Introduction to Miner Donkey Trouble
Miner Donkey Trouble is a casino slot from Play'n GO, teaming you up with an ambitious prospector and his sidekick, who tends to cause more problems than good for his master when searching for new veins of valuable ore. While the miner is hard at work, focusing on gathering the gold nuggets, the donkey is more interested in crunchy carrots. However, for you as a player, there are only benefits in each of those characters' actions. If the donkey finds its treats, it will clear certain symbols from the board, allowing new cascades to drop and more wins to form. If the miner locates golden nuggets or his missing pickaxe, you'll enjoy additional multipliers and Wilds. And once you hear the faint hiss of dynamite's fuse followed by a ground-shaking explosion, that's a sign of free spins round triggering, where multipliers grow persistently without a limit to help you reach the 10,000x max win faster.
Working in a mine is undoubtedly dangerous, but we've made a demo mode for this game available at the top of this page so you can prepare yourself for such hardships without any risk.
Theme, Gameplay & Payouts
Miner Donkey Trouble is a video slot from Play'n GO with 5 reels, 7 rows, and a cluster-pays win system, requiring at least 5 matching symbols to land vertically and/or horizontally adjacent. The game offers a wide range of bet options, allowing you to choose your stake from as little as a Min.bet of 0.20 up to a Max.bet of 100. Running the game's engine is a default RTP of 96.27%, which is in line with the industry average, although several lower variants of 94.26%, 91.25%, 87.25%, and 84.24% have also been released, so make sure to check your version before playing. You'll also experience medium-high volatility, which should make wins slightly less frequent but more valuable on average. The maximum prize achievable within a single spin is 10,000x the bet.
As expected, the place of work for the miner and the donkey lies deep underground in a spacious mine shaft. While many such locations may feel tight and claustrophobic, this time there's plenty of room to move around and search for treasures. Massive beams support the cave's structure, ensuring everyone's safety, while multiple lanters and candles illuminate the space, so you don't trip on the rubble scattered on the ground. Despite the work being tedious and hard, the atmosphere is quite uplifting thanks to the fast-paced, banjo-strumming soundtrack. If you're ready to grab a pickaxe and search for precious gems, you can launch the game on any modern device, whether you prefer to play on a desktop, a smartphone, or a tablet.
The paytable hierarchy comprises 8 regular symbols, which deliver payouts whenever you see at least 5 matching ones forming a cluster by landing vertically and/or horizontally adjacent. Among the low-paying symbols, you'll find single rocks in different shapes and colors, including brown, blue, green, and yellow, awarding from 5x to 10x the bet for sets of 18 or more in a cluster. High-paying icons include 4 groups of gemstones, colored pink, teal, green, and red, granting payouts worth between 20x and 250x the bet when you hit a combo consisting of 18 or more matching instances. Additionally, reels will hold Wilds represented by a spherical diamond, Scatters depicting a bundle of dynamite, Miner's Pickaxes, and Golden Nuggets.
Special Features & Slot Mechanics
What is the max win in the slot Miner Donkey Trouble?
You can win up to 10,000x the bet.
What features are available in the slot Miner Donkey Trouble?
The features are Cascading, Golden Nugget, Donkey Destruction, Miner’s Pickaxe, Random Mega Symbol, and Free Spins.
Cascading
The cascading feature comes into play each time you hit a winning combo on the reels and results in winning symbols being blasted off the grid. New symbols then drop down into their place, and this process continues until no new wins are formed.
Golden Nuggets
The bottommost row of the grid is highlighted by a golden glow. Every time a Golden Nugget drops to any of its positions as a result of cascading, it will increase the win multiplier by 1. The multiplier applies to any successive clusters formed within the same game round.
Donkey Destruction
Winning clusters charge the Donkey's meter with the number of points equal to the number of symbols in a successful combination. Upon reaching certain thresholds, the meter will trigger its features.
18 symbols collected = Donkey destroys all rock (low-paying) symbols on the grid.
40 symbols collected = Donkey destroys all gem (high-paying) and rock (low-paying) symbols on the grid.
50 symbols collected = Donkey destroys all symbols except Golden Nuggets and guarantees up to 5 additional Golden Nuggets to land.
Miner's Pickaxe
You may notice that the Miner standing next to the grid is missing a pickaxe in his hand, where only an outline of the tool is displayed. Once you land the Miner's Pickaxe symbol on the grid, it will travel to its owner and trigger between 4 and 10 Diamond Wilds, which will be added in random positions of the grid.
Random Mega Symbol
The feature may trigger randomly on any spin and add up to 2 Mega Symbols (regular or Wild), which will be in the size of a 2x2, 3x3, or 4x4 square.
Free Spins
Dynamite symbols landing anywhere on the grid will explode, destroy symbols around them, add 2 Diamond Wilds in vacant positions, and get collected in a meter. Gathering at least 3 within the same game round will activate the bonus round with 5 free spins. Throughout the game, the win multiplier increased by Golden Nuggets will not reset between spins, and collecting 3 Dynamite symbols again awards 5 extra spins, up to a maximum of 20.
Final Thoughts on Miner Donkey Trouble
Even if you're not a frequent slot player, you probably realize that mining themes are one of the most popular ones in online gambling. Despite the fact that the real work in a mine is one of the most backbreaking and dangerous professions in real life, the fantasy of striking gold or other valuable ore overshadows those hardships. Hence, game producers focus primarily on that aspect, resulting in many slots being quite similar, but not in the case of Play'n GO. The creative minds from Sweden have come up with a humorous setting, where an old-school prospector takes his faithful donkey down the shaft, so they can together search for buried treasures. This duet angle adds plenty of amusing flavor to the theme, balancing the playful interaction between the two characters with the classic mining environment. On top of that, everything is wrapped in crisp, polished artwork enhanced with eye-catching effects and seasoned with a cheerful soundtrack. All in all, another top-notch production, where all elements work hand in hand to deliver an exceptional gaming experience.
The technical side is no less impressive, packing a toolset of competent features that charge every spin with lots of excitement and potential. We genuinely like this type of game, where all mechanics can be experienced both in the base game and the bonus round, with subtle enhancements available in the latter. And so, regardless of which stage you're at, you'll be able to increase the win multiplier by dropping Golden Nuggets to the bottom of the grid, get extra Wilds from the Miner and the Dynamites, as well as clear symbols from the grid thanks to the rowdy Donkey. All that built into a cluster-pays, cascading win system results in a massively rich and engaging setup that can lead you to a max win of 10,000x the bet.
Miner Donkey Trouble is a fun, engaging, and feature-rich game, clearly showing the studio's expertise in designing attractive cluster-pay slots.
