Treasures of the Dead

Treasures of the Dead: Slot Overview

Sooner or later, there's a good chance a maker of casino games will eventually succumb to the allure of designing a 'book of' style online slot. It's something of a rite of passage, like a budding guitar player adding Led Zeppelin's classic Stairway to Heaven to their repertoire. This time, it's software provider Lucksome's turn to try its hand at some expanding symbol action in Treasures of the Dead. As well as a surprise at having the word 'the'' in the title, other surprises include a spawned scarab device which can activate Hyperlines and increase Hyperline multipliers, lending a positive effect to the game's winning potential.

Stepping into Treasures of the Dead is like stepping into a swanky Egyptian-themed hotel, or you know, a swanky hotel in the actual country of Egypt. Presumably, it's set in a temple, but it feels more modern than a sacred space from the ancient days of yore. Trigger or buy free spins, and the bonus game shenanigans are held in another chamber flooded with gold coins, glinting in the light of flaming braziers. Get lucky with the Hyperlines or Expanding Symbols, and players might get their hands on quite a few coins. Special mention to the sound team too, as Treasures of the Dead's backing track is quite an aural delight.

As per usual in a Lucksome slot, Treasures of the Dead comes with a wealth of statistical information. Key amongst the stats is the default return value, maxing at 96.2% when playing normally, though lower settings are available, too. However, when buying free spins, the max return value bumps up to 96.22%. Diving deeper, the game runs on a medium-high volatility math model, rated 7 out of 10, and takes bets of 10 p/c to $/€200 per spin.

Treasures of the Dead utilises a classic setup, functioning on a 5-reel, 3-row panel, with 10 fixed paylines for wins to be evaluated along. Players don't spin alone when having a go at Treasures of the Dead, either, sort of. The reason is the top paying symbol is adventuress Amber Wild (maybe a distant relative of Cat and Rich Wilde?), and she is joined by three Egyptian-style objects as the four high pays and 10-A Egyptian-style card royals as the low pays. Hitting a five-of-a-kind win awards 5 to 10 times the bet when made up of low pays or 50 to 200 times the stake for the premiums. A bit less than the standard 'book of' 5 OAK's but Treasures of the Dead rebalances the scales with an interesting feature or two.

Treasures of the Dead: Slot Features

As well as the 10 regular paylines, Treasures of the Dead possesses 3 special Hyperlines. Cast your eye to the left side of the grid, where you will see 9 slots in the base game - three to each Hyperline. When a wild symbol lands (on any reel), there is a chance it spawns a scarab which goes on to fill one of the slots. In the base game, when 3 scarabs are collected on a Hyperline, it becomes active and gets a multiplier, which is incremented by each scarab, one scarab per spin. It stays active until a win is awarded on the Hyperline, and no more scarabs remain to be collected. When a Hyperline is active, collecting scarabs will increase its multiplier. As you might imagine, Hyperline progress is locked at bet levels.

Free Spins

The wild symbol is also Treasures of the Dead's scatter symbol. Landing 3, 4 or 5 wild/scatters awards 10 free spins plus a payout of 10x, 50x, or 200x the bet, respectively. Before free spins begin, one pay symbol is chosen at random to be the special expanding symbol. When these special symbols hit, if they can form a win, they expand to cover all positions on their reel. Expanded symbols pay all lines from any position, regardless of adjacency. Moreover, Hyperlines are active for the full duration of a bonus round. In addition to standard line wins and Hyperlines wins, Hyperlines also apply their respective multipliers during expanded symbol win evaluations. When scarabs spawn, they increase the multiplier on their Hyperline. Multipliers do not reset until the feature ends.

Bonus Buy

During the bonus buy, applicable players are able to buy one of the three bonuses. These are:

• X-Plosive – 5 to 15 free spins plus a random number of scarabs for 100x the bet. Most volatile option.
• Delux – 10 to 15 free spins plus a random number of scarabs for 300x the bet. Middle volatile option.
• Double Lux – 10 to 20 free spins, plus a random number of scarabs for 500x the bet. Also, if the final win is 80x the bet or less, players get a second chance Retrigger Guarantee. Least volatile option.

Treasures of the Dead: Slot Verdict

Lucksome has been consistently releasing solid slots, cementing its reputation for crafting transparent, creative, heartily good gambling machines. When we'd heard the team was dropping a 'book of' styled vehicle, hopes were high that the team would do something zippily creative with the illustrious format. After test-driving Treasures of the Dead, we're happy to report that expectations were more than satisfactorily met. Treasures of the Dead melds the sort of classic dynamics a Book of Ra zealot would hope to find, with newer, more modern quirks, that you just don't find in the zillion or so other 'book of' slots hovering about on the market.

One of Treasures of the Dead's big draw cards is its three Hyperlines, natch. Intriguing idea, too, because while purists might find them fiddly, preferring to just smash the play button and line up wins, or expanders, they bring several benefits to the table. One is a ramped-up novelty factor, a critical element when trying to stand out in the crowded 'book of' field. The job would have been done there. However, Hyperlines aren't just novel for the lols; they're also effective at keeping monotony at bay since they're on tap in the base and bonus game. Furthermore, they feed into Treasures of the Dead's eye-opening for a 'Ra' slot's potential. Where most generally tap out at 5,000x the bet, a la Book of Dead et al., Treasures of the Dead ups the ante by offering triple that amount at 15,000x the bet.

One thing treasure hunters might want to keep in mind is Treasures of the Dead's win focus of 1,000x+ the bet - another appreciated piece of information Lucksome provides players with before tackling its games. Factor in the crystal-clear stats, intriguing new gaming, and impressive winning potential, and simply put, 'book of' players have another stand-up slot to try.