-bonus pick game, where you’ll choose from 8 coins to reveal modifiers until you have 2 matching modifiers. This goes on until you have reached the modifier limit determined by the number of triggering scatters.

Bubble Up! Bonus Game Screen

The modifiers deliver more money symbols on the reel strips and more scatter symbols on the reel strips, as well as starting the bonus round with a minimum frame of size 3x3 and guaranteeing 2 frames per free spin. You are guaranteed one frame per free spin by default, and scatter symbols are collected to expand the minimum size of the frame. Every 3rd scatter upgrades the minimum frame size from 2x2 to 3x3, 4x4, 5x5, and finally the full-grid size of 6x6. Each frame upgrade also awards +2 additional free spins, and the upgrade applies on the next free spin.

Bonus Buy (not UK)

The Bubble Up! slot includes both a Feature Buy and a Bonus Buy menu, at least in eligible regions. Here is an overview of what you can purchase in this game:

• Ante Bet - pay 1.5x your stake to get 2, 3, 4, or 5 modifiers in the bonus round from 3, 4, 5, or 6 triggering scatters.
• Super Spin 1 - pay 20x your stake to get a randomly sized base game frame (NB! bonus round cannot trigger).
• Super Spin 2 - pay 100x your stake to get 2 randomly sized base game frames (NB! bonus round cannot trigger).
• FS Bonus Round - pay 100x your stake to trigger the bonus round (organic hit rate is 1 in 169.63 spins).

Theme & Graphics

Bubble Up! takes you to a vibrant water world at the bottom of the sea, deep into a sun-dappled coral reef teeming with life. The reels are populated with a cast of colorful, big-eyed sea creatures, and the visual style is bright, lively, and uplifting. The game has that cozy Saturday morning cartoon vibe, with bubbles rising to the surface and a friendly octopus waving its tentacle at you while perched at the top of an Easter Island-style stone head. The soundtrack adds to the lighthearted and playful vibe with its repetitive yet pleasant tune, and the reels stop with a charming bubble sound on each spin.

Bubble Up! Free Play

Before you put real cash on the line, we suggest you check out the free Bubble Up! demo, located at the top of this page. While this is a fairly straightforward money symbol collection game, the frame system is something you need to see in action before you know whether you like it or not. You can make good use of the feature and bonus buy menu in that regard, and this will quickly give you a taste of what to expect. When you feel satisfied with your Bubble Up! free play session, casinos carrying this title are found below the demo game.

Pros and Cons of Bubble Up!

Our Verdict

Deep-sea ventures come along regularly from Pragmatic Play, and at first glance, Bubble Up! didn’t really stand out all that much from what you would expect from this provider. The bright, colorful water world presentation certainly has a mood-lifting effect, and the game is teeming with charming sea creatures that are mostly constrained to the sizable 6x6 grid. Some schools of fish swimming by in the background would’ve been nice, but at least you’ve got your cheerful octopus friend flanking the reels.

One thing that keeps annoying me with Pragmatic Play titles is the default bet level setting of $2. Most players are penny punters anyway, and adjusting it to $1 to get the “correct” paytable values is a bit of a hassle each time. A minor detail, perhaps, but it’s still an unnecessary nuisance that constantly creeps into the user experience. Anyway, back to the Bubble Up! slot at hand. The base game experience gave me mixed feelings, and I’m not sure regular line wins are the best fit for a game like this. I was sure I was in for either a cluster or scatter pays experience at first glance and was a tad disappointed, to be honest.

The hit rate is on the low side as well, so expect plenty of dead spins. Regular line wins are hardly pulse-raising in this game, and anything worthwhile usually comes from the frame collect feature. This is admittedly an original way to collect money symbols, and in many ways it’s more enjoyable than the usual collect symbol mechanic. I also like that frames can overlap to boost money symbol values, although it would’ve been even more fun if all money symbols within both frames were boosted.

The money symbol values are moderate if you exclude the elusive jackpot money symbols. Also, you can be misled into thinking that the Maxi jackpot money symbols always deliver the 10,000x max win if you don’t read the “fine print” in the game’s info section. The bonus round is where Bubble Up! shines, not least if you get 2 frames per free spin. It’s fun to see how large you can grow the frame or frames, and the feature comes along fairly often to boot. I think the frame collect system has potential and hope to see more of it in future releases.