Big Fish Slots is a multiplayer team game with team bonuses, three completely different rounds, and even trivia. Each of its three rounds is played a little differently. With a little practice and our game tips, you’ll be scoring in the top ten in no time!

Round One – Go Fish

In this round you are looking for four creatures per game board: the starfish, a school of little fish, a seahorse, and an eel.

Since you’ll get bonus points for finding all four (and a new set of bubbles and fish to find), it makes sense to focus on finding fish as efficiently as possible. Memorize the four fish you’ll need to find (school, starfish, seahorse, and eel) so that if you’ve only got a certain type left, you can strategize your pops, multipops, and blowfish to find it. For example, if you only have an eel left to find, you only need to remove one bubble out of every three horizontal bubbles in a row to find a part of his body.

Each creature has a different shape and is hidden underneath a different number/shape of bubbles. While you’re popping bubbles take a close look at the left, right, and top edges of the bubbles that remain.

Sometimes (but not always) part of the school of fish can be seen on the left side:

or the right side:

or the top:

The starfish can be seen on the left:

The seahorse can be seen on the left, top and bottom:

The eel pokes out from the top of its middle bubble and on the right side:

If you get a yellow pufferfish, you might try placing him near the middle of the game board. He’ll deflate and pop bubbles on his way off the screen. This will maximize the bubbles he pops before he deflates completely.

Our friend b3achy has pointed out that there is a ‘glitch’ with the shark in this round:

When you get the shark in Round 1, in the old game, he would reset the board completely. In other words, you’d get a completely new board and have to start over to find the four critters (and they’d be in different locations).

Currently, in this new version of the game, if you get the shark in Round 1, he just replaces the missing bubbles of the board you are currently playing. To clear this board, you only have to find the remaining critters, and they seem to stay in the same location as prior to getting the shark. So, if you saw some of the critters poking out from behind the bubbles, they are still in that same location. If you only needed to find one critter prior to getting the shark, then that is all you will need to find to ‘clear’ the board after he fills in the missing bubbles.

When she wrote to Big Sea about this, they responded that it was working as intended. This will be something you’ll want to pay attention to as it makes recovering from a shark round that much easier.

Round Two – Fishfood

This round is most like a match-3 game (like Unwell Mel). Your goal is to match (at least) three of the same type of fish to remove them from the game board, but when you do more fish will fall into their places. Pay attention to which way the fish are facing — wherever you place them, they will eat any smaller fish in the direction they are pointed. Red fish are obviously your best chompers as they can eat up both green and blue fish.

Look for patterns of fish in the shape of an L, a T or a +. It takes a little practice but if you start looking for patterns of three or more you can also start seeing where, if you get a larger fish to chomp away other fish below, a pattern will form from the remaining falling fish.

To maximize your points in this round, you’ll want to focus on getting chains. If you can remove a set of three or more of a specific type of fish so that it sets off a chain reaction of other types of fish falling into place and matching up with other like fish. Tokens add up quickly if you can get a long chain reaction.

Round Three – Fishinko

Watch the launch lane — you can launch a pearl (or pearls) as soon as it is loaded. It’s easy to get caught up in watching pearls fall, but you need to stay on top of the launch lane, because time runs out quickly (especially if you get five launches in your spin).

The golden pearls seem to be ‘heavier’ than the regular, single ones. You will have to launch them harder to make it to the farthest oysters.

The multi-pearls seem to be ‘lighter’ than the regular, single ones. If you launch them too hard, you’ll lose all of them along the left side of the tank (and that’s no good)!

If you have a closed clam next to an open one, aim for the slope of the closed clam nearest to the open one. A pearl can easily get a good bounce off the slope and land right in the open clam next door!

The right wall’s bump-out (from the plunger button) can be used to ‘bounce’ pearls into the rightmost clam shell. This seems to work best with either the golden pearl or a set of multiples falling close together.

Pliers can be used to remove pegs from the game board. When you remove certain pegs, they may fall into an open clam shell. In addition, if you have a peg that is constantly knocking pearls away from an open clam shell, you can use the pliers to remove the peg to make future rounds easier.

If all else fails and you have a hard time getting your pearls into the clam shells, try aiming just for the other items in the tank. They’ll net you 50 points a piece and will help you learn to launch and aim more accurately. The golden pearls also have a point bonus with them — 150 points for hitting a critter/object (up from 50 for regular pearls) and 75 for landing in a clam (up from 25).

Should I take the Chance?

It’s up to you! If you enjoy the team aspect, everyone in the room will be thrilled at a few extra points if you win the team bonus. However, be aware that you may lose points (and if you have received more than one ? in your spin, the number of tokens you lose will be multiplied). The chance of getting at least 200 points is higher than the chance of losing tokens, so we always choose the Chance. And don’t forget, earning team bonuses, answering trivial questions correctly all earn you progress towards the new awards, so go for it! If you need help answering the trivia questions, we’ve compiled a list here.

Earning Awards

If you’re into earning awards, the ones for this game can be earned just by playing normally (and sometimes getting very lucky). To get Teamed Clams and Straight A Sturgeon faster, you’ll want to always take the chance. You might find it easier to earn a place in the top ten or win (Goin’ Topside and The Big Fish) if you play in a lesser-populated hall.

Related Posts:
- Big Fish Slots Trivia
- Big Fish Slots Ranks & Awards

Instead of making full new posts to cover certain issues this week, I’ve been stashing updates in the comments of various pre-existing posts. I don’t do this very often, so I figured I’d give you a round-up of sorts that will cover the important points. I call it, “It Came From the Comments!” (Kind of fun for a spooky October, right?)

So here are a few tidbits of information you may want to know about, but may have missed this week:

• There is no Lucky Leprechaun or Midget Grasshopper in Riddle O’Day…but boy, that would sure be fun!
• Unlike other games on Big Sea, SnowGlobe Slots doesn’t have a traditional Jackpot Spin, but you can still earn a ton of tokens if you get the right combo on the reels.
• SnowGlobe Slots starts defaulted with the sound muted. To turn it on, use the speaker icon in the upper right-hand corner. (That’s where you can find a button for the pay tables, too.)
• Big Fish Slots got an update this week that fixed a bunch of problems.
• And last, but not least, I just want to say that the Owl Country Club course in Fairway Solitaire is really, really tough and apparently it’s got a mean streak, too. (Sorry, Charlie! I just had to mention it.)

Stay tuned for an upgraded hints and tips guide to Big Fish Slots (the old one is a little outdated now that Big Sea has tweaked the gameplay with the re-release) and as usual, more news, rumors, and information about Big Sea Games. :)

The wait is finally over! Big Sea Games has released Big Fish Slots! You can follow the ranks and awards for this game here: Big Fish Slots ranks & awards.

For a while, I’ll be playing in Big Fish Slots’ Persian Hall, Catfish room (my username is bigfishgamer_com, feel free to add me to your friends list and don’t be too shy to say hi if you see me around)! Hope to see you there sometime!

And even though it was written a while ago, this hints and tips guide should still work for those of you looking for a strategy or some advice. I haven’t checked, but hopefully the Big Fish Slots trivia help still works too.

Feel free to leave your impressions, overall thoughts, comments, or hints and tips in a comment below. See you in-game!

The wait is almost over! To tide you over, here are the twelve awards you’ll be working to earn in Big Fish Slots (when it’s re-released tomorrow):

Floundering
Lose 950 tokens playing Chance cards

Just for the Halibut
Finish the game with at least 11,000 tokens

Straight A Sturgeon
Correctly answer 25 trivia questions

Clammy Hands
Play “Fishinko” and close all the clams in one spin

Fish Food
Eat (match) at least a dozen fish with one click.

Bubble Trouble
Clear all the bubbles in “Go Fish” 3 times in one round.

Spellfish
Spell the word “Jackpot” and earn the bonus 50 times

Teamed Clams
Generate 25 team bonuses

Goin’ Topside
Finish with a Top 10 score 10 times

The Big Fish
Finish with the highest total score

20 Leaks Under the Sea
Finish in the bottom 25 percent 20 times

!#$*@! SHARK!
Get a visit from Mack the Shark 50 times

Are you prepared? Get the skinny by reading through our archive of recent Big Fish Slots articles.

Big Sea Games has written a news article about preparing for Big Fish Slots. You’ll probably want to read through the whole article, but here are the highlights:

* Big Fish Slots will be released on Wednesday!

* Before its release, there will be a period of maintenance where the Big Sea Games site will be down. This maintenance will begin Wednesday, September 28, 2009 at 8 AM Pacific Time (11 AM Eastern Time, 4PM BST). The site will be down 3-4 hours while they put up Big Fish Slots (and fix some other site-wide issues).

* Remember: you are beta testing this re-release. Have patience! There are still some bugs in Big Fish Slots and there will likely be more found as high numbers of players descend upon the site to play this long-awaited re-release. There may be stability issues as well.

As I said earlier, you’ll probably want to read the whole article. In addition, you may want to read over my last post on Big Fish Slots which gives information about rooms, tokens, and pre-existing ranks in the game.

And last, but not least… tomorrow, I’ll have some information for you on the 12 awards you’ll be able to earn in Big Fish Slots, so stay tuned!

Great news, Big Fish Slots fans! It’ll be re-released next week. And that’s not all the good news:

* The ranks and tokens you earned in Big Fish Slots will be the same as they were on the old site. You’ll even be credited with enough tokens to jump to the appropriate rank the first time you play. (For those of you unfamiliar with the ranking system, each level and sub-level requires a certain amount of tokens to advance — all of the details are at the bottom of our Game Ranks page.)

* Speaking of ranks, Big Fish Slots is getting 4 more, so those of you who ranked out at Nessie 9 will have 4 more to advance through. And like the other games, Big Fish Slots will have 12 awards you can earn. (We’ll post the list of all 12 ranks and awards on our Game Ranks page as soon as they’re available.)

* All of the rooms you knew and loved will be back! You should have no difficulty meeting up with your friends whether you were a dolphin or a clownfish (or both)!

Here’s the full article (including a couple really mind-boggling paragraphs about tokens, which will probably set the forums ablaze with confusion) for those of you who need something to tide you over until its re-release date!

Big Fish Games is asking us to vote for our favorite game! The choices are only four of the most recent games: L.O.B.E., Big Fish Slots, Riddle O’Day, and Unwell Mel. Since it’s election season, why not vote for your favorite?

Here are the current results:

You start the game with a rank of Guppy1. There are 9 levels within each rank, so when you have earned 25,000 tokens (playing Big Fish Slots) your level will advance from Guppy1 to Guppy2 and you will earn 100 tokens! Here are the ranks and rewards:

Today we updated our list of Big Fish Slots Trivia Questions and Answers. If the game has given you any that we don’t have, feel free to drop us a line or make a comment on this post with the question and correct answer. (We don’t want suggestions for trivia questions, just the actual trivia questions and answers from the Big Fish Slots game.) Thanks!

Today we added a bunch of new trivia questions and answers that you can study for playing Big Fish Slots. If you haven’t checked them out yet, take a look; the trivia questions are a great way to earn extra tokens and get high scores for your room (and maybe even win the whole game)!