Did you know the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation has estimated that we will have to grow 70% more food to meet people's needs by the year 2050? This includes combating current hunger levels as well as accounting for the billions of extra mouths to feed by then. Scary thought, and here's hoping humanity is up to the task. Until then, here's an online slot based around agriculture called Barn Festival from software provider Pragmatic Play. For Barn Festival, Pragmatic Play has spliced DNA from a number of different games together like some sort of Frankenstein GM crop. Here you'll find echoes of Sweet Bonanza, Money Train 2, and plenty of good, wholesome farming.
Not to nit-pick, but the name Barn Festival is a bit of a misnomer. The action takes place entirely outside of a barn, whether in the base or bonus game. There is a traditional red barn off in the distance to the right of the reels, yet this hardly qualifies as a barn bonanza. However, Barn Festival does its best to live up to the second word in its title, and the mood is chipper throughout. Accompanying the bright farm visuals is a laxed banjo-based soundtrack in the base game, moving into party mode for the bonus round, complete with fireworks and all. Visually, this is classic Pragmatic Play, presented in the same vein as loveable games like The Dog House Megaways.
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Playable from 20 p/c to $/€100 per spin, Barn Festival is also a follow up to games like Sweet Bonanza and Gates of Olympus as it uses a scatter pays system. A win is formed as long as 8 or more matching symbols are in view anywhere on the 6x5 game panel. There are three RTP settings to be aware of, the highest being 96.45%, while the volatility is rated 5 out of 5, meaning it's as volatile as Pragmatic slots come.
Barn Festival's paytable mixes up the theme with standard slot iconography. On the low side, players get diamond, club, heart, and spade card suits, paying 2-8x the bet when 12 are in view. Next are aubergines, corn, toadstools, oranges, and strawberries as the premium symbols, where a 12 symbol scatter win is worth 10 to 50 times the stake. Wins trigger the tumble feature, which removes the respective symbols, allowing new symbols to fall down into the gaps. Tumbling continues until no new scatter win hits following a tumble.
Money symbols are the stepping stones to Barn Festivals special features, leading to win multipliers in the base game and Barn Festival Money Respins, depending on how many are in view. The first thing to know about money symbols is they land bearing random values of 1x to 500x the total bet.
When exactly 3 money symbols land throughout a tumble sequence, their values are transformed into win multipliers that are added together and applied to the total win at the end of the sequence. If exactly 3 money symbols land at the start of a spin before any tumbling has occurred, and there is no win, the money symbol values are added and stored. Then, the symbols are respun until a win occurs, and the multiplier can be applied to it.
Should 4 or more money symbols hit, the Money Respin feature is activated. This bonus is played on a 4x5 sized grid with the triggering money symbols locked in place, and 3 respins are awarded. When new symbols hit, they are locked as well and reset the respin count. As well as money symbols, special symbols can also land:
The round ends when respins end, the win cap is hit, or all positions are filled. If all are filled, an additional 500x the bet is added to the total win.
If available in your jurisdiction, you can buy the respin feature for 100x the bet rather than wait for the requisite number of money symbols to land.
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On the whole, Barn Festival is possibly the best entry in Pragmatic Play's scatter pay range of slots and offers things none of its predecessors did. It must be said that the bulk of the new bits are largely thanks to Relax Gaming's monster Money Train 2. If you can overlook this fact, though, then Barn Festival has plenty to offer players keen on OP hold 'n win style games with an extra helping of special symbols to augment the experience.
It might even be argued Barn Festival's base game delivers more excitement than MT2 was capable of. There's the uncommon scatter pay mechanism, leading to tumbles, and having money symbol multipliers is a plus. It's pretty generous, too, since the multiplier is saved if no win is present and used on the next scatter win, so it doesn't go to waste. The trade-off is Barn Festival does lack the smack in the face oomph that Money Train 2 unloaded to excess. The heavy, gritty, livin' on the edge of society, in a wild steampunk-inspired world, is gone, to be replaced by, like corn and stuff. The lighter theme might not appeal to the heavies out there. Though maybe it will? Pragmatic Play has packaged everything in Barn Festival to be easily enjoyed.
There's not much to say about the bonus round that hasn't been said before in other games. As you might suspect, the persistent symbols are the game changers they usually are, though decent results were achieved without them. Dud bonus rounds ensued as well, meaning Barn Festival Respins are as unpredictable as ever. One area of possible concern for some is the win cap shuts the game down when it hits 20,000x the bet. Less than half than MT2, but on the flip side, the odds of achieving max win are 1 in 3,215,434, which isn't bad in the grand scheme of things. Interesting to note the 20k max win is technically less than Sweet Bonanza's claimed potential, though 'claimed' being the operative word.
So, if you're done with trains or just want to see someone else's take on a special symbol infested hold 'n win, then Barn Festival is a strong contender. It might look cutely agricultural, but it packs in everything needed to break loose like a runaway tractor.
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