Lost Riches of El Dorado

Lost Riches of El Dorado: Slot Overview

For players who can't get enough expanding symbol free spins mayhem in their lives comes another option from Stakelogic and partners Hurricane Games. As players are no doubt aware, there is a staggering number of slots using this sort of feature, so it goes without saying that a new release needs something, anything different, to encourage players to click on it, rather than the multitude of alternatives. In the case of Lost Riches of El Dorado, the key differences are made up of smaller alterations or add-ons rather than anything markedly innovative. These include a gamble feature, a Cash Bonus, and higher than normal potential.

In addition, the game is not set in Ancient Egypt, where the original 'book' movement began. In its place, players find themselves in South America chasing the El Dorado dream. To be honest, this isn't exactly a hugely original thematic idea either. Since El Dorado was known as the Lost City of Gold, chasing its riches is an apt metaphor for chasing a big old slot payout, so it's no wonder the theme is regularly reused. It does allow developers to make use of some nice graphics, such as the step pyramids in the background of Lost Riches of El Dorado and its nighttime bonus round imagery. It's mostly stuff 'book' players will be familiar with, but agreeably presented regardless.

There are three ways of attacking Lost Riches of El Dorado. One is the normal way, loading up a bet between 10 p/c and $/€10 per spin and trying your luck. Second, the game comes with Stakelogic's Super Stake bet option, which doubles the stake to increase the chances of triggering free spins. The third way is just to buy the bonus, if possible. Whichever way is selected, the default RTP is 96.01%, while volatility is high - though keep in mind that there are several different RTP versions of this game.

Played using 5 reels, 3 rows, in combination with 10 fixed paylines, wins occur when at least two premiums or three low pays land left to right from the first reel onwards. 10 to A card ranks comprise the lows worth 8 to 12 times the stake for a line of five, increasing to 50 to 500x the bet when landing five premium explorers, coins, chests, or gold statues. This means full screens of the top premium in free spins fire off wins of 5,000x the bet, though interestingly, max win can be higher than this if your luck is red hot.

Lost Riches of El Dorado: Slot Features

To have a chance of nabbing the riches of this particular El Dorado, triggering free spins is your best bet as that's where expanding symbols get a chance to work their magic. This feature is joined by a gamble feature and a Cash Bonus.

Free Spins

The book symbol is wild, so it replaces any other symbol, and it is also the scatter. Landing 3, 4, or 5 of them awards 10 free spins plus a payout of 2x, 20x, or 200x the bet, respectively. A book flips open to randomly select one paying symbol to be the special symbol in free spins. Players can reshuffle once if they don't like the first symbol that is chosen.

In free spins, if chosen symbols can form a win, they expand to cover all positions on their reel. Expanded symbols pay all lines, regardless of their position on the game panel. If 3 or more scatters land in the bonus round, +10 additional free spins are awarded, and the expanding symbol is upgraded to the next highest on the paytable.

Cash Bonus

This feature is only available in free spins, activating when 2 scatter symbols land. One of the scatters reveals a cash amount, the other a pay symbol. The cash amount is added to each special symbol in view and the total amount paid.

Gamble Feature

Following each win in the base game or at the end of free spins, players may gamble the winning total. Picking the correct suit of a face-down card quads the money, while guessing the correct colour doubles it. Naturally, getting the pick wrong means you lose your prize money.

Buy Bonus

At any time in the base game, players may buy free spins rather than land them naturally for the cost of 80 times their stake.

Lost Riches of El Dorado: Slot Verdict

Ever tucked into a bucket of Neapolitan ice cream, spooned out a helping of vanilla, and there was a taint of chocolate or strawberry on the spoon? That's kind of how it felt playing Lost Riches of El Dorado. For the most part, it's vanilla 'book of' gaming with one or two side extras providing more of a taint than a Book of Ra revolution. The result is a completely reliable 'book of' game which won't hurt to play, though nor will cause much remorse if you miss it, even for Ra completists.

On the whole, good things definitely outweigh the not so goods, and some of the positives include high graphical quality and seamless animations. Hurricane hasn't fumbled anything when creating the game, and there are no major faults to report on. Even when following a formula as well established as a 'book of' slot, it's interesting how many studios flub even the basics. Fortunately, there is none of that happening here.

One of Lost Riches of El Dorado's biggest intrigues is the Cash Bonus feature. In testing, the rewards from it weren't okay without being significant, making the Cash Drop a welcome top-up to free spins rather than something to aim for. The primary goal remains to land five expanding premiums to threaten the game's win cap, which in Lost Riches of El Dorado is 10,000x the bet. This is more than the usual amount and a possible sweetener for players on the fence over whether to give the game a spin.

All up, Lost Riches of El Dorado is a respectable if not earth-shattering addition to the 'book of' family tree. Though now it's more of a forest than a single tree, and while Lost Riches of El Dorado does a few things a bit differently, it's not exactly a critical Book-based release.