Funky Buddha: Slot Overview

Buddha might be famous for teaching humanity the 'Three Universal Truths and Four Noble Truths' (amongst other things), but apparently, he was a bit of a funk master, as well. Well, maybe not really, yet through the magic of creative thought, developer Blueprint Gaming has come up with Funky Buddha, an online slot displaying another (arguably made-up) side of the famous religious teacher. In one of those wonderful slot ironies, Funky Buddha isn't super creative since when you dig beneath the skin, it reuses most of the innards found in The Goonies Hey You Guys, also by Blueprint Gaming released barely a blink or two before Funky Buddha.

Visually reminiscent of Fantasma Games' Fortune Llama, Funky Buddha lets players pretend they're poolside somewhere swanky lined by palm trees, speakers, and a cocktail area, while boats lie at anchor on the sea. Funky Buddha has picked a very nice track to accompany the visuals with, though have to say - loungey, groovy, trancey at points, an ideal poolside track, in other words. Funky Buddha might lack some of the warm characterisation of Sloth and The Goonies, but for a pretend summer getaway, it's not bad.

Funky Buddha is played using 5-reels, 3 rows of symbols in combination with 10 paylines. Along paylines, winning combinations of at least 3 OAK may land, as long as they do so on consecutive reels from the leftmost reel onwards. With its medium/high volatile math model, RTP is available at two levels with a higher default feature of 95%. The game foregoes any sort of bonus buy or ante bet, so all players have to do is pick a stake of 10 p/c to $/€100 and tap away on the play button. Tapping a foot is optional.

There aren't a whole lot of paylines, but the symbol values aren't bad. Not quite 'book of' value, yet hitting a line of 5 cocktails, glasses, headphones, or bottles will award players 10 to 100 times their bet. The four card royals, J-A, aren't as thrilling, naturally, pulling in 5 to 7.5 times the bet for a 5 OAK hit. Gold turntable wilds help in this process since they substitute all symbols except scatters or cash symbols.

Funky Buddha: Slot Features

The four prize values sitting next to the game grid are tied to the Cash Collect feature and are joined by Funky Free Spins.

Cash Collect

When a session begins, the first Buddha Collect symbol is active, which may land on the rightmost reel. If 1 or more Cash symbols land on reels 1 to 4 and a Buddha Collect symbol lands on reel 5, the Buddha Collect symbol expands to cover the whole reel, and the Cash symbol values are collected.

Once this occurs, the next type of Buddha Collect symbol is unlocked so it may land on the grid. When the next type of Buddha Collect symbol hits, and it collects Cash symbols, the next Buddha Collect symbol is unlocked, and so on, until all 4 Buddha Collect symbols are unlocked. From then on, all 4 will be available in the base game and in free spins. The first Buddha Collect symbol just collects Cash symbols; the other three behave like so:

• Respin – collects Cash symbols then locks in place while reels 1 to 4 respin for another chance to land Cash symbols.
• Boost – collects Cash symbols and awards a cash boost to the total.
• Super Collect – collects Cash symbols up to 10 times.

As well as normal Cash symbols are jackpot versions, such as the Mini, Minor, Major, and Mega, worth 10x, 25x, 100x, and 2,000x the bet, respectively.

Funky Spins

Hit 3 scatter symbols on reels 2, 3, and 4 to win yourself 10 free spins. Free spins benefit from the Cash Collect system as in the base game, but when a Buddha Collect symbol hits, it is collected on a meter. Collecting 3, 6, 9, or 12 Buddha Collect symbols activates a multiplier of x2, x3, x5, or x10, respectively. At each collection point, +5 free spins are also awarded. Multipliers are used to increase the value of collected Cash symbols.

Funky Buddha: Slot Verdict

It's questionable how beneficial gambling online is for breaking free from the wheel of Samsara, so Funky Buddha's links to Buddhism are a little dubious, but it is a pretty funky game. Well, the tunes have a groove, and some players may appreciate the allusions to wealth and relaxation the theme presents. On a less materialistic note, it might be worth putting this here cos it sounds pretty neat; from Wikipedia: 'Samsara ends if a person attains nirvana, the "blowing out" of the desires and the gaining of true insight into impermanence and non-self reality.'

Back in the more mundane physical realm, we've got Funky Buddha, and if you caught Goonies Hey You Guys a few weeks prior to this one, then you'll know what's up. Funky Buddha is a coin collector-style game with a twist or two, one twist being there are 4 Buddha Collector symbols to unlock to see what they can do. As before, Funky Buddha runs similarly to D10S Maradona with a Big Bass Bonanza element injected in the bonus round. Perhaps Goonies Hey You Guys didn't get the insta-success Blueprint Gaming was aiming for, or the company just thought hey, why do one iteration of this when we can do two? Who knows, but the two games could not be much different thematically if they are very close mechanically. As before, the win cap is whichever comes first - 50,000x the bet or $250,000 (or the currency equivalent). As often is the case with Blueprint, you can't help but feel this is a tad optimistic.

If you've ever wondered what a Buddha/Mammon mashup on the reels might look like, then Funky Buddha might be able to satisfy some of your curiosity. Beyond that, it wasn't the most thrilling session, reviewing what amounts to a reskin, really, so soon after the original dropped. The beats aren't bad, though, and one bright side is those that dig what Blueprint Gaming's doing with these cash collector games get another one to add to the list.