Cowabunga Dream Drop: Slot Overview

Software provider Relax Gaming has dunked its progressive jackpot network in the briny to come up with Cowabunga Dream Drop, a totally tubular online slot, also available in a non-Dream Drop variant. The word 'cowabunga', if you were interested, is said to have originated on the Howdy Doody show in 1953, first uttered by Chief Thunderthud, before spilling into surf culture in the 50s and 60s, before finding its way into the vocabulary of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the 80s/90s, primarily spilling forth from pizza lover Michaelangelo's mouth. The word is generally used to express satisfaction or delight, so it would make an ideal exclamation for celebrating a Dream Drop win - more so the Mega than the Rapid.

Some surfers seem willing to risk life and limb in search of the perfect ride, but even so, Cowabunga Dream Drop's break looks a little on the perilous side. The wave itself has a terrifying tsunami look as it rears up between jagged rocks, and a shark fin floats past in the background. In other words, you might want to keep driving down the coast to somewhere more forgiving unless you're a real daredevil. Otherwise, Cowabunga Dream Drop is held in a pretty typical spot for a beach-related slot – sand, warm blue water, bright sky, lazily floating clouds, palm trees, the usual. For those who were around when NetEnt's Wild Water slot was a hot release, it'll certainly bring back some memories.

No matter which version you play, the betting options are 20 c to $/€100 per spin, but when playing Cowabunga Dream Drop specifically, the higher the bet, the bigger the chance is to trigger a jackpot win. The RTP varies, with the non-DD version pulling in 96.01% compared to 93.99% on the Dream Drop edition, where 12% of the total bet is the total contribution to the jackpots. With a medium-high volatile math model running in the back, in the front, Cowabunga Dream Drop gets its surf up on a 5-reel, 3-row grid, where the middle three reels can expand up to 7 positions high, supplying 243 to 3,087 ways to win.

Fish and humans divide up the pay table, with 4 fish coloured blue, green, orange, and red making up the low pay symbols, plus 2 surfer dudes and 2 surfer dudettes as the high pays. Hitting winning ways made up of 5 matching low pays is worth 0.15x to 0.2x the bet, or 0.6 to 2 times the bet is paid for getting 5 OAK premium wins. Life ring wilds appear on all reels, substituting for any regular pay symbol. A winning combination of 5 wilds pays 2 times the bet.

Cowabunga Dream Drop: Slot Features

As per usual, Dream Drop is the main event, supplemented by a Sync & Expand feature, Nudges, free spins, and in the non-DD version, players may buy the free spins round if they so choose.

Sync & Expand

At random, 2 or 3 middle reels may sync and expand up to 7 symbols high. Synced reels contain the same matching symbols in the same order.

Nudge

Every so often, the reels stop, then nudge downward to improve a winning combination.

Free Spins

Landing 2 scatter symbols in the base game triggers 5 free spins. For free spins, the middle three reels are always synced. Players get +1 additional free spin for every scatter that lands on the rightmost reel during the round.

Buy Feature (Non-DD Version)

For the cost of 60 times the bet, players can buy the free spins round. The RTP when buying the feature is 96.27%.

Dream Drop

A Jackpot spin may trigger at random when the spin button is pressed, and the regular spin is played afterwards. During it, if at least one DD symbol lands on each reel, players enter the Dream Drop Bonus game. The Dream Drop Bonus grid has 5-reels, 5-rows, and all DD symbols from the triggering spin are brought over. For each jackpot, a different number of reels need to be filled by landing DD symbols - 1 for the Rapid, 2 for the Midi, 3 for the Maxi, 4 for the Major, and 5 for the Mega. The jackpot connected with the number of reels filled at the end is won. Starting values for the 5 jackpots are Rapid €1, Midi €5, Maxi €100, Major €25,000, and Mega €500,000.

Cowabunga Dream Drop: Slot Verdict

For some, the business world using a surfing angle might come across as cheesily forced, and you know, there is a bit of that happening in Cowabunga Dream Drop. As if the suits are trying to be all hip and down with the kids. But Cowabunga Dream Drop is an online slot, after all, so thematically, let's not take it too seriously. The sun's out, the waves are up, sometimes terrifyingly so, and one dude looks like he's riding a shark while a wave breaks; what could be more bitchin' than that?

Well, Cowabunga Dream Drop is a slot, after all, where the focus is on winning dough, so pulling off the ultimate and hitting the Mega jackpot where the capped prize is €3 million would be pretty bitchin'. Not many people are going to do that, though, and the rest of Cowabunga Dream Drop wasn't super gnarly. Here and there, the wave rises up in the base game to accommodate expanding rows and ways, not to mention synced reels, which isn't the worst thing to happen, while the middle three reels in free spins are always synced. The high number of ways means players can theoretically catch a good ride, and outside the jackpots, Cowabunga Dream Drop can produce results of up to 6,000x the bet, which would be a lot more preferable to being popped on by a colony of seagulls.

Cowabunga Dream Drop also possesses a measure of novelty due to the low frequency of surfing-related slots. It's tough to think of many competitors in this arena. NetEnt's 2014 release Wild Water? One possible contemporary due to the Speedboat Bonus round is ELK Studio's Sumo Sumo. However, apart from the water sports angle, the two slots have virtually nothing else in common. So, Cowabunga Dream Drop succeeds in providing a fairly unique vehicle for Relax Gaming's Dream Drop to strut. Without those jackpots, though, Cowabunga drops a few weight classes.