Sinbad

Sinbad: Slot Overview

Developer Quickspin’s 2013 Arabic adventure Sinbad has undergone an HTML upgrade, making it playable on virtually any modern device. You might very well feel like you’ve stepped back to 2013 yourself while playing Sinbad. It looks modern, but its low thrills gameplay coupled with an unusually low max win brings back memories of the developer’s formative years before leaping wholeheartedly on the volatile, big potential bandwagon.

There are no issues surrounding Sinbad’s looks though, where a 3-4-4-4-3 laid-out grid hovers like a flying carpet over a minaret-filled port city. It can’t be Sinbad’s hometown of Baghdad which is landlocked, so it must be one of the many exotic ports the sailor visited as he ventured across the world to rebuild his wealth. Sinbad is one of those names most people are familiar with but find it difficult to recall precisely what he did. In a quick wrap-up, Sinbad squandered the fortune his dad left him, then gained it back during the course of several journeys before finally returning home rich in gold and ivory.

Playable 40 p/c to $/€80 per spin, those looking to score their own fortune might do well try so on a different game since you won’t exactly find overflowing loot in Sinbad. Nor will you find hugely hair-raising gameplay where volatility has been rated low, or 2.31 out of 5 to be exceptionally precise. The RTP, meanwhile, is pretty good though, so there are no issues with a theoretical value of 97.06%. Bear in mind around 70% of that is due in the base game.

You might think the unusual grid layout would use a pay-all-ways system, but no, instead, we get 40 fixed paylines to land wins on. This occurs when 3 or more identical symbols land left to right from the leftmost reel. Symbols are disappointing, to say the least. On the low side, they start with 5 diamond shaped objects as the lows, while mids are 5 characters from the story worth 1 to 1.25 times the stake. The one high pay symbol is the wild, which substitutes all regular pay symbols to complete a line. Get 5 wilds on a payline to collect a 12.5 times the bet win.

Sinbad: Slot Features

Sinbad’s base game benefits from a stacked symbols feature - on every spin, 1 or more symbol types are randomly chosen to appear stacked. The chosen symbol can be anything except wilds or scatters.

The 3 free spins rounds in Sinbad are based on different journeys from the classic tale. Triggered when 3 or more boat symbols land, players pick from one of the rounds below as well as pick up a 2x their stake win. Each bonus game comes with different volatility, ruleset, and level of payout.

• The most volatile is the ape bonus which starts with 7 free spins. Whenever the ape appears, he leaves one or more wild symbols on the reels. These added wilds remain locked in position for the remainder of free spins.
• Roc free spins award 10 free spins and is the medium volatile option. The point in this one is to collect diamond scatters symbols to turn regular symbols wild. Collecting a total of 7 or 11 diamonds tops you up with 2 or 4 additional free spins.
• The last one is snake free spins which starts with 12 free spins. When serpent symbols appear on the outer reels (1 and 5) a snake wiggles across the reels, leaving a trail of wilds in its path. This is the softest option volatility wise.

Sinbad: Slot Verdict

There aren’t many Sinbad-themed slots to be found online, so in some ways, it’s nice Quickspin has upgraded their old game. Quickspin states, ‘superb graphics and animations will be the first impression of Sinbad’, which is a fair assessment of the situation. Studios through around words like ‘exotic’ all the time in these sorts of games, but exoticism literally oozes from the gorgeous background image. In some ways, it’s a shame the reels aren’t transparent so players could have enjoyed more of it. Animations are spot on as well, so the game achieved those goals.

Next up is the gameplay, where hardcore gamers are sure to feel let down despite any nostalgia factor. Sinbad’s features are alright, and you get three free spins options of varying volatilities and rewards. However, rewards are weak; let’s just say it. Sinbad is a classic tale of a man who went from riches to poverty and back to riches again. It seems Quickspin caught up with gallant adventurer during a less affluent stage of the Arabic bildungsroman. The main culprits are fixed paylines on a weird grid coupled with microscopic values where a full screen of the top non-wild symbol is worth a mere 50x the bet. Despite stacked symbols, sticky wilds, and all the rest of it, the biggest win achieved during 1 billion spins was 748x the bet.

Sinbad takes players back to Quickspin’s heyday when they were better known for producing nice-looking, playable, yet low volatile, low potential slots. Sinbad manages to be all of those things, so it feels like a step backwards for players who have been appreciating Quickspin’s higher-powered releases. Let’s stay positive by saying not all games can be vicious monsters, plus Sinbad’s RTP is respectable. Also, the upgrade might make a nice trip down memory lane for players who were there when the Flash version dropped. So, if you are down for the slot equivalent of qahwa and chill - Sinbad is just the ticket. If not, Sinbad is unlikely to do much for you.