Barn Festival (Pragmatic Play) Slot Demo & Review

So, apparently, Barn Festivals are real and take place in some parts of the United States and other countries, sometimes under slightly different names. Still, they are all essentially the same kind of thing – a promoter hires out a barn to use as a makeshift venue for an event of some sort, typically a dance festival, rock concert, or other music based get together. This type of event was especially popular beginning as far back as the swinging sixties and only really dying down when “raves”, as they came to be known, were made illegal after several deaths allegedly caused by the consumption of illegal drugs. Interesting stuff, right? Well, if you’re down for a shindig, you might want to check out Dance Party too, or if you’re feeling particularly risky, then 4ThePlayer’s titled Dance with the Devil.

Getting back on point, let’s move on to the paytable. The top end is filled by the Strawberry – a huge outlier with a monster payout (relatively speaking) of 50x your stake for hitting 12 or more during a single spin. We are playing on an unusually large grid, and this vast reel area definitely suits this type of game where all symbols are paying as scatters. You really need as many positions as possible for symbols to land on, and the 6×5 playfield makes a total of 30 such positions. With 12 or more required for the biggest wins, the mathematicians among you will already have realised that means a massive 40% of the total play area. After the Strawberry, the Orange pays 50x, the Toadstool 30x, and the Corn 24x. The lower value pays are represented by the card suits, Spades, Hearts, Clubs, and Diamonds, awarding 8x, 5x, 4x, and 2x, respectively, for clusters of 12 or more.

Bets are placed using a combination of coin sizes and values, though you can bypass this by going straight for the plus and minus arrows on either side of the spin dial if you prefer. The minimum bet is €0.20, and the maximum is a frankly ludicrous €100.00 per spin. So, regardless of the size of your bankroll coming into this game, there will be a stake that suits your style of play.

The base game doesn’t have much interest of note, other than a reminder about that 6×5 playfield – it looks enormous, and that’s because it is! “Normal” conventions used to be that video slots used a 5×3 reel area, creating 15 positions on which symbols would land. This game doubles this to 30 – you will need as many as you can get though, if you are to stand a chance at hitting 12 or more matching symbols on a single spin.

Tumble Feature

Once all the reels have come to a halt, any winning combinations will be highlighted before exploding and vanishing. This creates empty spaces for the remaining symbols to fall, allowing new ones to drop in from the top of the screen. Should more winning combinations occur because of the new symbols which fall into view, this process will repeat itself again and again until there are no more winning combinations. This allows you to win many times from a single paid spin.

Finally, the bonus round in Barn Festival video slot is a free spin feature with a twist. It uses the Las Vegas style system whereby you start with three spins and every time a new symbol appears on screen, this counter is reset back to 3, and you continue playing until you go three consecutive spins in a row with no new symbols appearing on screen. Which symbols, you would be right to ask? There are many special symbols that occur only during the bonus round, which is triggered by hitting four money bags simultaneously.

Respins Feature

When you trigger the feature, you start with four money bags, each of which has a value assigned to it. These values are your starting balance for that particular bonus round – it might be 4x your stake or 400x. This differs wildly each time the feature is triggered. The feature begins with a smaller viewable area of 4×4 in the middle of the screen. The remaining two reels can be opened by hitting the Unlock symbol as the reels spin. Reel six opens first, followed by reel one if you hit a second Unlock symbol.

Extra money bags are the primary item you will be collecting during the feature, but what you really want to be looking out for are the Add and Multiply symbols, as these increase the value of every bag currently visible on the screen. The best find of all is the Persistent Multiply symbol, which will multiply the value of your money bags for every spin until the feature completes.

Also, don’t panic if you hit the Collect symbol – I thought it would end my bonus round early; however, this is not the case. The Collect symbol actually gives you the value of your current bonus earnings up to that point immediately and will continue doing so on every subsequent spin as well. This is in addition to collecting your winnings at the end of the bonus round.

Bonus Buy

Those playing from a jurisdiction where buying the bonus on a slot is permitted will be able to access the bonus round on Barn Festival instantly if they choose to do so, at the cost of 100x the current bet.