Hippie Hour Slots
The link between hippies and gambling isn’t an obvious one, and certainly you can’t imagine many casinos in 1960s San Francisco who were happy to see customers coming in with tie-dye shirts and flowers in their hair, but The Art of Games are all about the free love, so maybe we shouldn’t be surprised to see this themed game. Hippie Hour (Get it? Happy Hour. Hippie Hour. It’s not subtle but it works) is one of their best-looking games to date.
For those of us who were too young to experience the Summer Of Love or to follow the Grateful Dead around in a camper van, this game has been designed to capture the essence of the hippie dream within an online slot machine. We’re pretty sure that’s what the founding fathers of the movement had in mind all along really, it can’t have been all about the drugs, music, sex and poetry, right?
This is the Dawning of the Age of…
So, how do The Art of Games recreate 1967 Haight Ashbury within the confines of an online game? Well, it’s certainly an eye-catching design, with the game itself contained on the side of that most hippie-ish of transports, a camper van, all decked out with flower power designs and peace stickers. There are also nice touches like a surfboard on the roof, flowers on the hubcabs and a rainbow umbrella for those odd showers.
Getting actual 60s hippie songs for the soundtrack would have been a bit restrictive in cost terms (not even hippies give it away for free), so instead there’s a slightly elevator-music style effort that is a bit hippie-ish with gently strumming guitars and shimmery flutes, but it gives more of an atmosphere of hold music for a bank’s call centre rather than a hippie freak-out. So we’d advise putting it on mute and sticking some Jefferson Airplane on instead.
Are You a Sunshine Superman?
An added nice touch in the design for Hippie Hour is that the background behind the camper van is a nice orangey sky with animated floating clouds drifting by. But there’s plenty going on in the main area of the screen to keep you focused on the task at hand. The icons in the game are all hippie trademarks, from a John Lennon-a-like guitar player to heart-shaped sunglasses to a daisychain necklace.
It’s not all so innocent too, with a cannabis plant and bong representing the more stoned side of the Summer Of Love, but we’d recommend you keep a clear head for playing the game. This is a serious business, no matter how many lava lamps and hippie girls are on screen. The paytable is hidden away behind a stylish acoustic guitar at the side of the van, but the rest of the controls are pretty straightforward, making it an easy game to pick up and play.
Blowin’ in the Wind
There are some nice animations when you win, especially when it’s the erm, drugs, but where the game really takes you on a journey is the mini game. It’s represented on the slots by a camper van, because that’s what the game is – taking you to modern day hippie destination the Burning Man festival, and you are driving the van collecting items and trying to avoid the drugs because driving while high is nobody’s idea of safe fun and you’ll crash.
It’s not all about the mini game of course, as fun a diversion as that is (and you will be hoping it comes up often), and like all of The Art of Games’s products, the gaming on offer here is simple, fun and more-ish, keeping you clicking long after that ‘one last spin’ you promised yourself while it was still daylight. But don’t worry, be happy, it’s all just fun and In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida by Iron Butterfly just came on. Just another 17 minutes then.
Hippie Shakes
Of all of the themes that The Art of Games have applied to their games, Hippie Hour is definitely the most successful that we’ve seen so far. The music might not be ideal, but the visuals are spot on and true to the 60s hippie vision, making this a real trip (pun intended) back in time, whether it’s nostalgia or a history lesson.
If it’s the latter, it’s the most fun history lesson you can have about the 60s while keeping your clothes on. This is one slot machine game you’ll be returning to time and time again, both for the gaming and the experience as a whole. Righteous!
