Flowers and Fruit Mountain Slots
Every now and then you find an online casino game that looks unlike any other. Flowers and Fruit Mountain, from KA Gaming, is an example where you need to take a closer look at things to work out how it all comes together. There are no conventional reels, paylines, or anything else that makes this look like your average slot game. Instead we see symbol positions running along the outside of the game, with the title in the middle and an almost unique way to ‘spin’ and collect winnings. If you have played some of the Monopoly video slot games, you will be familiar with how this one works. Fortunately, free Flowers and Fruit Mountain video slots are provided by the KA Gaming developer and while it’s often not worth practicing a slot in freeplay mode, in this case, it could be a good idea.
We’ve done the research though, and while this is an unusual game, we’re happy to say that once you get the hang of it, it’s as fun and rewarding as the best slot machines. KA Gaming is based on the island of Taiwan, from where they have produced a wide range of slots and other mobile optimised games. Many of them have an Oriental theme, with Flowers and Fruit Mountain based on a location from the classic Journey to the West story that’s so popular in China. Mount Hauguo has become a major tourist destination, bringing thousands of fans to the fictional homeland of the main character of the story each year.
The symbols in this game include a couple of characters, banners, a horn, and various items of fruit. The background image of steep mountains, waterfalls and forests is quite nice to look at, but what’s really interesting is the way that this game works. Let’s take our own Journey to the West, (or East, depending on where you live), and check it out.
Spin for Winnings
Although there are no reels to spin, Flowers and Fruit Mountain comes with the standard KA Gaming set of command buttons, and that includes the big ‘Spin’ button in the centre of the control panel. The action takes place around the perimeter of the game, where you will see 24 ‘panels’, each with a symbol on them. At the start of each game, eight of these panels will be highlighted in a green frame and a click on the Spin button sees them highlighted one at a time in an anti-clockwise direction.
The highlighter races around the symbols for a couple of seconds before coming to rest on a panel, which will then flash to indicate where it has stopped. You win a prize if it lands on any of the eight green-framed panels. Just a couple of spins is all it takes to see how it works and you can then get into the details of how to wager and what the potential payouts can be.
Like a slot machine, different symbols will pay out different prizes. Payouts are multiples of the stake on each of the eight highlighted panels and landing the red banner gives you the low limit win of the game at 5x the per-panel bet. A pink peach is worth 10x, the watermelon pays out 15x and a bunch of bananas is valued at 20x. The golden horn is also worth 20x the bet on each panel, while the Monkey King pays 30x. The character holding the horn is worth 40x and the top prizes come from the inscription on a stone. This is worth 100x the panel stake when it’s highlighted at the end of a spin. Some symbols have multiplier amounts on them, which pay out between 2x and 50x the total bet.
There is also a Spin Again symbol in a couple of places, which does exactly what it sounds like and simply gives you a second spin. As there’s no prize for landing on these panels, it seems a bit of a pointless feature, but these won’t be among the eight winning panels selected by the game, so you won’t lose anything if you land on them.
Higher Stakes per Panel
The bet options are as unusual as the layout. You can wager as little is 0.08 per round, which is of course, 0.01 per highlighted panel and raise the overall bet to 320.00. But you can also raise the wagers on individual panels from just a single coin to 99. It’s an exciting option that can bring in massive rewards, especially for players with a good sense of timing who try to predict which symbol will be highlighted at the end of a spin.
You can carry on playing at the same stakes for as long as you want or hit the ‘Reset’ button to clear all the multipliers on the panels and send them back to a single coin on each. This also prompts the software to highlight another set of eight panels. Other options include the Autoplay function that works in just the same way that it would on a conventional slot machine, and there’s the option to play this game on iPhones, iPads, Android and Windows devices.
More Board Games
Although Flowers and Fruit Mountain seems to be the only game that combines this sort of theme with this layout, there are a couple of other slots available that have board games as bonus rounds. The Monopoly video slot from IGT is a conventional five-reel game, which features symbols based on the classic game. If you land the Bonus symbol however, it triggers a board game feature where you roll virtual dice to move around the Monopoly board. Prizes are collected as you land on the familiar sections of the board. These can include a mini-slot that spins when you stop on a property and extra rolls when you land on a Utility section.
Jumanji, from NetEnt, is based on the much-loved 1995 adventure film. This is another conventional, great-looking, slot game, but trigger the bonus round and you enter the magical board game feature. Roll the dice to move an animal token around the board, claiming free spins along the way. During these bonus spins, vines trigger respins, monkeys will shuffle symbols around, rhinos stampede across the reels leaving wilds in their wake and crocodiles turn whole reels wild. It’s a fantastic game that’s an exciting adventure to play.
A Unique Style
Although it takes a minute or so to get used to, this is an exciting and innovative game from a developer that’s fast gaining a reputation for thinking outside of the box. KA Gaming slots all come with some unusual features, with each having their own combinations of mini-games, modifier symbols, multipliers or free spins rounds. All of their games are independently tested to guarantee fair play, with high return to player percentages.
The Flowers and Fruit Mountain video slot gives online casino gaming a whole new dimension. We particularly like the way that you can raise stakes on individual panels, which gives it an element of skill and judgement. However, either we weren’t very skilful, or you can’t really predict where the highlighter is going to stop, so it’s probably not good practice to vary the bets across panels by too much.
If you like to try out unusual games, then this is a great choice and it’s a journey that you might find yourself making time and time again. It’s not a traditional Asian themed online casino slot, which makes it stand out against the many other games that are based on similar topics.
