Funky Fruits Slot Review

There’s a Hawaii beach vibe to Funky Fruits, with a surfboard propped to the left of the reels and a glass of lemonade and a parasol to the right, while in the background a calm sea undulates gently.

Theme

Playtech’s Funky Fruits are a frisky bunch. How frisky are we talking? So much so that they’re prone to making faces at you and trash talking when you leave the reels idle for too long. The effect is reminiscent of one found in an old Amiga computer game, Jimmy White’s Whirlwind Snooker, in which the snooker balls were prone to coming to life in a similar manner.

Animation is a strong point of Playtech’s, and despite its cartoon style, elements of Funky Fruits are so lifelike you can almost feel the sand between your toes and the water splash against your ankles.

Controls

The fruits cling to a 5×5 board, the sort of flimsy screen you might change into your swimming costume behind down at the beach. Hit the red Play button and these reels don’t exactly spin – instead they drop, with the fruit promptly plummeting off screen before being replaced by a new batch of fruit. The new arrivals land with a bounce and a splatter, waiting a moment before any winning combos are squished and replaced by more fruits. If these generate another win, they’ll be squished and the process will continue.

Think Candy Crush, only the squishing is done for you, with no need to raise a finger. Just watch and laugh at their comical little faces. In terms of controls, you can adjust the stake per spin, setting it between 1 and 10. You can also adjust the number of autospins all the way up to 100. Spin the reels and the game will canter off in its Candy Crush fashion, with any wins generated appearing on the surfboard to the left of the reels.

Gameplay

Despite its unorthodox Candy Crush approach, Funky Fruits works just like any other 5-reel slot, only in this instance there are no diagonal wins: horizontal and vertical wins only are awarded. Match 8 or more cherries to win a portion of the jackpot, with the total amount depending on the value of the stake you’ve set. In most fruit-based slots, cherries are the lowest value symbol, but not in Funky Fruits, where they’re the bona fide MVP.

There are no 3 in a row wins in Funky Fruits incidentally: 5 is the minimum you require to generate a win. There’s scope for matching many more identical fruits on the reels however – 16 or more can be achieved, a feat that will grant you a hefty multiplier. With melons you’ll receive 50x your stake for 16+, rising to a 5,000x multiplier for lemons. In execution, Funky Fruits proves to be an easy game to get into, with fruity wins quickly stacking up and spurring you on to play for more.

Features

Progressive slots often strip away superfluous features, allowing players to focus solely on the grand prize at stake. There are no wilds or scatters to be found in Funky Fruits: just a whole lot of fruit and a jackpot symbol in the form of the cherry. If you succeed in scooping the grandest prize of all – the progressive jackpot – the value of your win will vary according to the amount you’ve wagered. You’ll be awarded between 10% and 100% of the jackpot depending on whether you’ve set the stake between 1 and 10.

Similar Games

The closest game Funky Fruits can be likened to is Candy Crush – but that’s not a video slot. Thematically, the game’s protagonists – those cheeky, mischievous fruits – bear more than a passing resemblance to those found in Playtech’s Funky Fruit Farm, although that game isn’t a progressive jackpot slot it should be noted.

Conclusion

Funky Fruits is a simple game but it’s also a hugely enjoyable one. The whole vibe is light-hearted and fun-filled, making for a progressive slot that always feels like a pleasure and not a slog. Even if you don’t succeed in squishing cherries galore, you’ll certainly match plenty of other fruits, ushering in a flurry of smaller wins that can swiftly add up.