Ancient Egypt Classic Online Slot Machine – Free Play & Review

We’ll admit, we’re history nerds here at the office. Listening about ancient wars and how they shaped humanity was something that always appealed to us growing up, and we’ve had a passive interest for the way things were even as we’ve grown up and expanded our interests. As such, slots that tackle Ancient Egypt have always been near and dear to our hearts, by the virtue of covering one of the most interesting civilisations to ever exist.

Pragmatic Play knows how to appeal to our sensibilities like that, and that’s why we’re reviewing Ancient Egypt Classic, a game with just one special feature and a whole lot of grinding. Symbols include playing card icons 10, J, Q, K and A, stylised with Egyptian symbols to make them fit in better, as well as symbols with unique artwork like the Eye of Horus, an ankh, a jackal statue, and a female pharaoh. Wilds and Scatter form a single symbol, which is the golden Scarab.

Developer

Pragmatic Play is our favourite example that shows if you have talent and know-how, you’ll be able to break through and establish yourself no matter what. The company is a relative newcomer to the scene, starting in 2015, but they managed to claw through and reach great popularity with their games, which often tackled varied themes and gameplay, always offering something new for players to enjoy.

The team operates from Malta, and have over a hundred employees hard at work creating the next big thing from the developer. Pragmatic Play has already picked up a few awards, and was shortlisted for others. In 2018, they plucked the Innovation in Slot Provision award at the 2018 EGR B2B Awards, after winning Software Rising Star at the same awards in 2017.

How to Play it

The title is played on a 5×3 playing field with 10 fixed paylines. Gamblers can set coins per line and coin value to adjust their bets. Coin value can range from $0.01 up to $0.50, while the actual bet ranges from $0.10 up to $50 per spin, which is a wide range of bets that should appease a wide range of gamblers, with only the most hardcore gamblers complaining that a $50 per spin wager is too small. Not that we’d recommend betting that high, given the fact Ancient Egypt is a highly volatile game. Pragmatic Play’s Autoplay option is fantastic as always. It allows you to set the number of spins, set if you want to use Quick Spins or Turbo Spins while the auto spins are happening, as well as set if you want the spins to stop on any win, if a feature is won, if it goes above or below a certain threshold you set, or if a single win exceeds a certain amount.

There’s no background image to really talk about – most of the graphics are focused on what you can find on the reels, which are a fitting, royal purple. There are minor decorations on the outer edges of the reel to make it seem a touch fancier than usual, but this isn’t the graphics powerhouse you’re looking for.

Special Features

Collecting three, four or five Scatters awards a 2x, 20x and 200x win, respectively. The Scatter is also a Wild, meaning it can replace all other symbols to complete wins. But the most important function of the golden beetle is to activate free spins, which it does when you have three or more Scatters up at the same time.

Regardless of how many Scatters trigger the bonus, you always win ten free spins. A symbol is randomly selected to expand before the round begins, and said symbol will pay according to the paytable, regardless if it’s adjacent to each other or not. During free spins, after all symbols pay our regularly, the icon will expand vertically to cover all three positions on the reel. This only happens if it will lead to forming a winning combination. Collecting three or more Scatters will start a new free spins round after the current one ends.

Maximum Payouts

The largest jackpot you can win is worth 5000x the wager. However, this being a high variance title and all, you should be careful, as it will take a while before you get anywhere close to a solid win, let alone the biggest jackpot in the game. The RTP for Ancient Egypt Classic is 96.47%, which is above average for video slots.

Summary

We were going to love it the moment we saw the theme, but everything else just brought it forward into being a first class release as far as we’re concerned. What it lacks in graphics, it makes up in the awesome win you can achieve, and the thrill of high volatility gameplay. Try it out, you won’t be disappointed.