Bonanza Blast

The Bonanza Blast slot is a gold-mining-themed slot where the player can land big wins with the help of a grizzled old prospector and lots and lots of dynamite!

The game's 5x3 grid is set against a mine entrance somewhere in the deserts of the American West. The graphics are done in a fun, cartoon style, with pickaxes, lamps, sifting pans and more landing on the reels. 

And to make the game more immersive, AGS, the developer, has added a bonus feature where dynamite explodes to open up more seams of potential riches for the player. This can lead to a total of 3125 different ways to win crossing the grid. And that’s in addition to the Jackpot Pick bonus game and the Free Spins round.

There are a few themes in online slots that are constantly popular, like Ancient Egypt or fishing. But gold mining is, in our opinion, one of the themes that most fit the whole idea of slot playing, since both can lead to some big payouts, but you need to have luck on your side. And it's nice to see that AGS has taken the time to come up with a bonus feature that matches the theme, rather than just relying on graphics. 

The low-paying card ranks 9 to Ace are joined by a pickaxe, sifting pan, lamp, cart of gold nuggets, and the prospector himself as premium symbols. These award line wins when three or more land anywhere on adjacent reels, starting with the leftmost. Except for the prospector, who also gives payouts for just two. 

The game’s Wild is the bundle of dynamite. This can only land on reels 2, 3, and 4 to stand in for regular symbols to help form line wins. But it can also trigger one of the game’s explosive bonus features.  

The Scatter is a big, shiny nugget of the kind every prospector dreams of finding. And when three or more appear anywhere on the grid, it will award very generous payouts as well as trigger 10 Free Spins.

Any time a Wild lands on the grid during the base game, it can randomly trigger the Jackpot Pick bonus game. As the name suggests, this is a simple Pick Me game where the player has to choose from 12 coins to find three matching Jackpot icons. These are the Mini, Minor, Major and Grand, and their values can be seen in the table to the left of the grid. Uncovering three matching icons awards the corresponding Jackpot to the player. 

One thing the player will notice when they open the game is that the grid itself is not very large, taking up only a small part of the screen. And above it is a boarded-up space surrounded by sticks of dynamite. These are connected to the Bonanza Blast feature the game is named for.

On any spin, one or more of the sticks of dynamite can explode to reveal new positions and, more importantly, increase the number of ways to win, just like prospectors blast into rock to open new seams of gold. In the base game, these extra positions are locked again at the end of the spin. 

The Free Spins round consists of 10 spins. The Bonanza Blast feature can also trigger during this bonus game, and if it does, the extra positions are left open until the end of the round. During the Free Spins, Scatters can't land, so the round can't be extended. 

Bonanza Blast is an entertaining game that manages to tie the theme and the gameplay together with the bonus feature. It’s also highly volatile, so you should always set a loss limit before playing so you can keep some reserves for another day’s prospecting. Play this slot at Foxy Bingo and good luck!