Loot & Labyrinths

Loot & Labyrinths: Slot Overview

If rolling a d20 before adding bonuses and modifiers gets your blood pumping, then software provider Play'n GO may have made the online slot for you. Titled Loot & Labyrinths, it's a fantasy slot with a healthy dose of swords crossing, dice rolling, like actual dice rolling, and a Dungeons & Dragons mentality. Play'n GO are actually quite good at making these sorts of games. Maybe not roleplaying slots per se, but the studio has produced solid Arthurian slots in the past, The Sword & the Grail (2019), for example, so it's no stranger to legends, quests, and adventures, which bodes well.

They're not usually as tabletop-orientated as this, though, and that is meant in a good way. Loot & Labyrinths litters its screen with miniatures, dice, and game sheets as if a group of buds have gotten together for a night of roleplaying. Voiceovers reinforce the effect, while passionate music adds to the drama, so for a fantasy roleplay style slot, Loot & Labyrinths is about as close as D&D on the reels as it gets.

The questing takes place on a 5x3 matrix that awards winning combinations along 20 paylines. Before taking on this medium-high volatile slot and rolling the dice, players choose a stake of 20 c to $/€100 per game round. Five RTP configurations exist, where the highest value of the lot is a 96.34% version.

Four monster symbols are Loot & Labyrinths' low pays, while 4 adventurers are its highs. Winning combinations created by landing 5 matching low pays awards players 1 to 1.5 times their bet, increasing to 6 to 10 times their bet for hitting 5 matching high pay symbols. Wilds hit on all reels to substitute any regular paying symbol. Winning lines of 5 wilds pay 40x.

Loot & Labyrinths: Slot Features

In Loot & Labyrinths, players can roll their way through 3 bonus games, free spins with various buffs, as well as a Dice & Ranks side quest.

Bonus Games

The Random Encounter symbol may land on the leftmost reel in the base game. It triggers 1 of 3 bonus games, determined by the symbols on the following reels on the same row. A mix of high and low-pay symbols triggers the Monsters Attack bonus game (win 10x-50x), only low-pay symbols trigger the Treasure Lair Bonus game (win 15x-75x), and only high-pay symbols trigger the Tavern Night bonus game (win 20x-100x).

The bonus games have a starting win potential of 10x in Monsters Attack, 15x in Treasure Lair, and 20x in Tavern Night. The symbols that landed in the row with the Random Encounter symbol affect the rules of the bonus game. Each low pay symbol increases the difficulty level of the dice roll - low pay 1 by 3, low pay 2 by 4, low pay 3 by 5, and low pay 4 by 6. Each high pay symbol adds a dice bonus of +1 to the roll.

To win in the bonus game, a 20-sided dice is rolled, revealing a result of 1 to 20, before any dice bonus is added to the result. Players win the prize if the final result is greater or equal to the total difficulty level. If the final dice roll is equal to or greater than 20, the player unlocks the next multiplier level and rolls again. In each bonus game, multipliers of x2, x3, or x4 may be unlocked.

Free Spins

Hitting 3 scatters awards 10 free spins. Each free spins round awards 3 random buffs that are revealed by picking 'n clicking. The same buff can be revealed more than once:

• Golden Artifact - transforms a random high-pay symbol into a wild, with wild payout values.
• Lady Death - removes the lowest low-pay symbol from the reels.
• Forgotten Temple - adds +5 free spins.
• Abandoned Alter - adds +3 free spins.

During free spins, multipliers of x2, x5, x20, and x100 are unlocked in sequence. The unlocked multiplier applies to the total win at the end of the free spins round. Each multiplier level is unlocked by landing 5 high pay symbols with a crossed swords icon attached to them. The attack icon appears at random on any high-pay symbol. Hitting 3 scatters awards an extra +10 free spins, up to a cap of 75 free spins.

Dice & Ranks

Players may open the character sheet to change the appearance of the dice and track their progress. It is possible to level up while playing, unlocking new dice skins and ranks. Levels may be gained by completing quests, and defeating the dragon bestows the rank of Dragonslayer. The part of that game would appear to be cosmetic.

Loot & Labyrinths: Slot Verdict

One of the attractions of a roleplaying game is a big, thick core book full of rules and lore, and Loot & Labyrinths brings a fair amount of rules, as well as features, to the table. The bonus games are brief, but they're pretty neat and add hits of enjoyable theme-based entertainment to the base game. Basically, a target number is presented, players roll a d20, add any modifiers, and if the total beats or equals the target, the prize is theirs. Bonus game prize money isn't huge for the most part, but that's okay; they're more of a side quest anyway and provide a fun diversion in the base game while attempting to trigger the free spins round.

Free spins might be hit or miss, and whether Loot & Labyrinths' levelling up system is better than, say, The Sword and The Grail's wild multiplier is one for players to decide on. During testing, free spins didn't trigger huge amounts of suspense, but you can see how this method could be exciting when nearing the upper multiplier values in the sequence. Activating the x100 might trigger a thrill or 2, and Loot & Labyrinths' win cap is rather large at 20,000 times the bet. Play'n GO has even halved its usual max exposure probability, though at 1 in 500 million, don't expect Loot & Labyrinths to rain down max wins like a storm of lightning bolts.

Play'n GO has explored fantasy gaming slots before, with Tower Quest Legacy and Champions Of Mithrune as comparable examples. However, Loot & Labyrinths takes the TTRPG influence even further, possibly too far for some, resulting in an overstuffed experience that struggles to balance its elaborate theme with engaging gameplay. While the idea of rolling the dice as an adventurous gnome sounds fun, the execution feels more exhausting than compelling.