Realtime has taken a cute rhyme and turned it until a full-fledged slot game called Funkey Monkey. This 5-reel, 20-line slot has a 1960s musical concept and features hip monkeys. The theme sounds entertaining, but is the game fun from an overall perspective? Let's find out by looking at Funkey Monkey's graphics, atmosphere, and bonus features.

If the Funky and Monkey logos appear on reels 1 and 5 respectively, then you are in the big bucks. When this happens, you get to pick a monkey to play a song for you – then the audience will cheer – the more they like it, the more free spins you will win! During the free spins, the Funky and Monkey.

Graphics and Atmosphere

Funkey Monkey features a blue screen with musical notes on it. This isn't the most-exciting background, and it doesn't remind us much of cool monkeys. But the notes at least reflect the musical nature of this game. The symbols include a few different monkeys along with various music-related icons and letters. Symbols are the Funkey Monkey (wild), leisure suit monkey, bongo drums monkey, truck, gold record, banana guitar (scatter), FUNKEY (bonus), MONKEY (bonus), A, K, Q, J, 10, and 9. Wearing a big red hat and hoop earring, the Funkey Monkey appears on reels 1, 3, and 5. He substitutes for all other symbols, except the banana guitar, and bonus words FUNKEY and MONKEY. The highest-paying symbol is the leisure suit monkey, who offers 2,000 coins when appearing 5 times in an active line. As for the symbol graphics, the monkeys all have defining characteristics that paint them as 60s musicians. Furthermore, they do a better job of reflecting the game's theme than the background.

Format and Betting

This 5-reel, 20-line slot allows you to adjust lines from 1-20, and coin size from $0.01 to $5.00. This makes the minimum bet worth one cent, and the max wager worth $100.00. If you bet $1 per line and get 5 leisure suit monkeys in a line, you'll win $2,000. As we'll discuss next, you can get up to a 10x free-games multiplier that can push the max payout up to $20,000.

Funky Monkey Slot Special Features

The bonus round is triggered when you get the word FUNKEY on reel 1, and MONKEY on reel 5 within the same turn. The bonus starts with you selecting a monkey to play music and earn applause from the crowd. The higher the applause meter goes, the closer you get to the maximum of 25 free spins. Thanks to its detail, this second-screen bonus is the highlight of the game. During the ensuing free games round, every FUNKEY or MONKEY that lands on the reels increases your multiplier 1x. Your multiplier can go as high as 10x during the free spins. One more feature includes scatter payouts any time that the banana guitar lands two or more times anywhere on the reels. Scatter payouts include: 100x your triggering bet for 5 symbols, 20x for 4 symbols, 3x for 3 symbols, and 1x for 2 symbols.

Final Verdict

Due to its relatively plain background, Funkey Monkey doesn't have the greatest atmosphere. But don't let this turn you off because Funkey Monkey has plenty of other good points that make it worth trying. For starters, the symbols feature fun characters who live up to this game's name. Another thing we like is the multiple bonus features, including scatter payouts, free spins, and a second-screen bonus. The latter is the best part of Funkey Monkey because you get to choose the character whom you think will play the best music. Taking everything into account, we think that Funky Monkey is worth playing a time or two.

Funky Monkey has a comical musical monkey theme with bright colors and a musical soundtrack. It is a 20 line game with a 20 coin maximum bet and a free spin feature. You will find it has wide betting limits which let you play max bet for as much as $100 per game or as little as 20c.

The game has a top prize on the reels of 2,000 coins or between $20 and $10,000 depending on the coin size you select. To win the top award you need to get five of the DJ monkeys on any active line. There is actually a second way to hit 2,000 coins with the five scattered banana guitars.

Other good line wins include 1,500 coins for five of the drummer monkeys and two ways to hit 1,000 coins with either the gold records or jeeps. Overall there are a lot of good medium to low wins which is always a good thing as it is these wins that will hit more often than the top jackpot.

The free spin feature is activated with the Funky and Monkey symbols. The Funky symbol only appears on reel 1 and the Monkey symbol only appears on reel five. Get both on the screen at the same time and you win a shot at getting up to 25 free games.

To reveal you win you move to a quick pick a box style bonus where you have three musical monkeys and an applause meter. Choose a monkey and you are treated to a tune, the crowd then claps and the meter reveals how many free games you will get (View Screenshot).

Back to the reels and you free spins are played at the triggering bet level. The free games start with a X1 multiplier but every time you get a Funky or a Monkey logo your multiplier gets increased by 1. You can get up to 10X multiplier so if you get lucky you can win up to 20,000 coins on a single spin.

Funky Monkey Boutique

We always like to see something a little different from the now common free spin feature with a fixed multiplier. The increasing multiplier was first seen on IGT's Cleopatra II so if you are a fan of that game Funky Monkey is well worth checking out. Find it under the Real Series Slots tab in the software.