Bamboo Riches: Slot Overview
Panda diplomacy is where China sends panda bears to other countries, either as gifts or on loan, in order to foster goodwill and friendship. You can see the thinking behind it, too, cos gosh darn it, the animal kingdom rarely gets as cute and cuddly as it does with panda bears, which prefer to avoid conflict than attack other animals or people. These unique creatures have also caught the eye of casino game makers and have appeared in slots such as Fortune Pandas, Panda Money Megaways, and Big Bamboo. This time, it’s Hacksaw Gaming partner Bullshark Games riding the train, and the team has used the charming creatures to come up with the online slot Bamboo Riches.
At first glance, Bamboo Riches came off as a mix of Ancient Paws and the Kung Fu Panda film franchise. More the latter as a cute, pudgy panda bear shifts from paw to paw next to a set of reels wedged within a classic Asian structure set within a classic Asian slot location of majestically towering mountains, far, far away from the bustling metropolises. In some ways, it is a case of being graphically done before, but that’s not to take away from the pleasing visuals Bamboo Riches renders for users’ eyes, not to mention a haunting dragon spirit effect which appears for free spins.
Bamboo Riches operates a ways-to-win pay system across its 5×3 gaming area, resulting in 1,024 ways to win. That is a potentially potent piece of a slot that leans on wilds and multiplier symbols. Bet selection is 10 c to $/€100 per base game round where the volatility is high, and the greatest theoretical RTP clocks in at 96.31%.
The pay symbols in Bamboo Riches consist of 10 to A calligraphic card ranks, a money token, a tiger token, a panda token, then a cartoon monkey, and a cartoon tiger. Players collect 0.3x their bet when a 5-matching royal symbol combination lands, or 0.4x to 2x their bet for a 5 OAK premium symbol win. Wild symbols may appear on any of the reels. They substitute all of the regular paying symbols and have a value of 4x the bet when landing winning lines containing 5 wild symbols. Bamboo Riches also runs a cascade mechanic that repeatedly removes and replaces winning symbols until no new winning combination appears.
Bamboo Riches: Slot Features
When taking on Bamboo Riches, players may encounter Purple Pandas, Red Pandas, the Bamboo Warrior bonus, the Fury of the Warrior bonus, and bonus buys.
Purple Pandas and Red Pandas
Landing a Purple Panda adds 1 to 3 regular wilds to random positions on the same row. Hitting a Red Panda adds 3 to 10 random x2 to x100 multipliers to random symbols. Should more than one symbol with a multiplier be part of the same win, the multiplier values are added together first. Multipliers are reset with each new spin. After performing their modifying abilities, Purple Pandas and Red Pandas transform into a wild.
Bamboo Warrior Bonus
Hitting 3 scatters in the base game triggers 8 free spins in the Bamboo Warrior round. Before it begins, one random high-pay symbol is picked to have a progressive multiplier. All multipliers landing on the high pay symbol with the progressive multiplier are added up and applied to all symbols of the same type before wins are calculated. Each landed scatter during the feature awards +1 free spin.
Fury of the Warrior Bonus
Fury of the Warrior is triggered by landing 4 scatters in the base game, awarding 10 free spins. The mechanics are the same as the Bamboo Warrior bonus, except the progressive multiplier starts with an initial value of x2, x4, x8, or x10.
Bonus Buy
It is possible to play Bamboo Riches in BonusHunt FeatureSpins mode, where each spin costs 3x the bet to make them 5 times more likely to trigger free spins. Players can activate Panda’s Power FeatureSpins at 75x to land at least one Purple Panda and one Red Panda symbol. Or, buying the Bamboo Warrior round costs 100x, while Fury of the Warrior can be bought for 300x.
Bamboo Riches: Slot Verdict
After zoning out while staring at the lead character next to the reels in Bamboo Riches for a bit, thoughts about what makes panda bears so charming began to arise. Maybe it’s a combination of their gentle nature, the blackened eyes and ears, and their sheer cuddliness. Whatever it is, Bullshark Games has successfully bottled some of that panda charm when it designed Bamboo Riches, a game which, funnily enough, doesn’t seem to possess much bamboo. Following on from that, Bamboo Riches might not have the same levels of sophistication found in a typical Hacksaw Gaming release, either, but it is nevertheless equipped with an entertaining collection of features.
Straightforward features in some ways, perhaps, but multipliers and the ability to add wilds to the grid in a ways-to-win game is a potent mix. In addition, a measure of sophistication creeps into the Red Panda, as multiplier values only apply to winning symbols that carry multiplier values rather than to wins in general. This rule is neatly linked to the free spins round, which randomly picks a symbol to carry a progressive multiplier for its entirety, evoking a faint ‘Book of’ mental seesaw debate about lower value high pays possibly landing more often, thereby making more frequent use of the multiplier, or if higher value symbols may land less often but are potentially worth more.
Whether battling in the base game or throwing ninja stars around the place in the bonus round, Bamboo Riches’ 10,000x the bet win cap is a technical possibility in all phases. To sum up, while Bullshark Games’ slots, broadly speaking, might not be consistently lighting new paths through the darkness with the beacon of blazing ingenuity like its more established partner, the studio nevertheless continues to turn out playable slots with effective kung fu chopping features like Bamboo Riches.
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