Shah Mat

Shah Mat: Slot Overview

If you're wondering about the title, shah mat translates to the 'king is helpless' or 'the king is dead' and was a term used in a Persian precursor to chess called Shatranj. When the game came to Europe via the Moors and the Iberian Peninsula, the saying was changed to 'Checkmate'. This one we know signifies the opposing player has no moves to save their king, so the game is over. Shah Mat then, is a grid slot from Red Tiger that not only puts chess pieces up on the reels but creates an immersive Persian inspired world to play them in.

Thanks to Shah Mat, players get a taste of just how alien, foreign courts must have felt like when earlier explorers, travellers, or conquerors visited them. Here they butted up against unfamiliar languages, unusual representations of the human form, décor, mannerisms, and strange games. Okay, a dose of imagination might be needed to dig into these thoughts, yet Shah Mat's visuals are such to spark them.

Utilizing an 8 by 8 sized game grid, the base game is played in what looks like a dimly lit palace room, decorated with horse statues, spears and illuminated by an eerie golden light behind the grid. For free spins, the action moves outdoors to the very top of a castle tower. By then, diplomacy mustn't have gone to plan, as battle looks like it is about to commence on an ominously clouded landscape. Players can ponder chess strategies on any device by selecting bets of 10 p/c to $/€20 per spin. Hitting the play button drops 64 regular sized symbols onto the grid, with the goal of landing 5 or more matching symbols connecting horizontally or vertically. Doing so triggers a win and a reaction feature. Highly volatile, Shah Mat has a default RTP value of 95.79% whilst offering rather moderate potential of up to 4,323x.

As for pay symbols, on the low side are the four card suits – clubs, diamonds, hearts, and spades worth 4-7 times the stake for a cluster of 30+. Next are five high paying symbols, consisting of knights, bishops, rooks, queens, and kings. Forming 30+ sized clusters of premiums generate a payout of 8 to 80 times the stake.

Shah Mat: Slot Features

Shah Mat uses a conventional bunch of features to produce larger wins, such as cascades, wild multipliers, Super Symbols, and free spins. When winning clusters land they trigger the cascade feature - winning symbols are removed, and existing symbols fall into the spaces. Chaining together repeat wins is possible using this system, ending when no new wins hit. Then, the next spin can take place.

Super Symbols land anytime at random in 2x2, 3x3, or 4x4 in size. High paying symbols can be Super Symbols, and so can wilds. Wilds land in all positions, replacing any pay symbol to complete clusters. When wilds are used in a win, they are not removed by the cascade feature but remain on the grid. If 2 or more wilds land adjacent to each other, they merge into a single wild symbol with a multiplier based on how many symbols merged. New wilds can merge with multiplier wilds, creating values as high as x20.

One more symbol is used in Shah Mat; this is the scatter. Landing 3, 4, 5, or 6 of them in a spin sequence awards 12, 15, 18, or 21 free spins. What changes in free spins is when wilds merge, they increase a global multiplier that applies to all wins, not just those wilds are part of. As before, the global multiplier maxes out at x20. Each scatter symbol landing during the feature awards +1 free spin.

Shah Mat: Slot Verdict

If you dig around for other chess-themed slots, there are a bunch of old ones that essentially use chess pieces as symbols. Nothing as cleverly designed as Shah Mat. It seems like the producers of Shah Mat were chess fanatics who didn't want to just put pieces up on the reels but pay a real homage to the board game and its origins. Perhaps this isn't the case. Perhaps this is just a regular shiny Red Tiger release, though Shah Mat is so well executed you want to believe passion was poured into its design.

The first things that register are Shah Mat's name, look and the darkly fun ambience. If you like a bit of exoticism, then Shah Mat's worth checking out. The game transports you East to the halls of some Persian palace where two enlightened rulers are playing a deadly serious game of chess instead of letting their soldiers fall on a battlefield. There are echoes of Alexander the Great in there, even hints of fantasy in the mode of Alice in Wonderland, creating a great environment to get lost in for a bit.

The gaming side doesn't let Shah Mat down either. The board is huge, so there is plenty of space to land clusters on, meaning spins or free spins can turn into long-drawn-out sequences of repeat wins. Not always, of course, but some nice runs of consecutive hits during our test runs. Wilds also tended to land fairly frequently as well, so despite the size of the grid, maxing the multiplier in free spins wasn't an unheard-of occurrence. Capping the multiplier has capped winning potential to a degree, so Shah Mat tops out at 4,323 times the stake. Not amazing, yet it sits in the same league as popular grid slots like Reactoonz in regard to potential, at least.

In the end, Shah Mat is one of those games that doesn't break the mould or do much wild and crazy. However, it has been well put together, the theme excellently presented, and the gameplay pops at times too. Even purists who consider chess to be a tad 'high brow' for a video slot might have a bit of fun with Shah Mat.