Lucky Drums 88

Lucky Drums 88: Slot Overview

Drums have played important roles in communication, celebration, spiritual practices, community life, and ceremonial traditions across many cultures throughout Asia. Combine this with the number 8, which is particularly associated with prosperity and good fortune in Chinese culture, and you have a slot aimed squarely at players drawn to Asian-inspired themes. The maker of Lucky Drums 88, Pragmatic Play, certainly knows its audience, having developed a number of similar releases in the past, and has designed a game for the traditionalists at heart. What we've got is a dyed-in-the-wool Asian-inspired slot, powered by a scatter pays mechanic, and a dual grid hold & win serving as its central feature.

Lucky Drums 88 presents the sort of picture Asian slot enthusiasts will have seen a thousand times before, maybe more. Okay, that's an exaggeration, but the game has a very classical look to it, some might say generic, as it places its gaming grid between a couple of coiled dragon pillars in front of a sloping-roofed building. Square-holed coins lie in a pile to one side of the screen and a huffin', puffin' dragon on the other. The game sounds about as classical/generic as it looks, as Lucky Drums 88 shoots for cosy comfort rather than anything new or unfamiliar. It's an approach that should warm the heart of Asian slot traditionalists, while sending others into a jaded, yawn-inducing slumber.

Lucky Drums 88 creates a win when at least 7 matching symbols land on the 5x5 grid in any position. The tumble feature causes winning symbols to disappear after they have paid, before symbols fall in from above to fill the reels. As long as regular wins keep forming, tumbles keep repeating. In this highly volatile slot, bets of $/€0.20 to $/€240 may be placed, and the default RTP is 96.53%.

The pay symbols landing on the reels are 10-A royals, lanterns, coin boxes, lions, and bags of coins. Winning combinations of 12+ matching royals are worth 0.6x-2x the stake, going up to 3x-15x the bet when 12 or more high pay symbols are present on the grid.

Lucky Drums 88: Slot Features

The features in Lucky Drums 88 are coin collecting, a hold & spin bonus round, a feature buy, and ante bets.

Coin Collection

Silver and gold coins land on all reels. When they hit, they fly towards the silver and gold drums above the reels. When this occurs, the following can randomly happen:

• The coin hits the drum and triggers the hold & spin feature.
• The coin gets collected on the drum. Up to 8 coins can be collected in each drum. The amount is saved between spins, and when the hold & win naturally triggers, the same amount of coins possessing random values are added to the grid associated with the pot that triggered the feature.
• The coin goes back to the position it landed on and awards a money value or a multiplier value. A multiplier value of x2-x10 is possible, and it is applied to the total win of tumbles from the current spin. Possible money awards range from 0.5x up to the 1,000x Grand prize.
• The coin disappears, and nothing is awarded.

Hold & Spin

This feature is randomly triggered when a coin in the base game hits a drum on top of the reels. Triggering the round with the silver drum activates the 5x3 silver grid, while triggering the gold drum activates the gold 5x3 grid. It is also possible to activate both grids at the same time. Only silver coins and blanks land on the silver grid and golden coins and blanks on the gold grid.

If only one grid is activated, drum symbols may land. Landing a silver drum when only the gold grid is active activates the silver grid, and vice versa. When the round starts, a number of coins equal to the one collected in the base game for each grid are added to the respective grid. Three respins are granted, which reset to 3 whenever a coin or drum hits. All coins are sticky and stay in place until the round ends. If coins with a multiplier land, they multiply the values of all other coins on the screen. If more than one multiplier hits, they add to each other before multiplying. These coins are not sticky. The round ends when there are no more respins left, or all active grids are filled with coins. The values of all coins in view are paid, and if any of the grids are filled, the 1,000x Grand prize is awarded.

Feature Buy and Ante Bets

It is possible to buy the hold & spin round for 200x the bet. When buying the hold & spin, both silver and gold drums are guaranteed to trigger, and up to 8 coins are added to each grid at the start of the feature Players are also able to activate ante bet 1 for 2.5x to guarantee a silver coin, ante bet 2 for 3.5x to guarantee a gold coin, or ante bet 3 for 5x to guarantee a silver and gold coin.

Lucky Drums 88: Slot Verdict

Lucky Drums 88 is pretty much a what you see is what you get kind of slot, with a couple of minor twists hidden up its sleeves. It's a game that walks a well-trodden path and knows exactly what it wants to be and who it is trying to attract. The last Asian-inspired title the studio released, Jade Legends, managed to have more of a universal appeal, on account of the more fantastical theme and features which were actually quite exciting. Lucky Drums 88 has a narrower focus, both in terms of looks and features, which lie closer to meh than magnificent. Not every slot can appeal to everyone, of course, but Lucky Drums 88 really homes in on its target audience, leaving anyone else free to… look elsewhere, let's politely put it.

As for tricks, they are minor ones but still capable of keeping willing participants on their toes. Some have a cruel streak, like the way coins land and can produce one of four outcomes, one of those outcomes leading to nothing at all happening. The other three outcomes are positive, though, either triggering the main feature, collecting the coin for the future, or applying a multiplier to the current win. The main feature itself is not the most exciting hold 'n' win ever made. Okay, it's possible to have two grids functioning simultaneously, doubling the space available to land coins, but it's nothing unmissably wow. Strangely, Lucky Drums 88 boasts a win cap of 20,000x the bet, which seems optimistic given the value of the Grand prize and the tools players get to work with, though who knows, they might get lucky.

In the end, Lucky Drums 88 is unlikely to win over anyone looking for crazy new ideas, but that doesn't mean it won't find players who enjoy its particular style. The time-honoured Asian-inspired presentation, coin collection mechanics and dual-grid hold & win feature should give it enough to satisfy players who know exactly what they like, plus the 20,000x max win is an enticing headline. Fans of the formula could do worse, even if there are plenty of more imaginative drums to beat out there.