Thai River Wonders takes place on the boats of a floating market, and PG Soft's own description name-checks Damnoen Saduak, the largest of them. Grilled prawns, mangoes, rose apples and orchids sit piled on wooden trays. Released in September 2020, it is a six-reel ways slot with cascades, and its main idea is a tall symbol in a silver frame that can turn gold and then wild over a few rounds of one spin. In 100 spins at 12.00 it paid 31 times, and one round of free spins returned 2,136.60, 178 times the stake, with the multiplier at x14 by its last cascade.
United States
Thai River Wonders available at Cafe Casino
Same game, real money
Cafe Casino runs the same Thai River Wonders with the same math and adds a welcome bonus for players from the United States:
300% up to $2,000 + 150 FS 18+ · T&Cs apply · the demo stays freeRTP, maximum and bets
The return to player is 96.71% by PG Soft's figures, with wins capped at 100,000x the bet. The demo plays on a virtual balance, and the rest of our PG Soft game reviews work the same way:
| Feature | Specification |
|---|---|
| Provider | PG Soft |
| Released | September 2020 |
| Board | 6 reels x 5 rows, top reel over reels 2 to 5, cascades |
| Ways | 2,025 to 32,400, base bet 20 |
| Wild | Reels 2 to 5; from gold-framed symbols, with a use counter |
| Free spins | 12 for 4 scatters, +2 per extra; multiplier +1 per winning round, kept for the feature |
| RTP | 96.71% |
| Max win | 100,000x |
| Bet in the demo | 0.60 to 180.00 per spin |
I never changed the default 12.00 (size 0.30, level 2), so a paytable point was worth 0.60.
Six boats and a market stall on top
The main board has six reels of five rows. A row of four trays above reels two to five works as an extra reel, adding one symbol to each of them. On reels two to five a symbol can also stand two, three or four rows tall and still counts as one symbol, so the number of ways changes with every cascade, from 2,025 up to 32,400. The plaque at the top keeps count. Legendary Monkey King also lets the ways grow, but there a golden staff only ever adds rows.
Wins pay from reel one to the right, every matching symbol on a reel multiplies the ways, and winners explode so the symbols above can fall in. Wilds land only on reels two to five and replace everything except the straw-hat scatter. In 2022 the same board returned in Asgardian Rising, with multiplier plates under the reels in place of counting wilds.
Silver, gold, then a wild that counts down
Some tall symbols arrive inside a silver frame. If one is part of a win, it does not explode: in the next round it becomes a random symbol in a gold frame. A gold-framed symbol that wins becomes a wild, and the number on top of the wild says how many more wins it can join before it disappears.
On my second spin the chain ran from start to finish. The first round paid a single way of three J's, 1 point or 0.60, and one of those J's stood three rows tall on reel two inside a silver frame. In the next round it came back as grilled prawns in a gold frame, and the prawns paid at once: three on reel one, the framed prawns on reel two and one more in the top reel above reel three, three ways of three at 30 points each, 54.00.
Since the gold-framed prawns had been part of that win, the next round turned them into a wild, still three rows tall, with a 3 on top.
The wild then joined three wins in a row, 3.60, 8.40 and 12.00, counting down to 1 and disappearing after the last one, and a final cascade added 7.20. The spin closed at 85.80, a little over seven stakes, from an opening win of 0.60.
Wilds can also land directly. On spin 23 two of them dropped into the top reel side by side, and the round they joined paid 50.40.
Twelve free spins and a multiplier that keeps climbing
It takes four straw-hat scatters to open the feature, which brings 12 free spins and 2 more for every extra hat. A multiplier starts the round at x1 and goes up by one with each winning cascade. Nothing in the rules sets it back during the feature, so it keeps whatever it reached from spin to spin. During the round every silver frame is upgraded to gold, which skips a step on the way to a wild. My round came on spin 58 with four scatters.
On the third free spin the multiplier was at x2 for two small cascades of 21.60 and 43.20. Then it moved to x3, and the next round had wilds in the top reel and three more standing on reels three to five: 360.00 before the multiplier, 1,080.00 after it, 90 stakes from one cascade. The multiplier never went back. It was at x9 with four free spins left, climbed from x11 to x14 during the last one, and the round closed at 2,136.60.
The same engine runs Dreams of Macau, released three months earlier: identical board, frames and counting wilds. The differences are the theme, the paytable, 15 free spins there instead of 12, and the gold-frame upgrade, which only Thai River Wonders has.
Prawns at the top, card ranks at the bottom
The table pays per way, from three of a kind up to six. With 20 points to a spin, so six of a kind on one way returns its value divided by 20:
| Symbol | 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 of a kind | Six on one way vs stake |
|---|---|---|
| Grilled prawns | 30 / 40 / 60 / 80 | 4x |
| Mangoes | 20 / 25 / 50 / 70 | 3.5x |
| Rose apples | 10 / 25 / 40 / 60 | 3x |
| Orchids | 8 / 15 / 20 / 30 | 1.5x |
| Bok choy, green peas | 6 / 10 / 12 / 15 | 0.75x |
| A, K | 4 / 6 / 8 / 10 | 0.5x |
| Q, J, 10 | 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 | 0.2x |
The drop between the top four symbols and the rest is steep. A way of three prawns pays thirty times as much as a way of three tens, so it matters a great deal whether a gold frame turns into prawns or into a card.
A market that pays late
Outside the free spins Thai River Wonders mostly pays small amounts while frames come and go: 31 of my 100 spins won, and the base game by itself returned 1,099.80 of the 1,200.00 staked. The feature changed the result completely. A multiplier that never resets meant the later free spins were paid at x9 to x14, and the round added 2,136.60 to finish the session at 3,236.40 returned. For anyone who liked the counting wilds of Dreams of Macau, this is the same idea with a stronger bonus, since every silver frame there starts out gold.