Happy Chinese New Year Pokies from Booongo

There are plenty of reasons why we might be drawn to a particular pokies game. Some of us enjoy specific themes that we can relate to, or maybe destination themes that make us daydream of being in a better place. One thing most players can agree on is the inspiration of holiday themes, which brings me to the topic of today’s article, in which I’ll review a new pokies game called Happy Chinese New Year.

As most of you are surely aware, the Chinese New Year is upon us. It began on January 28, 2017. And unlike many places in the world, where we consume adult beverages, shoot off some fireworks and kiss our significant others at the stroke of midnight before carrying on with our everyday lives, the festivities are a bit more dramatic in Chinese culture, lasting anywhere from two weeks to a full month.

The Chinese calendar runs on the lunar cycle, with each new month beginning on the new moon. In fact, the Chinese calendar says it’s the year 4715. However you calculate it, 2017 is the Year of the Rooster, and that’s where the theme to Happy Chinese New Year pokies begins.

Happy Chinese New Year Pokies

This new online pokies game was developed by Booongo, an up-and-coming e-gaming software development brand that’s making quite a splash. It’s only available at a few select casino operators at the moment, and only has a total of four games in its portfolio, but if they continue producing high-quality content like this, their presence is sure to expand rapidly.

Happy Chinese New Year features 5 reels and 20 fixed paylines. Players can choose between a scaling coin range of $0.01 to $5. Because it’s fixed, that bet will automatically multiply by the 20 paylines to produce a per-spin wager of $0.20 to $100.

The game’s symbols clearly match the motif, including the Rooster as the highest paying symbol, along with gold coins, firecrackers, fireworks, Chinese banners and thematically fonted playing card values of 10 through Ace.

This new pokies game has some rather unique features. Most of them are based around the special Portal spaces on the screen. There are two portals, located on the center positions of reel 2 and 4. When two alike symbols land on each portal, special things happen.

Cascade: Cascading reels are nothing new to the pokies realm, but Happy Chinese New Year brings a whole new twist to the concept. In this game, anytime the same two symbols appear on both portals, all matching symbols on the screen will explode and the reels will cascade down to form a new re-spin.

Rooster Bonus Game: If two Roosters appear in each of the portals, instead of cascading the reels, a Bonus Game is triggered. Players will select positions on a 5×3 grid. Each position hides a credit value. Players will continue selecting positions until they’ve unveiled 3 alike amounts. The value of the matching credits becomes the payout. It’s guaranteed to pay well, as the lowest possible win is 10x the total bet (i.e. $10 for a $1 bet, $50 for a $5 bet, etc.)

Dragon Scatter: Wild symbols do not appear on the reels during the base game – at least not in the traditional way. In order for a position to become Wild, it must land the exact same symbol in that position in two consecutive spins. For example, if an A appears in the top position of reel 1, and another A lands there the following turn, the Red Dragon will swoop in and convert it to a Wild. This is the only way to trigger the game’s Free Spins.

Wild Free Spins: If two Wild symbols appear in both portals at the same time, free spins are triggered. And all those symbols that the Red Dragon converted to wilds up until this point were actually being collected. Those symbols will be used to determine the number of free plays, and will fill the reels during those spins to help generate big wins. Because Wilds don’t appear in a traditional way, free spins don’t happen very often, but the longer it takes to trigger them, the more lucrative they can be.