Monkey Frenzy: Slot Overview

British zoologist Desmond Morris once said that ‘the city is not a concrete jungle, it is a human zoo’—a line that can sound a touch severe for everyday city dwellers, yet large urban areas can sometimes feel a little primal, even a bit wild. Hacksaw Gaming partner Trusty Gaming plays with that idea in its online slot Monkey Frenzy. Here, people have effectively been pushed out and monkeys have taken over, with the suggestion that ‘some will do whatever it takes for a bunch of… bananas.’ What those ‘bananas’ might stand for is left to the player’s imagination as they chase expanding wild symbols in free spins—because that’s essentially where the feature set begins and ends.

Trusty Gaming sets Monkey Frenzy in a downtown scene—somewhere like LA. Classic cars sit along the curb, litter drifts through the air, and you can practically picture the smells coming off the wheelie bins. The monkeys give off a slightly criminal vibe, or at least a “bananas at any cost” attitude, though they come across more as easygoing, fun-time gangsters than anything too serious. A groovy soundtrack helps sell the atmosphere, and out of the three Trusty Gaming slots available at the time of review, Monkey Frenzy was the most engaging on a sensory level.

Hovering in the middle of the street—shiny chrome and framed by a pair of speakers—sits Monkey Frenzy’s 5×3 reelset, paying from the leftmost reel across 17 paylines. The game comes in two RTP settings: 96.21% and 94.31%, and the stated volatility for both versions is medium. For staking, there’s a single bonus buy option alongside a bet range of 10 c to $/€100 per spin.

At the lower end of the paytable are knuckle dusters, cars, speakers, bats, and hockey masks, which return 1 to 2 times the bet for a 5-of-a-kind hit. Above them sit 4 monkey character symbols, paying 10 to 50 times the bet for 5 OAK. Wilds can land on every reel and substitute for any standard paying symbol. A full line of 5 wilds pays 300x.

Monkey Frenzy: Slot Features

With bananas and monkeys flying around, you might expect lots of mechanics, but Monkey Frenzy keeps things fairly light. The main addition is a free spins feature, activated when 3 or more Banana scatters appear. Hitting 3, 4, or 5 Banana scatters grants 10, 15, or 20 free spins and also awards a payout of 1x, 3x, or 10x the bet, in that order.

In free spins, Big Boss Wilds expand to fill the whole reel whenever they form part of a winning combination. On top of that, landing 3 or more Banana scatters during the bonus adds +5 free spins.

Bonus Buy

Monkey Frenzy includes just one option in the bonus buy menu: purchasing the free spins trigger for 100 times the bet.

Monkey Frenzy: Slot Verdict

Even with a link to one of the major names in online slots, Trusty Gaming still hasn’t reached the same standard as its better-known partner. It also hasn’t matched the consistency shown by other Hacksaw Gaming partners such as Backseat Gaming and Bullshark Games. Before this, the studio’s record consisted of two underwhelming releases—Sticky Candyland and Lucky Multifruit—with overused themes and minimal, low-impact features. With Monkey Frenzy, Trusty Gaming at least steps away from the candy-and-fruit routine to deliver something that feels less cookie-cutter. Monkeys have appeared on reels plenty of times before, but Monkey Frenzy does at least try to bring a fresher angle.

Unfortunately, the gameplay lands in much the same place as the previous two titles. The base game offers no extras, modifiers, or side features, so the experience is largely a straightforward grind of spinning until enough Banana scatters arrive to launch the bonus. In that base phase, the main excitement comes from landing winning lines featuring wilds or the higher-value premium symbols. Wilds are also the key point of interest in free spins, where their ability to expand improves the odds of connecting matching symbols into paylines. They can be genuinely helpful at times, and the game supports wins up to a maximum of 5,000x the bet.

As with earlier efforts, Monkey Frenzy still feels thin on features. The base game especially could have used a modifier or two to add some sparkle, and the bonus round is essentially an expanding-wild setup and little more. Still, among the three Trusty Gaming slots reviewed so far, Monkey Frenzy was arguably the most engaging from a mental standpoint, and it gives the impression the studio is moving in a better direction.