Inca Queen

Inca Queen: Slot Overview

Within the Inca empire, the big boss was the Sapa Inca, whose main wife had the title of Coya, who was like the queen and the highest-ranking woman in the empire. It's the feminine rulership side of this South American culture we're dealing with today in the Pragmatic Play release, Inca Queen. As well as rulers and ancient civilisations, this is a slot bursting at the seams with hold 'n' win style action, with numerous bonus rounds to work our way through. It's kind of simple, kind of confusing, so if you're into Coins, jackpots, or pretending to raid tombs, it might be worth taking the time to work out what's going on.

We're playing an Inca game, alright, no confusion there. Behind the grid is a classic slot view depicting ancient Incan grandeur. You know, foliage, mountains, incredible architecture, the sort of place that makes you wonder if the ancients were actually more advanced than us moderns, in some ways. They seemed to live more harmoniously with nature; then again, we surely have better medicine and live arguably easier, if less spiritually fulfilling lives. We can debate later, maybe after Inca Queen has had a chance to do its thing, which involves a lot of Coin and frame landing in this appealing, if sorta generic looking mountain valley game.

Inca Queen features a default RTP of 96.55% and supports stakes ranging from $/€0.20 to $/€240 per spin. The game uses a 5x3 grid with 20 paylines, where winning combinations form from left to right starting on the leftmost reel. In terms of volatility, Inca Queen is classified as highly volatile.

On the paytable are 9 regular paying symbols, made up of 10-A royals, birds, snakes, big cats, and an Inca character. When landing a 5-of-a-kind winning combination, the payout is 2.5x-3x for royals or 5x-30x for premium symbols. Wild symbols hit on all reels but not the leftmost reel to substitute for all symbols except Coins.

Inca Queen: Slot Features

Inca Queen features several respin mechanics that can chain together. Coin symbols (valued from 1x to 250x, including Mini, Minor, and Major jackpots) are collected in a Coin pot, while frames are collected in a frame pot.

Features

Landing Coins may randomly trigger the Coin Respin feature, where only Coins can appear and symbols stick until 6 Coins land. Landing frames may instead trigger the Frame Respin feature, which works the same way but aims to land 6 frames. If Coins and frames are collected together, a Coin & Frame Respin can trigger, where both symbols appear and a random x2-x10 multiplier is applied.

Money Respin Feature

All of these features can lead into the Money Respin round, which starts with 3 respins and holds all Coins and frames in place. New Coins and frames stick and reset the respins, and positions containing both become active. Reaching 6 or more active positions retriggers the feature and can award increasing multipliers. Coins may also appear as Special symbols. These trigger a small respin round that determines their value, which can be boosted by multipliers or even award the max win. Filling the entire grid during Money Respins also awards the 2,000x Grand prize.

Ante Bet & Feature Buy

An optional Ante Bet (30x stake) increases the chances of triggering respin features. Alternatively, players can buy the Coin & Frame Respin feature directly for 250x the bet.

Inca Queen: Slot Verdict

That was more complicated than expected. Inca Queen looks like a typical coin and jackpot slot at first glance, but the rules twist around each other in ways that aren't always easy to follow. Most of the gameplay revolves around respin rounds where symbols stick in place, though the different features can branch into each other in slightly more elaborate ways. Even after seeing them in action, it's not always obvious how the written rules translate to what actually happens on the reels. In simple terms, the goal is to land as many Coins and frames as possible to move from one respin round to the next.

In that sense, Inca Queen feels a bit like wandering through a ruined temple, moving from chamber to chamber collecting whatever you find along the way. The Incan theme is nicely presented, but the gameplay itself can become repetitive since most of the features revolve around similar hold-and-win style mechanics. Respins can chain together for quite a while, though the excitement level doesn't always rise along with them.

At its core, Inca Queen is still a fairly standard Incan-themed hold 'n' win jackpot slot with a 5,000x max win. While the structure has a few extra layers compared to many games in the genre, it ultimately comes down to landing Coins and frames and hoping the respins keep going.