Bamboo Pandits

Bamboo Pandits: Slot Overview

Three-pot slots remain a firm favourite among online slot makers, and software provider ELK Studios has latched onto the popular trend by releasing Bamboo Pandits. This is a game where three cuddly bears are each linked to their own feature, and are happy working on their own, in pairs, or if you get lucky, then all three pandas attack the gaming grid at the same time. By now, these sorts of slots might be ten a penny. However, ELK Studios has formed a reputation for combining rich audiovisuals with dynamic forward-thinking gameplay, so Bamboo Pandits is a chance to see what the studio has done with the popular tri-pot concept.

ELK Studios is a dab hand with the digital paintbrushes, and Bamboo Pandits possesses a pleasingly Asian, natural world, panda bear appearance. Generic in some ways, as it goes about depicting mountains and traditional buildings, but pleasant all the same due to the particular art style the studio has used. There's a dash of Big Bamboo here, which might be hard to avoid given the theme. The bonus round is as equally attractive as the base game, though held at a different time of the day to create an inviting, light-lit village in the mountains scene. It's the sort of place that has turned its back on the city to embrace a slower pace of life full of contemplation, serenity, and taking time out to watch pandas chew bamboo.

In the base game, Bamboo Pandits' action is carried out on a 5x5 grid with 35 paylines that gets bigger when the bonus round is in play. Choosing a stake means picking a wager of $/€0.20 to $/€100 from the list, and behind the scenes is a medium-high volatile math model, available in a variety of RTPs where 96% is the preferred value.

The symbol hierarchy is made up of four low-pay symbols with 1-4 bamboo sticks on them, while the high pays are five animal symbols. Hitting 5 matching symbols in a win awards 0.75x-10x, or when in free spins, a 6 OAK hit is worth 1x-20x the bet. Wilds substitute for all regular paying symbols in Bamboo Pandits.

Bamboo Pandits: Slot Features

Three features are triggered by the three Pandits displayed next to the grid. They activate in the base game and bonus round. ELK Studios has also included Gusts of Wind and five X-iter feature buys.

Pandit Features

Each Pandit has its own Loot symbol: Rocket, Dumpling, and Smokebomb. When a Loot symbol lands, it is collected by the corresponding Pandit pot and may trigger that Pandit's feature. When a feature triggers, it activates after the current payout, awarding a respin. When multiple Pandits trigger on the same respin, they do so in order of Wild, Multiplier, and Mystery.

• Wild Pandit (Dumpling) - Adds a Big Wild to the grid that may move between respins and free spins and change size to 2x2, 3x3, 4x4, 5x5, or up to 6x6 in the bonus game. If a Big Wild is hit by a Position Multiplier, the multiplier is added to the Big Wild, and the multiplier is persistent during respins.
• Multiplier Pandit (Rocket) - Adds Position Multipliers to random positions and can double existing Position Multipliers. A Position Multiplier multiplies wins passing through it. Multiple multipliers in the same win see their values added before applying to the win.
• Mystery Pandit (Smokebomb) - Adds Mystery symbols to random positions before the respin. A Mystery symbol added on top of a Mystery symbol position leads to extra Mystery symbols spreading to neighbouring positions. All Mystery symbols reveal the same pay symbol. If Mystery symbols are active during a chained respin, more Mystery symbols are added before the next respin.

Gust of Wind

It is possible that a Gust of Wind triggers before a spin, adding 4-7 Loot symbols or 2-5 scatters to the grid.

Bonus Game

Landing 3 or more scatters in the base game triggers 5 free spins in the bonus round. Scatters do not land on respins. Before free spins begin, a special wheel spins. If the round was triggered by 3 scatters, the wheel spins once. Each additional scatter awards 1 extra spin. Each spin of the wheel awards a Pandit feature that is activated through the entire bonus or 2-5 extra free spins. After the wheel spins, the bonus round is played on a 6x6 grid with 44 paylines. Landing 3 scatters during the feature awards an extra Pandit modifier or 2-5 additional free spins.

X-iter Feature Buys

Bamboo Pandits' feature buys are the Bonus Hunt costing 2.5x, giving more than 3 times the chance to trigger the bonus, or the 5x Mega Hunt, giving more than 6 times the chance. Activating the Lucky Win costs 25x to start the spin with a Gust of Wind feature. The bonus round costs 100x to buy, or 250x buys the Maxed Bonus, which triggers the round with 5 scatters.

Bamboo Pandits: Slot Verdict

The three-pot slot category might be a crowded one, but ELK Studios has added a neatly designed addition to the pile. It's not a slot which instantly stood out as a genre-defining game changer, but give it a bit of time, and its finer points may start to shine through. The theme is not the most inventive idea ELK Studios has ever had; this is the developer that came up with deep game worlds like Langley Street 23, Cygnus, and Pirots, but panda bears just can't help but bring a cuddliness to any slot they populate, helping Bamboo Pandits' theme and features meld together in a cohesive and enjoyable way.

The gameplay was surprisingly enjoyable as well. Again, nothing extraordinary, but there is good stuff here. Each of the three modifiers has the ability to produce something positive. Mystery symbols were the most surprising. Usually, a mystery feature triggers, a few reveals occur, and maybe a hit is produced. In Bamboo Pandits, when the Mystery feature is live, a mysterious blue smoke wafts into play, which can really spread across the grid when mystery symbols land on mystery symbols in a suspenseful way. The Big Wild can be good too, since again, when the wild modifier triggers, it doesn't just add a few wilds, but drops a Big Wild up to 6x6 onto the play area, and the bigger ones could be very useful. The Position Multiplier feature was the hardest to activate, but a potentially potent one if you can get it.

The trade-off is that there is no guarantee of mixing and matching modifiers during the bonus round when triggered by additional scatters. Where you might expect to get all three modifiers when free spins are triggered by 5 scatters, for example, you actually might end up with one modifier and extra free spins. The encouraging news is that the modifiers are strong enough on their own that even one of them can lead to a decent outcome, and with a cap of 10,000x there is a lot of room for these bamboo chompers to go wild. The result is a slot that might not be an outstanding release by ELK Studios' standards, but it's one which nevertheless makes a positive contribution to the three-pot genre.