Dead Man’s Gold

Dead Man's Gold: Slot Overview

Yo ho hooo, your boy Kane is back in another one of his missions to find a bit of loot and glory. This one's been dubbed Dead Man's Gold, and it sees the intrepid explorer get all piratical in his attempt to strike it rich. Sticking to form, Dead Man's Gold is an online slot filled to the brim with features, modifiers, gambling options, dynamic reels, and a vibrant atmosphere. If all that's whet your appetite for some cutlass swinging, cannon firing, or any other manner of piraty things, let's get a swashbuckling.

Dead Man's Gold's base game takes place in a ludicrously exotic location, a sort of lost village tucked away on an island by a waterfall, before a mountainous area and a background that gets higher and higher whenever the view pans out. It really is an impressive sight, bringing back memories of earlier slots like Tahiti Gold and Pacific Gold, but Dead Man's Gold definitely has its own personality. A strong one at that. The audio is great too; jungle sounds mixed in with a gentle at times, passionate at others, soundtrack which contributes tremendously to the drama. When it comes to building lush game worlds, ELK Studios proves once again why they are one of the best in the business at doing so.

On the one hand, ELK Studios giveth; on the other, it taketh, and Dead Man's Gold's sensory candy is offset by a weak 94% return to player. Winning potential, on the other hand, is high, as is the volatility as well, so a potent mix when its wide range of features is popping. To get the popping going, players pick a stake of 20 p/c to $/€100 per spin and either stick with single spin betting or pick 1 of the 5 options from the feature buy X-iter menu. When playing from the X-iter, the RTP remains the same at 94%.

Dead Man's Gold is played on a 6-reel gaming grid which begins each new spin at 4 rows high. At this size, players get 4,096 ways to win, occurring when matching symbols land on at least 3 consecutive reels starting from the leftmost reel. The pay symbols are divided into three groups – low, medium, and high. The lows are J-A symbols, the mediums are a stingray, octopus, anchor, and skull 'n crossbones, while the highs are a moon in a wheel, a star, an eyed pyramid, and Kane. When landing a 6-of-a-kind winning way, the game awards 0.3x the bet for the lows, 0.8-1x the bet for the mids, and 2-5x the bet for the highs. Wild symbols are able to subsite for any pay symbols and may land as big symbols in sizes of 2x2 or 3x3. Pay symbols can also land as big symbols up to 4x4 in size. If gaps appear below big symbols, they are filled with the same symbol type.

Dead Man's Gold: Slot Features

The rest of Dead Man's Gold's extras include Avalanches, Treasure Targets, Fire the Cannons!, Multiplier Treasure Targets, Bottomless Chest, the Bonus Game, and X-iter.

Avalanche

All winning symbols are removed from the reels, leaving space for symbols to drop down to fill, plus an extra row of symbols is added on top – up to a maximum of 8 rows high. The avalanche feature will keep repeating as long as new winning ways appear.

Treasure Targets

Cannonball symbols activate the cannons sitting on either side of the reels. Cannons fire when they can hit a Treasure Target symbol. Treasure Targets shot by the cannons reveal wild symbols and remove non-winning symbols around them. When Multiplier Treasure Targets are shot, they also reveal wilds and remove non-winning symbols around them, but they also increase the global win multiplier.

Bottomless Chest

The Bottomless Chest is a valueless symbol which generates and fills empty spaces beneath it with high-value, wild or cannonball symbols all the way up to the achieved row height.

Bonus Game

Hitting 3, 4, 5, or 6 bonus symbols awards 10, 15, 20, or 25 free drops, respectively. During free spins, Treasure Targets and Multiplier Treasure Targets are persistent between drops until they are used in a win. The Bottomless Chest is also persistent for the full duration. Landing 3 or more bonus symbols awards additional free spins.

X-iter

The X-iter allows players to play Dead Man's Gold in different gaming modes. These are:

• Big Block – 5x the bet for one spin with a guaranteed big symbol.
• Chest Plunderer – 10x the bet for one spin with a guaranteed Bottomless Chest.
• Super Cannon Spin – 25x the bet for one spin where the cannons have unlimited numbers of cannonball shots.
• Bonus – 100x the bet to trigger the bonus game.
• Super Bonus – 500x the bet to trigger the Super bonus game with unlimited cannonballs for the cannons.

Dead Man's Gold: Slot Verdict

By our count, Dead Man's Gold is no less than the ninth slot in the series, and if anything, the Gold range feels like it's going as strong as ever, if not stronger. It's a real testament to ELK Studios' design talents that it can keep coming up with interesting scenarios for Kane to inhabit, bring them to life with a consistently high quality of art and sound, then populate the world with exciting features. Usually, there's an innovative twist or two in there for good measure. Some of the newer parts to be found in Dead Man's Gold include the cannons shooting Treasure Targets to reveal wilds and clear away a few non-winning symbols and Multiplier Treasure Targets, which increments the win multiplier. A neat in-theme extra that brings something new to the Gold table for fans to experiment with.

Other aspects of Dead Man's Gold might not be so innovative, but everything links together nicely, and the game's individual parts can have positive impacts on each other. Few games are able to ratchet themselves up like a good Gold game can, and Dead Man's Gold is no exception. Avalanches lead to extra rows, big symbols pop up for good measure, and when factoring in the Treasure Target/Multiplier Treasure Target, you've got a Gold game that's both familiar and different enough to propel the series into uncharted yet exciting waters.

The game's final draw is its 25,000x the bet winning potential which is a ton more than the early games in the range could boast. Of course, RTP might be a sticking point as it often is from ELK Studios these days. Strange when you think about it, where one part of the team is pushing forward, crafting gorgeous-looking and sounding games with excellent playability, while the other is cannonballing themselves in the foot with unenviable numbers.