Barrel Bonanza: Slot Overview

You could make this claim about plenty of years, but 1981 was especially packed with major events. Among many other headlines, President Ronald Reagan was shot, the first case of HIV/AIDS was recorded in the USA, Pope John Paul II was also shot, and the Salvadoran Army killed up to 1,000 people in El Mozote (info from Wikipedia). Still, it wasn’t all bleak. Prince Charles married Lady Diana, and in July that year, Donkey Kong launched—becoming Nintendo’s first international hit, reshaping video games and introducing the world to an Italian plumber named Mario.

Ever since, the impact of Mario and Kong has echoed for decades in all sorts of places—including online gambling. A good example is the online slot Barrel Bonanza from Hacksaw Gaming partner Backseat Gaming. Here, a beefy simian hurls barrels onto the grid to create wilds/wild multipliers. You won’t spot Mario in this tropical setting, though; that would have been a bit too close to a copyright problem, whereas a gorilla is a more general character, presumably. In this reimagined tribute to video game legends, palm trees sway in the background, Kong clings to the side with massive hands, and lively music helps sell the sunny, seaside vibe.

For Barrel Bonanza, Backseat Gaming has created a bamboo-framed playfield featuring 5 reels, 4 rows, and 14 paylines. On paper, it’s a medium volatile slot, although both volatility and RTP shift when features are purchased. The standard return is 96.23%, and that applies when wagering 10 c to $/€100 per spin. Additional figures are shown below.

The pay symbols in Barrel Bonanza are kept straightforward: card royals and fruit. The lower-value symbols are the 10 to A royals, while the higher pays come from cherries, watermelons, pineapples, and bananas. Landing 5 matching card symbols returns 1-2 times the bet, while 5 matching fruit pays 4-10 times the bet. Wilds replace any standard pay symbols and can land on every reel. A 5-wild win pays the same as bananas.

Barrel Bonanza: Slot Features

Mario probably wouldn’t have appreciated barrels flying his way, but in Barrel Bonanza they’re exactly what you want, as they generate wilds/wild multipliers. In the free spins bonus, these wilds turn sticky, and every feature can also be accessed for a price via the bonus buy.

Going Bananas

When the Going Bananas feature kicks in, Kong tosses 1 to 5 wild barrels onto random reel positions, and they typically reveal a multiplier upon landing. Barrels come in 3 tiers – low, medium, and high. Low-tier barrels range from Wild (no multiplier) up to x10, medium runs from x5 to x50, and high spans x30 to x100. If a barrel lands where another barrel already sits, it bounces and duplicates, sending 2 barrels to fresh spots on the grid. Should either of those land on another barrel, the bouncing and duplicating continues until every barrel settles on an unoccupied position.

Bonus Game

Players win 10, 12, or 14 free spins by landing 3, 4, or 5 scatter symbols in the base game. In the bonus game, all barrels stay sticky and display a new random value from their tier on each spin. The Going Bananas feature activates more often during the bonus game. Scatter symbols do not appear during free spins.

Bonus Buy

Barrel Bonanza lets players purchase features through the buy bonus menu. The choices are as follows; all are highly volatile:

• BonusHunt FeatureSpins – 3x the bet for a spin that is 5 times more likely to trigger the bonus game. RTP 96.36%.
• Kong FeatureSpins – 25x the bet for a spin that guarantees to activate Going Bananas. RTP 96.29%.
• Bonus Game – 100x the bet to receive 10, 12, or 14 free spins. RTP 96.26%.

Barrel Bonanza: Slot Verdict

Barrel Bonanza never felt like it was going to shake up iGaming the way Donkey Kong once did for video games, but overall it’s a likeable slot. The base game can drag a bit between Going Bananas triggers, which didn’t seem to land very often. In those gaps, you’re mostly looking at dead spins or small wins, usually without much extra happening to boost them. Spins keep ticking over until Kong decides it’s time to start flinging barrels into play. Aside from BonusHunt FeatureSpins—which can get wildly intense—Barrel Bonanza isn’t like Donkey Kong, where barrels come rolling in relentlessly, though it does have its moments.

Those moments really come alive when Kong drops barrels onto existing barrels, making them bounce and duplicate, and potentially bounce and duplicate again if they collide with more barrels. It’s reminiscent of the Harry Potter scene where Harry and friends break into Bellatrix Lestrange’s vault at Gringotts Wizarding Bank and the treasure multiplies out of control. These sequences in Barrel Bonanza were uncommon but fun. If you manage to get a strong bounce chain going during free spins, it’s even better since wilds are sticky there, and we all know how valuable that can be.

One helpful point is that Barrel Bonanza’s max win of 10,000x the bet doesn’t rely on filling the grid with sticky wilds during a free spins run. That’s because the top payout is technically possible in every game mode, as the info page clearly states. All in all, this is an entertaining slot that can truly go bananas when Kong starts playing fast and loose with the barrels.