Pearl o' Plinko - Mermaid Cove Demo: Pegs, a Kraken and Portals
Pearl o' Plinko - Mermaid Cove · Quickspin · RTP 98.10% · max win 199.6x · checked on the demo server
Pearl o' Plinko - Mermaid Cove, out in December 2024, is Quickspin's first plinko game: you set a bet per ball, choose 1 to 100 balls and let them fall from a clam past pegs, gates and chests worth 0.1x to 5x. Quickspin's own build runs in the window below without charge and needs neither registration nor a deposit. Its top model returns 98.10%, matched by only one other game on this site, at volatility 1 of 5, and across 100 million simulated balls the best single ball returned 199.6x the bet.
How does a ball win in Pearl o' Plinko - Mermaid Cove?
It collects every Award Gate it falls through and the Award Pocket where it stops, each worth a multiple of the bet per ball. On the base board that means 0.1x for the wave gate, 0.2x for the two chests mid-board and 0.3x to 5x along the bottom, the most at the edges. A whirlpool pays nothing itself but takes the ball to the bonus boards; the pot pays nothing but drops three new balls. A round pays the sum of all its balls.
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Screenshots on this page and the clip come from the client as it starts, with 10 balls at €0.10 each and TOTAL BET €1.00. The 500-round log ran differently, with one ball of €1.00 a round, so a 0.2x chest shows €0.02 on the frames and paid €0.20 in the log.
- Studio
- Quickspin
- Released
- December 2024
- Grid and wins
- Plinko board, ball pays
- Volatility
- 1 of 5 (game sheet)
- RTP
- 98.10% default. Also 94.19%, 92.07%, 87.15%
- Max win
- 199.6x the bet, largest win of one ball in 100 million simulated balls, x the bet per ball (demo server; the game sheet rounds to 199x)
- Where the RTP comes from
- Base game 47.20% · Kraken Peninsula 26.63% · Mermaid Cove 24.27%
- Win of 100x or more
- 1 in 56,304 balls, per ball
- Demo bets
- €0.10 to €100.00
- Bonus buy
- 2 options, 4x to 7x the bet
- Balls per drop
- 1 to 100, the client opens with 10 at €0.10
- Portal Gates
- On the Mermaid Cove bonus board, leading to 15x chests
Gates pay on the way down, pockets pay where the ball stops
Every ball leaves the same clam. Most of them fall down the middle, the rules say, and the big labels sit out at the edges. The board below is the whole base game, with no symbols or paylines anywhere on it.
Our log bears the rules out. Of 674 balls on the base board, 340 stopped in the two 0.2x chests, three reached a 2x pocket and none a 5x corner. The pot caught 58 balls and returned three for each, so a single drop grew to as many as 10 balls.
EXTRA BET, at +€0.50 on €1.00, costs 1.5x the bet and puts one more Bonus Pocket on the board; we never switched it on.
From the Kraken's channel to the portal ring
Whirlpool balls wait for the rest to settle, then drop on Kraken Peninsula, the first board on the pirate map. It is a narrow channel with chests on alternate sides, 0.5x at the top down to 25x at the bottom, three pots and two whirlpools. The help screen speaks of 8 arguments you must win to pass to the next level, without saying what they are.
Kraken Peninsula took 127 balls in our log and passed 21 on, all through the upper whirlpool; the lower one never caught a ball. The 25x chest paid twice, on rounds 483 and 491.
Mermaid Cove is the last board: a wide pyramid with 0.1x gates, a pot, bottom pockets of 0.2x to 5x, and a purple tentacle that is a Portal Gate. A ball that enters it comes out in a ring at the top right, where 0.5x gates lead to 2x and 15x chests.
All 15 portal trips in our log happened on this board, none on the base board, and the ring's 15x chests caught six balls, worth €90.00 of the €148.60 that Mermaid Cove paid.
Two bonus boards out-earned the base board in our 500 balls
A ball on the tiles stands for a whole €1.00 drop, including the balls it re-launched and any bonus board it reached. Base-board whirlpools caught 73 balls. Balls of one round travel together, though, so 69 rounds played Kraken Peninsula, and 18 of them reached Mermaid Cove.
- 500paid demo balls at €1.00
- 100%of them paid something
- 38.5xbest ball, Bonus Game included
- 69Bonus Games triggered
Small wins were the rule. No round came back empty, and 262 paid exactly 0.2x. Even so, the bonus boards lifted the balance from €5,000.00 to €5,050.40, a 110.1% return, after a low of €4,931.20 on round 158.
Kraken Peninsula paid €188.50 (37.7% of the stake, against the sheet's 26.63%) and Mermaid Cove €148.60 (29.7% against 24.27%), while the base board returned 42.7%, under its 47.20%. Round 237 was the best: one ball became 7 on Kraken Peninsula, two went on, and the cove's pots made 17 of them, with five portal trips, for 38.5x. No ball that stayed on the base board paid more than 3.2x.
What €4.00 and €7.00 put on the bonus boards
Sitting left of the board, a BONUS badge at €4 for a €1.00 bet sells a start on either board. The price is 4x or 7x the total bet, and the whole drop lands on the board you pick.
| Option | Price | At €1.00 |
|---|---|---|
| Kraken PeninsulaAll your balls launched straight into the first Bonus Game | 4x | €4.00 |
| Mermaid CoveAll your balls launched straight into the second Bonus Game | 7x | €7.00 |
We bought Kraken Peninsula. Its 10 balls made €4.00, exactly the price, and one went on to Mermaid Cove, where a portal and the ring added the rest: €5.61 back for €4.00, and an end card counting 11 balls dropped. The rules warn that some markets do not sell both levels.
Quickspin's first plinko, before Fire & Bones raised the second price
Four months later Fire & Bones kept this base board, the bet per ball, the Extra Bet and the 98.10% model. It dropped the Portal Gates and brought in Ship Graveyard and Fire Island, with the second board priced at 12x, up from 7x. Its best ball reaches 243.6x, and a ball of 100x or more comes 1 in 13,681 against 1 in 56,304 here.
Casino copies can be set to 94.19%, 92.07% or 87.15% in place of the demo's 98.10%, and even on the lowest card the base board gets only 44.23%. Among the reel slots here, Big Bad Wolf shares the top of the list at 97.34%, yet its top win of 1,225x puts it in another class of risk.
Expect small change from the base board, where half the balls end in 0.2x chests. The game's weight lies on the two bonus boards, and a single portal into the ring can pay 15x. With a ceiling of 199.6x a ball, even the best round stays small next to a reel slot's top win.
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We checked these against help screen version 1.2.0, Quickspin's sheet and our 500-round log of the demo server.
Is Mermaid Cove Quickspin's first RNG game, as its sheet says?
Its page and sheet say "first RNG game and the first Plinko game of its kind", but read it as the first plinko: Quickspin was making random-number reel slots long before, and Big Bad Wolf on this site dates from 2013.
How do you set the stake?
Pick a bet per ball, from €0.10 to €100.00, and a number of balls: 1, 3, 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50, 80 or 100. The total bet is the two multiplied; the client starts on 10 balls at €0.10.
Where are the Portal Gates?
On the Mermaid Cove bonus board: a tentacle in the pyramid sends the ball to a ring with 0.5x gates and 2x and 15x chests. The base board and Kraken Peninsula have none; all 15 portal trips in our log were on the last board.
Is 199.6x the top prize of a whole round?
No. It is the largest win of a single ball in Quickspin's 100 million simulated balls, in bets per ball, so €19.96 for a €0.10 ball. A round of many balls adds up each of them, re-launched balls included.
Did our 500 balls show a profit by chance?
Largely, yes. Our 110.1% beat the 98.10% model because the bonus boards paid 67.4% of the stake against 50.90% on the sheet; two 25x chests on Kraken Peninsula and six balls in the cove's 15x chests paid €140.00 of it.