Sunflowers nod over the cornfields, a little red barn sits off to one side, and three wide-eyed hens peer out from a glowing book in the middle of the reels. Book of Chickens gives Genii’s farmyard a full cartoon makeover and drops a classic expanding-book feature into a compact three-reel frame.
It’s bright, it’s daft, and it knows exactly what it is. Behind the cheerful art sits a familiar engine. A wild stands in for the chickens, a free spins round builds around one expanding golden symbol, and a re-spin feature can fire once any spin finishes in this farmyard slot.
There’s more going on here than the cartoon styling lets on, and each piece is worth reviewing before you spin.
The book is the wild. The Book of Chickens symbol substitutes for the chicken symbol in any line win, and the hens are already the top picture on the reels, paying 100 for three with the book itself worth 250. One rule carries over from the bonus round. When the chickens or the book are chosen as the special symbol, the book stops standing in for the chickens during expanding wins, so the substitution you lean on in standard play quietly switches off.
Three Bonus symbols scattered anywhere in view trigger the free spins feature and award five spins. As the round begins, the game picks one symbol at random and makes it golden. Any time that special symbol shows up on all three reels, it expands to fill its column once line wins have paid, which is the expanding-book format the whole genre is built on. Five spins is a short run, but the round can retrigger, and a high symbol expanding across every reel is where the round’s potential really sits.
The Spin Streak Bonus can land at random whenever a spin finishes. One symbol type locks in place, the reels re-spin, and any more of that symbol that drop in lock too. It’s a light hold-and-respin twist that hands you a second source of action between bonus rounds without overcomplicating a deliberately simple game.
A Bonus Go button sits next to the spin controls for anyone who would rather head straight for the feature than wait on three scatters. The dial in the bottom corner is the Bonus Trigger Meter, and it fills as you play; the game states plainly that it’s a statistical display only and has no effect on when the free spins actually arrive.
A three-reel, three-row grid with only five paylines makes Book of Chickens one of the most stripped-back books on the shelf. That small footprint matters more than it first appears. With just three columns to fill, the golden special symbol landing on every reel happens far more readily than it would across a five-reel layout, which is what gives this little game its bite.
Combinations are read from reel one rightwards, so any winning line has to start on the leftmost column. Stakes are set with the plus and minus buttons beneath the reels, while the total bet and the five active lines stay visible along the bottom bar throughout.
The paytable is short and quick to read, with every picture paying when three match along a line. Those are the three-symbol payouts, listed below.
| Symbol | 3 of a kind |
|---|---|
| Book of Chickens | 250 |
| Chickens | 100 |
| Fox | 40 |
| Dog | 40 |
| Tomato | 8 |
| Carrot | 8 |
| Onion | 8 |
| Cabbage | 8 |
The four vegetables all pay the same modest 8, which matters once the bonus starts. Because the special symbol is drawn at random, even a lowly cabbage or carrot can be the one that turns golden and expands, putting an otherwise minor picture at the centre of all five spins. If you want to watch that play out before staking real money, the free demo runs the complete game, bonus included, in free play.
