The era of triple accumulator games with bonuses that can mix and match upgrades is accelerating with a wave of games hitting casino floors right now. One game in that model is one of the latest Monopoly-branded games to hit the floors, that of Monopoly Lunar New Year.
This one hews a bit closer to the grand daddy of these games with Fu Dai Lian Lian by having the coins on the reels and three bags above the reels. The game is an all ways pays game in the Shuffle Master tradition of the company, and uses that company’s win music and layouts, which seems fitting given the Asian theming as well.
Another element this game borrows from other Shuffle Master-centric games is the bet increments being uneven, identical in setup to games like Dancing Drums Explosion and Dancing Drums Prosperity.
Since the line pays don’t increase by the same increments, the expectation is that more bonuses or better bonuses occurs with the bigger bets. In this case, there’s clear improvements in the Mini and Minor, which increase more proportionally with the bet, for instance.
Coin prizes in the bonus increase at a more rapid clip, so it’s likely that’s where the benefits lie. The game also notes the distribution of bag spinning opportunities change with bet level, so they likely spin more often as your bet increments go up.
All three bags offer enhancements the free spins bonus, with each contributing something different:
- Red Coin/Bag: The red coin/bag is the traditional jackpot bag. Similar to Fu Dai Lian Lian, collecting all of the elements wins the prize, but this time it’s designed to match the Monopoly theme by collecting properties from one side of the board. Similar to Fu Dai Lian Lian, the Mini and Minor are flat jackpots as opposed to progressives, that adjust based on bet. The Jackpot bonus yields 10 free spins as a starting point; the others yield 6 free spins. This is also like Fu Dai Lian Lian, excepting the extra spin for the non-jackpot bonuses.
- Blue Coin/Bag: This upgrade offers expanding reels on each spin of the bonus, with the ability to grow from three-high reels to six-high reels. Given the all ways pays component of the game, this expands the number of ways to win, and can help reveal more coins when paired with the Jackpot bonus, for instance.
- Green Coin/Bag: This upgrade offers multiplier wilds on the third reel, which can amplify the payouts considerably above/beyond the all ways pays ability to pay better with clumped or stacked symbols. Each wild symbol on that third reel can reveal a 2x or 3x multiplier.
The bags can spin individually or in combination, so you can get all three upgrades at once if all three bags spin. During my playing I was able to get a double bonus with the blue and red bags spinning together.
Similar to Fu Dai Lian Lian, the red/blue/green coins don’t appear on the Jackpot bonus in favor of gold coins which can house credit prizes, additional free spins or property cards.
Each jackpot requires four cards to be collected to win, but the game will of course lean towards the lower two flat jackpots moreso than the progressives as a whole. Once a jackpot is won, the cards are removed and they can be won again, just like Fu Dai Lian Lian.
Outside of the jackpot bonus, the blue and green bonuses can reveal matching colored coins with credit prizes or additional spins as well. There is also the ability for triggering a follow-on bonus, like… well, you know at this point.
And for those bag chasers, the pay table here again confirms they’re for illustrative purposes only and do not predict when a bonus will be triggered.
However, anticipation spins are possible – I got one that came out just before the dual bag bonus I won triggered, so the animations could come out to get you hyped up.
Overall this is a fun one, and can deliver some pretty quick action at times, so those fans of The Bag Game or similar setups will find plenty to like here, mainly because it’s clearly inspired by it.
Monopoly Lunar New Year Slot Videos
Diana Evoni played the game in one of her sessions, and got a retrigger for a second bonus in her first one:
TheBigPayback had a big win bonus on this video:
The American Casino Guide Book team, now going by The Jackpot Gents on YouTube, had a good session as well, with a retrigger that incorporated all three bonus upgrades:
