The Goonies Return - Slot of the Month

The Goonies Return is Blueprint Gaming’s second branded online slot game. It’s based on the famous 80s adventure movie and features no less than thirteen bonus features, among them six base game modifiers, four losing spin modifiers and a bonus wheel round. We should also mention that the game includes a potential jackpot of £250,000. Unsurprisingly, this feature-laden title is our slot of the month for October.

Theme/Visuals

The game opens up with an intro featuring Chunk who slides across the screen. He’s followed by Data who causes an extendable boxing glove to hit the game area, thus revealing info about the slot’s many, many, many, many features.

The intro is accompanied by a collection of sound-bites from the movie which eventually gives way to incidental music sampled directly from the movie. Following a chorus of ‘Goonies Never Say Die’, we’re presented with a 5 x 3 reel set. Framed in gold, the wood-effect reels are set against a map parchment and populated with decent cartoon renderings of all of the main characters: Data, Mouth, Chunk and Mikey.

How to Play Goonies Return

The usual playing card symbols stand in for low value symbols while the main characters serve as medium value symbols. To win, you’ll need to land three, four or five from left to right. Data and Mouth pay out 0.5, 3 or 10x your stake when they appear three, four or five times respectively, while Chunk and Mikey are worth 1, 4 or 15x.

Of the standard symbols, the Pirate Flag is the most lucrative and can appear stacked, paying out as much as 25x when five appear on a pay-line. A stone medallion serves as the wild and can turn up in any position, substituting all other symbols save the bonus. As with the Pirate Flag, it too can pay out 25x your stake should you land it five times.

Goonies Return Bonus Features

There are seven One Eyed Willy Modifiers active during the base game which can trigger randomly on any spin. These are as follows:

• Truffle Shuffle Wilds Feature – when you trigger this modifier, wilds overlay the reels turning their positions wild. Chunk will also turn the wilds in multiplying wilds. A Truffle Re-Shuffle is also possible – here, Chunk switches the reel positions to award another win.
• Hidden Treasure – for this feature, a stone pillar drops down and strikes the centre reel, adding a Mikey Wild. When the reels stop spinning, all Goonie symbols are converted into wilds.
• W-Invention Reels – Data appears and uses his Punch-Out glove to strike a reel causing two, three or four reels to replicate its result.
• Lucky Coins – during any spin, where a coin lands on the reels, a symbol is randomly chosen and then displayed in every coin in play – cash symbols are sometimes displayed which are held in position during re-spins.
• Bonus Boost – this adds extra bonus symbols to the reels significantly improving your chances of triggering the bonus round.
• Win Spin – the win spins modifier guarantees you a substantial pay-out.

In addition to the above, the game includes extra modifiers that trigger with any spin to create wins out of losses: a scythe appears which resets the reels while also shooting spikes that remove at least one column of symbols to create a win. If you’re really lucky, dynamite will also be thrown onto the reels upgrading the win. Look out for the Cave collapse too which removes all symbols replacing them with a cascade of new ones.

The One-Eyed Willy Bonus Wheel

This is activated by landing three bonus symbols on one spin. You’ll then get to spin a ship’s wheel for one of six bonus features.

• Booby Trap Bonus – the booby trap bonus requires you to turn a key left or right to reveal a cash prize. You can either collect this or chose from one of the other bonuses mentioned below.
• Waterslide to Wealth Bonus – for this feature you’ll need to collect doubloons in order to move along a multiplier trail. Upgrades are also active that can boost the value of the prizes. Manage to reach the end of the trail and you’ll play the Big Money Bonus round.
• Skeleton Organ Free Spins – this awards five free spins with the Skeleton Organ symbols super-stacked on each reel – it’s also sticky and holds in place for all five spins. Should a special symbol appear, you’ll be able to pick a key on the organ that in turn reveals a symbol. This will then be displayed on all organ symbols.
• Fratelli Free Spins Feature – ten free spins are awarded for this bonus. When a Super Sloth wild lands, its position is highlighted and either cash or wild symbols land in the highlighted position. When five cash symbols appear, the Momma Fratelli Money Spins Feature is activated.
• Momma Fratelli Money Spins Feature – all reel positions turn into a mini cash reel and you’ve got three re-spins to land more cash symbols. Every time one appears, the spins are reset to three. This continues until you’ve used all of them. At the end of the spins, you get to choose yet more spins or collect your winnings.
• Final Voyage Free Spins Feature – for the Final Voyage feature, you’re presented with a new screen. Underneath the reels is a trail, with an inferno on the left, markers at the bottom and a gold doubloon to the right. For each spin, an Inferno Wild is active, moving one reel to the right and holding in place. After each spin, the Goonie below the wild reel also turns wild and the wild mores to the next reel. This process continues until all high-paying characters are upgraded and you’ve managed to reach the doubloon to the right of the trail. You can then choose a doubloon to reveal a collect, a trigger or One-Eyed Willy Riches Bonus Feature.

One-Eyed Willy Riches Bonus Feature

This is accessed by landing five bonus symbols during the base game, gambling, landing on the feature with the bonus wheel or revealing it with a modifier key. You’ll be awarded three money spins on a 5 x 4 grid of reels. Land a cash value and the spins get reset to three. All of the Goonie characters are active and include special abilities:

• Mikey – awards a win multiplier of up to x5
• Data – awards and extra re-spin
• Chunk – upgrades the value of all symbols
• Money – creates a super money win by adding together the value of all symbols
• One-Eyed Willy – expands the grid
• Slot – Rests the powers of other character symbols in view

And finally, you’ve got the One-Eyed Willy Exchange. This basically means that should you be lucky enough to win fifteen times your stake, you have the choice to collect or gamble on the feature wheel.

Conclusion

Goonies Return is proving a major success for Blueprint – and with so many features we can see why. Indeed, we’ve yet to come across a game with so many. Unlike many other slots, these bonus features haven’t been added for the sake of it – each feature includes some decent returns in its own right. And thematically, the game is in keeping with the spirit of the movie – the sound-bites, dialogue and cut-scenes fit nicely with the in-game action as does the soundtrack. Factor in a potential jackpot of £250,000 and it’s quite easy to see why Goonies Return is so popular with gamers right now. Slots as well done as this one are few and far between – so we recommend you take a look.

RTP: 96%, Minimum Stake: 0.10