Fortune Hit ‘N’ Roll

Fortune Hit'n Roll: Slot Overview

It might not be obvious from the title, but developer Pragmatic Play's Fortune Hit'n Roll is not a musical, rock 'n' roll slot, yet one which uses Central/South American culture and plant life as its thematic launching point. The Hit'n Roll, in this case, refers to a rolling ball wild feature, a bit like that big stone ball at the start of Raiders of the Lost Ark. But instead of squishing Indiana Jones, these balls roll about the reels, adding wild symbols and plonking multipliers on them. Sounds promising.

The Central/South America theme provides a lush, vibrant, full-of-life environment for slot makers to locate their games in. Fortune Hit'n Roll is not a slot which takes full advantage of this opportunity to present sweeping vistas punctuated by step pyramids. It's got some greenery, some carvings, and a tune that provides a pleasant if restrained, cultural, natural experience. Spose there are other games that do go bigger on presentation, such as Coba or Gonzo's Quest Megaways (to pick two options off the top of the head), so room exists for developers to explore the theme in less first-person immersive ways. Fortune Hit'n Roll is one of them, though Pragmatic Plays' trademark brightness is stamped on the game.

This highly volatile slot is played on a 5-reel, 5-column gaming grid possessing 40 paylines for winning combinations to fall along. When wagering 40 c to $/€240 per individual spin, Fortune Hit'n Roll's max possible RTP value is 96.57%, though be aware lower return models have been designed as well.

Jungly 10 to A royals begin our inspection of the symbol hierarchy, paying 1 to 1.5 times the bet when a line of 5 identical card ranks land. Following them are 3 blue, red, and green patterned symbols, plus 3 further character-type symbols. High pay symbols are worth 2 to 6.25 times the stake for 5 OAK. Wilds appear on all reels. They substitute all symbols except scatters and have the same value as the highest pay symbol.

Fortune Hit'n Roll: Slot Features

Fortune Hit'n Roll's name starts to make sense when having a look over the features which possess a literal Hit'n Roll Feature, free spins, and a bonus buy.

The Hit'n Roll Feature

When a wild symbol hits, it randomly moves up or down its reel a random number of times. It leaves behind wild symbols where it moves to, or it increases the multiplier on existing wilds until leaving the grid from the top or bottom. Added wilds have an x1 multiplier that increases by +1 each time the ball moves over it.

Free Spins

Scatter symbols are present on reels 1, 3, and 5. Hitting 3 scatter gets you 9 free spins. When wilds hit in free spins, they act as they do in the base game. However, all wilds added to the reels stay on the grid until free spins end. New wilds which land start from the highest multiplier currently on that reel +1. Wilds only hit on positions that are not already taken up by wilds. Free spins cannot be retriggered.

Buy Free Spins

Paying 100 times the bet buys an instant free spins trigger from the base game.

Fortune Hit'n Roll: Slot Verdict

Fortune Hit'n Roll was an okay slot to play, but at first, it seemed more like Pragmatic Play was noodling around with code rather than trying to make the industry sit up and take notice. Much felt too low effort to command high levels of real respect. The view was a bit plain; the sounds were satisfactory; it was all just okay. Additionally, with a relatively high minimum bet, the game is likely to discourage low-stakes players. Sure, if every slot was great, then by definition, they'd all be average, so we shouldn't expect casino game makers to push themselves to the hilt each and every time. But, you do get developers who give themselves the time to design something special, while others, like Pragmatic Play, operate on a tight schedule, so are practically forced to be mediocre on occasions to meet deadlines and quotas.

Fortune Hit'n Roll is not a total write-off, though, as the rolling wilds feature turned out to be quite interesting. It's a bit like something Hacksaw Gaming might do, spreading wilds across the board, plastering multipliers on them. Beam Boys came up as an example of spreading wilds. Where Beam Boys spread horizontally, Fortune Hit'n Roll goes vertical. Yes, sometimes the wild will land on an outer row and roll straight off the grid. Other times, it will roll more beneficially, up and down, increasing multipliers as it goes about its business. One way they could improve on the concept is by making the wilds sticky, which is exactly what happens in the free spins round. Hard to argue with that.

Hard to argue with Fortune Hit'n Roll's win cap either, which, at 5,000x the bet, feels like a wholesome figure to aim for in this game. Fortune Hit'n Roll is a slot that got better as the session unfolded, failing to make a major first impression but winning over with its entertaining spreading wild feature.