Jumanji

Our Slot of the Month for June 2018 is the brand new release Jumanji by NetEnt.  This branded online slot is based, not on the Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle film that came out for Christmas 2017, but the original 1995 film starring the late Robin Williams.

The Jumanji game in the original film was a board game (whereas the sequel had it as a video game) and, as well as appearing in the background throughout, this theming is integral to the bonus round.

The Jumanji slot has a hexagonal reels array similar to the IGT classic Siberian Storm but instead of the 720 ways to win that would usually accompany such an arrangement it has 36 paylines, running from left to right.  It has a fixed bet of 10 coins with a range of coin sizes and bet levels allowing spin values of anything from 10p to £200, and a theoretical RTP of 96.33%.

Many of the symbols are stacked and this means that when wins do happen (which isn’t that often) they tend to be on multiple lines at once.

Four bonus features can be randomly triggered in the base game but these do not seem to be much more common than the bonus round itself.

• Wild Stampede – a herd of rhinos stampede across the screen adding 4-9 wilds.
• Monkey Mayhem – after the reels have stopped and any wins are evaluated, monkeys reshuffle the symbols to create a guaranteed win.
• Monsoon Wilds – one or two crocodiles jump on to the reels to create one or two wild reels (always including at least one of reels 1-4).
• Sticky Vines – basically this is sticky wins + sticky wilds.  All symbols that are part of a winning line and all wilds regardless of whether or not they are part of a winning line stay in place for a respin – and respins continue until there are no more wins.

The bonus round is triggered when three or more Jumanji game symbols appear on the reels.  3 symbols award 6 dice rolls, 4 award 8 dice rolls and 5 award 10 dice rolls.  Roll the dice and move around the board – and what happens next depends on which of the 32 spaces you land on.

• 16 of the spaces award a coin win of 1-5 times bet
• 4 spaces award an additional dice roll
• 8 spaces award free spins – 2 in front of each corner of the board, with a different free spins mode in each corner. Each of these can only be triggered once per bonus round, so once triggered the spaces turn to extra dice roll spaces.  In the screenshot, which was taken towards the end of a bonus round, three of the four free spins modes have been triggered.
• 4 spaces award the Mystery Feature – a carousel of coin wins of 2-10x bet, 2 extra dice rolls, and any free spin features that have not yet been triggered.

Each free spins mode corresponds to one of the bonus features in the base game:

1. Vines Free Spins  – 10 free spins with the Sticky Vines feature.  Wilds become sticky for the rest of the free spins.
2. Monsoon Free Spins – 7 free spins with the Monsoon Wilds feature.  The same two reels cannot be wild for consecutive spins.
   
3. Monkey Free Spins – 6 free spins with Monkey Mayhem
   
4. Stampede Free Spins – 5 free spins with Wild Stampede
   

Of the four, the Vines Free Spins (in the top right corner of the board) is arguably the best – partly because of the larger number of free spins and partly because unlike the other bonus features which reset after each spin, the vines sticky wilds remain in place for the rest of the free spins potentially building up to bigger and bigger wins.  A dice roll of a 4 or a 5 is required to trigger it straight off (a chance of 7/36 or 19.4%) but because the average dice roll is 7 and the minimum number of dice rolls is 6, most bonus rounds will include a second visit to that part of the board.

It really is all about the bonus round in this game and not only could you be waiting for hundreds of spins to get it, when you do it could be a big disappointment. Because of the board game mechanic, bonus rounds can vary wildly both in how much fun they are to play and in how much they pay.  Land on the wrong spaces and you could go away with just 6 x bet, land on the right spaces and trigger all 4 free spins modes – or even just the Vines Free Spins with its potential for mega wins – and it could be much, much more.

Where To Play the Jumanji Slot

Sue Dawson

Creating iGaming content since 2013 - bingo and slots specialist

Sue Dawson has been writing about (and playing) online bingo and slots since 2013, putting her unique spin on everything.  She has…

Sue Dawson has been writing about (and playing) online bingo and slots since 2013, putting her unique spin on everything.  She has written pieces for iGaming industry news sites, appeared on and moderated panels at industry events and on podcasts, helped to judge industry awards and is a member of iGB Executive, a high level industry think tank.  In her spare time she enjoys gaming, hiking, dancing, watching motorsport and reading science fiction.

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