Barnyard Bonanza Pokie
Online pokie developer Ainsworth Gaming may not be the best-known company in the business, but they have come up with a few titles that should see their games featured at many more casinos.
Barnyard Bonanza is one such pokie, where a combination of superb graphics, a couple of fun animations, crazy characters and rewarding bonuses should ensure herds of players are spinning the reels.
There’s various farmyard animals across the reels, joined by a famer and a golden egg, each of which has special powers, while a free spins game where players get to choose the number of spins and stacked symbols should help to keep the troughs filled.
Mooving To The Game
Although it’s laid out as a conventional 5 reel, 20-line pokie, the detailed design is quite special, with everything given a 3D effect that makes the symbols seem to pop out of the reels. The background image of the farmyard is just as well designed as the rest of the game, with paddocks, bales of hay and various animals grinning out from the screen.
The actual reels are given a rustic-looking wooden framework, complete with corn growing up one side and strawberries climbing up the other, which all adds up to a game whose looks are beyond criticism.
Players will win if they manage to land 3, 4 or 5 of the same type of symbol across any of the 20 paylines, with the line needing to run from the left side on adjacent reels.
The amount won depends on which symbols make up the line, with the lower value payouts coming from the 9, 10, J, Q, K and A. These have all been given farm-related patterns, with the 10 for example, looking like a strawberry and the K being made out of mud, or possibly manure.
Other symbols, in rising order of value, include the barn, scarecrow, a happy pig, horse and a cross-eyed cow who is worth 50, 60 or 80 times the line bet when she lands on 3, 4 or 5 reels across an active line.
Barnyard Bonanza
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Clucking Good Bonuses
The farmer is happily driving his tractor around and will pay out the biggest wins when landing across a line, while also acting as the wild symbol. This means that he can substitute for all others, with the exception of the scatter, if he can complete winning combinations. For example players landing the pig on reels 1 and 3, and the wild on reel 2 across a line, will win for getting 3 little pigs.
The chicken is a scatter symbol, so she doesn’t need to be on a line and players win multiples of the total stake if she’s in any 3, 4 or 5 positions. Landing 3 chickens is worth 2x the bet, 3 chickens pays out 5x and 5 appearing at once is worth a win of 50x the bet, but players shouldn’t count their chickens on seeing 5 of them too often..
She also triggers a bonus free spins round , and before they begin, players get to pick how many spins will play out and which picture symbol will be stacked on the reels during them.
The more valuable the symbol, the fewer spins will be seen, with the options being 14 spins with the barn stacked, 13 with the scarecrow, 12 with the pig, 11 with the horse and finally just 10 free games, but the valuable cow will be stacked on any reels that she lands on.
Overall returns are about the same for each combination of spins and stacked symbols, so it’s really just about whether players want to see more spins for smaller rewards, or fewer chances to win but bigger rewards when they do so.
There’s a golden egg symbol that can award some cracking prizes when it turns up in the free spins, with either extra games or multiplier prizes of up to 5x the stake laid out before players.
The Verdict
Barnyard Bonanza is a great looking pokie that has some nice bonus features to go along with it. Having the option to choose the number of free spins is a welcome touch, while players should find that the bonus egg turns up quite frequently throughout them, making it an even better feature to trigger.
While the visuals may be very impressive, it’s perhaps a shame that symbols don’t become more animated when they make up part of a winning line, as the farmer is the only one to move around much. The others just become highlighted and it would have been nice to see them moo, oink or whatever.
But that’s a pretty minor issue and really not something that’s likely to spoil the experience of playing a generally good pokie.