Goonies never say die!

Hey you guys! Turns out that my prediction of what casino game I’d like best for the month turned out to be correct. I can’t say I’m entirely shocked that The Goonies Jackpot Royale progressive slot was my top pick. 😆 However, I’m thrilled I was right, because I could just have easily been disappointed in this slot.

After all, just because something is based on a thing you like, doesn’t automatically guarantee you’ll find it awesome. I mean, remember last month when I was disappointed in Lobster Bob’s Crazy Crab Shack? Due to its SpongeBob-ish nature (though it wasn’t officially based on SpongeBob), I was certain I’d get a kick out of it. Nope. Didn’t happen.

Thankfully that wasn’t the case this time around. I had a lot of fun playing The Goonies Jackpot Royale and the following is a run down of my experience.

Note: All details I include about The Goonies Jackpot Royale in this post are related to the version of the game I played at an Ontario online casino. Therefore, this information may not fully apply to the version of the game you experience if you’re playing from a location other than Ontario. For instance, some versions of this game have an autoplay/autospins feature and a gamble feature. These features are not available in Ontario.

The Goonies Jackpot Royale – General Gameplay Facts

• Software developer: Blueprint Gaming*
• Release date: 2019
• Theme: Licensed/branded slot based on the 1985 film, The Goonies
• Reels: 5
• Rows: 3
• Paylines: 20
• Notable features: Wilds, Free Spins, Bonus Game
• Bet range: $0.10 – $100.000
• Max win from a single game: $250,000 (50,000x total bet)
• Jackpots: Yes (3: Maxi Pot, Major Pot, Jackpot Royale)
• Volatility: Medium
• RTP: 93.06% + JP 0.30% + 0.19% reserve
• Free version available: No (see note below)
• Where I played it for real money: PlayOJO*

Note: From what I’ve seen, Jackpot Royale games cannot be demoed. If you’d like to get a feel for what this game is about, I recommend demoing The Goonies (the non progressive jackpot version – it’s the same thing, just without jackpots). You can check it out at the review site Slots Temple* (you might need to use a VPN if you’re in a restricted location like Ontario). If you’re only interested in a little preview however, Blueprint Gaming has a short video on its official YouTube channel that you can watch here.

About The Goonies Jackpot Royale slot

The Goonies Jackpot Royale progressive slot is essentially a progressive jackpot slot version of Blueprint’s original online slot, The Goonies. In other words, it’s the same game, except it has three progressive jackpots which can be triggered at random.

The game features the popular characters from The Goonies movie, including Mikey, Chunk, Data, Mouth, and Sloth. The Objective – similar to the movie – is to find the key to One-Eyed Willy’s riches.

Visually, the game is well designed and combines images and animations from the film with digital art that includes a treasure chest, a pirate flag, and the skeleton head of One-Eyed Willy, among other themed images. The backdrop for the game is a wooden boat, a map, and gold coins.

Beyond the possibility to trigger a jackpot, The Goonies slot has two main features:

• One-Eyed Willy’s Riches – A bonus feature that triggers at random after any spin and will lead to 1 of 6 features:
  • Truffle Shuffle Wilds
  • Mikey’s Hidden Riches
  • Data’s Colossal Symbols
  • Mouth’s Lucky Coins
  • One-Eyed Willy’s Bonus Boost
  • Sloth’s Wild Spin.

• Bonus Feature – Triggered after landing 3 or more One-Eyed Willy Bonus scatter symbols and leads to entry of one of 6 bonus rounds:
  • Fratelli Hideout Bonus
  • Skeleton Organ Bonus
  • Super Slot Free Spins
  • Goonies Go Wild Free Spins
  • Inferno Free Spins
  • One-Eyed Willy’s Treasure Boost

If you want to learn more about what each of these features do/award, you can easily discover this in the game’s paytable if you are interested enough to play it.

The Goonies Jackpot Royale progressive jackpot feature  

The three jackpots that can be trigged in The Goonies slot are:

• Maxi Pot (average win of $5,000 – reseed of $2,000)
• Major Pot (average win of $25,000 – reseed of $7,500)
• Jackpot Royale (average win of 175,000 – reseed of $70,000)

In this game, the Jackpot Royal feature triggers at random. When it does, you’ll be in a lock-and-spin bonus game, where all triggering symbols hold in place while the reels spin. Each new Jackpot Royale symbols that lands on reels will hold in place and activate another spin. This cycle continues until no new Jackpot Royale symbols appear.

To the right of the reels is a prize meter. The number of symbols that you have by the end of the spins will determine the prize. The prize will either be a win multiplier or (if you collect enough Jackpot Royale symbols) entrance to the Wheel King feature.

If you enter the Wheel King feature, there is a long list of prizes that can be won, including the three progressive jackpots and 26 possible win multipliers that start as low as 25x and reach as high as 1,000x. The wheel spins and once it stops, whatever it lands on is your prize. Results are 100% random.

Interestingly (and in case you weren’t aware), Jackpot Royale is a spinoff of the global progressive slots network that you may have heard of called “Jackpot King”. It is only called “Jackpot Royale” in North America. Currently (at the time I created this post) there are 24 games in this progressive jackpot network. The games are supplied by White Hat Studios*, which promises to launch a minimum of 1 new jackpot game every month.

My Goonies Jackpot Royale slot experience

First off – spoiler alert! – I didn’t win a jackpot when I played. In fact, I didn’t win much at all. 🤣 The good news is however, that I did enjoy playing the game the whole time.

The game was quick to load, and I was instantly geeking out over it as soon as I heard Sloth say “Hey you guys!”, followed by Chunk moving across the screen doing his Truffle Shuffle, and then Data using one of his gadgets. Once you click the button to start, Mikey declares, “Goonies never say die!” Needless to say, it’s an excellent intro to the game.

When I played, each of these progressive jackpots were worth the following:

• Maxi Pot – CA$3,130.68
• Major Pot – CA$13,203.16
• Jackpot Royale – CA$39,531.40

I admit I found this a little odd since, according to White Hat Studio’s, the Jackpot Royale pot supposedly reseeds at $70,000. I’m no math wiz, but $39,531.40 is definitely less than $70,000. So, what’s that all about?🤔

Anyway, when I first started playing The Goonies Jackpot Royale, I began with my typical $0.10 bet (I found out later – after doing a bit more research on Jackpot Royale – that the minimum bet to qualify for any Jackpot Royale progressive is apparently $0.50, even though I don’t remember reading this anywhere in the game’s rules. Then again, the Jackpot Royale was below the reseed of $70,000 when I played, so, who knows what’s true??🤷‍♀️).

Lots of fun to play…but I didn’t win much LOL!

After about 10-ish spins, One-Eyed Willy’s Riches randomly triggered, and the reels began spinning non-stop and three keys appeared. I picked one and the Mikey’s Hidden Riches feature activated, which started with a brief clip from the movie.

In this feature, any of the reels can be turned into a reel stacked full of wilds. The result for me was two reels partially stacked with Mikey wilds, awarding me a grand win of $1.79 LOL! A stunning win, right?

It was at this point that I decided to raise my stake to $0.60 (not realizing that I had likely then made it possible for myself to trigger The Goonies Jackpot Royale feature).

About another 10 spins later, the random bonus feature triggered again and this time when I picked the key, I activated Sloth’s Win Spin.

In this feature, Sloth goes swinging across the reels and guarantees to award a big winning spin. My big winning spin amounted to a wow-less $3.00, but obviously would have been higher if I had bet more.

Ultimately, by the end of the game, I never managed to trigger the Bonus Feature (only ever landing a maximum two of the bonus scatter symbols), won less than $10, and walked away with far less than I started with. To be honest, this poor win result had to do with the fact that my minimum bet was low, my bankroll wasn’t that large to start (and I wasn’t going to deposit more because I’d reached the personal limit for the week that I’s set for myself), and, like all gambling – you win some, you lose some.

All that said, I am looking forward to playing this game again in the future, but I’ll probably skip playing The Goonies Jackpot Royale and just play the original slot instead. Turns out, I’m not a huge progressive jackpots fan. I prefer regular slots and their higher RTPs (The Goonies non-jackpot slot has a 96% RTP).

What do I like most about The Goonies Jackpot Royale?

• It appeals to my nostalgia and is based on a movie I love.
• The game’s theme was perfectly executed through its visual and sound effects.
• It’s fast-paced and has a lot of on-screen action, so there’s always lots to see, not just constant spinning reels.
• The One-Eyed Willy’s Riches bonus feature that triggers randomly after any spin.
• The chance to win a progressive jackpot at random.

What do I like the least?

• I didn’t win a jackpot LOL!

What I thought of the other four progressive jackpot games I played

Age of the Gods: Wheels of Olympus – This was my second favourite game of all the progressive slots I played. It is visually appealing, and I managed to trigger the 3-In-A-Row wheel twice, landing first 4 wilds than 5 wilds, which provided a nice little award each time. Interestingly, I found that I preferred Playtech’s progressive jackpot slot style to Blueprint’s Jackpot Royale. Of course, the only reason why this game didn’t win out over my top choice is it’s not The Goonies.

Age of the Gods Norse: Book of Dwarves – This one didn’t delight me as much as the other Age of the Gods game. I appreciate that it’s laid out differently, with a grid of cascading reels instead of the other’s traditional spinning reels. I also like that I managed to score a win on my very first spin LOL! But, all in all, I didn’t find it as fun or as visually appealing as Age of the Gods: Wheels of Olympus.

Buffalo Blitz MegaMerge – There is no denying that this game has an interesting mechanic. The two separate stacked reel grids and the chance for some or all the reels in both grids to merge into one giant reel is a nice touch. It was cool to see this merge when it occurred on a couple of my spins. However, on the whole, this game didn’t have enough visual stimulation for me, and I got bored with it fairly quickly.

Wish Upon a Leprechaun – This game (another Jackpot Royale progressive) was cute and colourful and had some fun bonus features to it. That said, overall, the game was pretty standard and didn’t stand out in any real way to compete with the other games I picked for this month. It’s a slot that I will likely play again (and like The Goonies slot, I’ll probably play either the original slot or the Megaways version instead of the Jackpot Royale the next time), especially in March near St. Patrick’s Day when I’m feeling festive.

Mia’s 5 Star Rating for The Goonies Jackpot Royale

I give The Goonies Jackpot Royale 5 stars for:

• Being based on The Goonies.
• Great visuals and sound effects.
• The chance to trigger a progressive jackpot.
• Two great features – One-Eyed Willy’s Riches and Fratelli Hideout Bonus.
• Being loads of fun to play.

Have you played The Goonies Jackpot Royale progressive slot or the original online slot? What star rating would you give it out of 5?

Until next time, good luck, have fun and remember – Goonies never say die!🤓

Mia 👩‍💻

*I am not affiliated with Blueprint Gaming, PlayOJO, Slot Temple, or White Hat Gaming. All opinions about The Goonies Jackpot Royale slot are my own and are not intended to provide advice of any kind. If you choose to play The Goonies Jackpot Royale or any of the games that I mentioned I played for real money, remember that my experience won’t be the same as yours. Play at your own discretion and please keep it fun and play responsibly. 

**All links and images in this post are for informational purposes only.