Light and Wonder has been increasingly putting out sequels and rethemes of many of their games as a way of building out their libraries on their new cabinets. One example of this is 88 Fortunes Money Coins, which offers a few tweaks to the 88 Fortunes format but ultimately hews pretty close to the original.
Ultimately this game implements a few more tweaks than 5 Treasures Golden Door did, but is more similar to Dancing Drums Explosion in that respect.
So what’s changed? Here’s the key differentiators of this slot sequel.
Bigger Bet Increments
We’ve seen this before on Dancing Drums Explosion and Prosperity, and Monopoly Lunar New Year. This is becoming a pretty standard bet panel on Light and Wonder games with an Asian theme.
The gap is more than the 88 credits needed to cover a doubling, tripling of the bet, etc. So where is that extra money going? To some of the other new enhancements of the game, it can be surmised.
Note the lack of gold symbols here – this is another change that’s common on the sequels to these type of games. You used to be able to control the number of gold symbols, allowing for as small as an 8 credit bet, but the minimum on these new games are 88 credits.
Money Coins
On each spin, some of the coins are replaced with money coins, the range of values depend on the wager but whose range jumps substantially once you get to $5.88. If you line up the coins with money coins, you are not only paid the line pay, but the money coins value as well.
That puts some additional emphasis on the coins, which is a pretty present symbol on a game like 88 Fortunes games, to pay out even more.
It’s a good time to note that the symbol line pays are identical to the original game, so the payouts themselves were not part of the tweaks, which has happened on some of these sequels.
The Bonus Wheel
Certain bonus symbols each spin have a gong with a wheel symbol, whose frequency increases on higher bets. The wheel acts as an upgrade to the bonus and can:
- Award credits
- Award additional free games (which start at 10 like the original 88 Fortunes)
- Increase the money coins range of values for the duration of the bonus
Anywhere from 2-5 wheel spins can be awarded, meaning at least one prize or upgrade is awarded when the wheel is awarded, which is a bit better than the Buffalo Gold Revolution model where you can land the start games on the first spin.
Wedges can be upgraded after any spin, and those upgrades can include the Play Free Games language that will initiate the free games. In my image example above, I got the coins upgrade on the third spin, and that wedge had the Play Free Games language, so after my coin range was upgraded, my bonus started.
Fu Babies Bonus Pick
When the pot closes and a progressive prize is to be won, this version can award a Bonus Pick, which allows a second progressive to be won. You will always get two progressives, so your floor is a mini and a minor.
I didn’t get the pot to close on any of my sessions on the game to date, which is in line with my struggle to get it to close on other games like it – par for the course.
Multi-Denomination Game; Mini and Minor Change
The game is a multi-denomination game, and with that addition comes a change for the Mini and Minor progressives; they update based on your denomination, so if you get a mini on a nickel denomination it’s going to be larger than on a penny denomination.
Conclusion
I’ve had a couple of really good bonuses on this game. My most recent session on a $1.88 bet yielded an approximately $125 bonus, thanks in no small part to a steady flow of money coins that paid me better than the line hits for the most part. That was my first time getting the wheel bonus; you really need that to get a bonus that overperforms.
This makes this game more volatile than the original between the additional spending to upgrade the bonus, and the risk you don’t get that said bonus, or that you just get credits instead of the upgrades. But when you do, it has a lot of potential, and I can see that being another winner in the eyes of casino players.
88 Fortunes Money Coins Slot Videos
TheBigPayback had a great run on the game:
The Slot Cats enjoy a good wheel bonus, and they got it on the game:
Diana Evoni gave the game a couple of tries before finally getting the wheel bonus:
