Member Reviews

Resembling children picture book – the kind you would get for a very young child to learn about the farm animals, and not the most expensive kind, at that – Funky Chicken is a difficult to define, 5 reels and 25 paylines slot launched by NextGen.

It is not easy to understand where the developer wanted to go with the design of Funky Chicken and what was the target audience. The animation is pretty basic and so are the bonus features, which in no way compensate for the raw visual appearance. The fact that the game is released as a part of NextGen Classix series can be regarded as a mitigating circumstance, however the slot still leaves plenty to be desired.

The reels are placed against the cornfield background and together with the Chicken Scatter symbol, Funky Chicken features The Scarecrow as the Wild, Angry Farmer icon, Farm House and the Tractor as the most profitable symbols and A, K, Q, J, 10 and 9 and lower value icons.

Developer

NextGen started of as a slot machine and casino games developer in 1999, focusing on B2B business management, which differentiates this company from other developers. It is even safe to say that NextGen has been mainly residing in the shadow of other software developers, but only in terms of visibility.

In every other aspect, NextGen can stand comparison to any gaming company on the market. Years of experience have given the developer a strong competitive edge and they stand behind releases such as Witch Pickings, Starmania and Medusa II, also listed as slots with the highest payout potential.

How to Play It

The level of the bets is selected by either clicking on a small Coin icon, just to the left of the Spin button or through the Menu icon in the right upper corner, which will also allow you to change the number of active lines (1 – 25).

Player who enjoy faster pace slots will be able to set up uninterrupted sessions of 5 to 100 spins, which can be stopped manually before the sessions expires, in case you would like to go back to regular spinning speed.

All winning combinations are paid from left to right, except for the Scatter combos, which pay both ways. If more than one payline is active, wins from multiple lines will be added together, with only the highest value formations validated as payable.

Special Features

Three Chicken Scatter symbols will trigger the Free Games feature, unlocking 15 Free Spins which will be played with the bet amount of the spin that launched the session.

At the start of the Free Games mode, the Chicken icon will pop up again, revealing the bonus games multiplier. Any cash awards that are generated during this mode will be added to bet lines and Scatter icon winnings.

The winning odds in both the base game and during the Free Spins are increased thanks to the Cornfield icon, which can substitute any symbol in forming a payable combination, except for the Chicken Scatter.

Maximum Payouts

Bets in Funky Chicken start at $0.01, as the player can opt to wager on a single line. The maximum coin value is $2.50, making the slot stake limit $62.5/$2.5 per line. Combination of 5 highest value symbol can produce a payment of 5,000 coins, or $12,500.

Theoretically, if all 25 paylines land the winning combinations that consist out of the Wild icon, the number of coins won can reach 312,500 coins. Looking at the potential payout, it can easily be concluded that Funky Chicken is a high volatility slot, which is clearly reflected in the RTP of the game– 95.34%

Summary

With NextGen’s reputation, experience and impressive track record in producing successful slots with high user ratings, Funky Chicken almost seems like an April fools’ day joke. There aren’t really silver linings when it comes to this slot.

The design and visual effects are crude, there is a noticeable lack of innovative features and return to player percentage is way too low to compensate for any of these shortcomings. Still, one man’s pain is another man’s pleasure and there is always a vague possibility that some players might even enjoy the oversimplified and reductive gameplay of Funky Chicken.