Zulu Gold

Zulu Gold Overview

ELK Studios invite players to journey to the land of the Zulu, which in the modern era is KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa. Here players will discover the native art, culture and fascinating natural flora and fauna of the area through the lens of a safari. Players will see amazing elephants, stunning tribal paintings and sunrises as they have never seen before. In addition, they will get to play a feature-packed game with tons of pay lines and an excellent top payout of 10,000x your stake.

The features in this game include an amazing avalanche feature, a unique Zulu stacks feature and a wild walker feature. This latter feature concerns all the special wild walker symbols which land on the reels. When they land, they will move from position to position, leaving a trail of wild symbols in their wake, helping players form more wins. In addition, this game also has a big symbol, a charged wilds and a multiplier drops feature. All features will be explained in more detail later on in the review.

Theme and Symbols

Zulu Gold is another in the long line of Kane adventure free casino slots created by ELK Studios. Kane, the burly adventurer, has been to several locations with Elk, including Nepal, Tahiti, The US and Ecuador. This latest adventure takes him deep into the South African bush, looking for all the amazing megafauna you can see on the beautiful plains. However, Kane is also there for gold, specifically the gold of the Zulu nation, whose people are the native population of the area.

The background for Zulu Gold is the entrance to one of the iconic village hall buildings in the centre of one of the native settlements. On either side of the playing board, players will see a set of shields in the typical design that you see African weapons in. Behind them is the hall cavity, looking dark compared to the midday sun illuminating the outside. Interestingly, the designers didn't go with a Serengeti scene as so many African themed slots do. However, in our opinion, this is more distinctive and is more closely related to the title of the slot.

The board for this slot game is a wooden construction that files the symbols neatly into its columns, and it matches nicely with its surroundings too.

The symbols for this game are split into low-paying, high-paying and special symbols. The low-paying symbols are the various cave wall paintings. These include the crocodile, the snake and the zebra. Next up in terms of value are the more colourful symbolic paintings. These come in green, blue, purple, and red—the red is one of the most valuable. The next set is the animal icons. These comprise the wildebeest, rhino and elephant. The most valuable regular symbol is the Adventurer Kane that pays 5x the stake for the top combination. The specials finally are the wild, which is a kind of mask symbol. Then there is the wild walker, the stone lion, and the sunset, which is the bonus scatter symbol.

Game Play

Zulu Gold is played on a 6-reel, 4-row playing board with 4,096 ways to win. To win combinations in this game, players must land matching combinations of 3 or more of the same symbol starting from reel 1.

The betting range for Zulu Gold is 20p to as much as £100 per spin. To change your betting level per spin, use the bet adjuster tool located at the bottom of the playing window.

Further information regarding the slot, including a display of the paytable, can be accessed by clicking on the settings menu. The spin button is located to the bottom right of the reels. You can set up auto spins in the game's menu.
The volatility for Zulu Gold is rated in the medium to the high area of the spectrum. The return to player percentage for Zulu Gold is 95%, which is about average. The biggest payout that players can win on one spin is 10,000x your stake.

Features

The first feature to consider in this game is the avalanche feature. When a winning combination is formed on the reels, the winning symbols are jettisoned, and new ones drop in to replace them. In this game, each avalanche also adds another row to the game window. The maximum number of rows that you can have is 8.

Next on the feature list is the Zulu Stacks feature. On any spin, the Zulu Stacks feature could suddenly trigger creating stacks of 2, 3 or 4 symbols onto a row that will boost the number of pay lines available. These stacks can comprise any symbols barring the specials.

The next feature on the list is the Wild Walker feature triggered when one of the special wild walker symbols falls onto the reels. This symbol moves to a new position with every spin leaving wilds as its travels. This symbol remains on the board until no new avalanches are triggered.

On the other hand, the Big Symbols feature basically concerns the larger symbols that fall onto the reels in a variety of sizes from 2x2 to 4x4. The 4x4 symbol is equivalent to 16 normal symbols Big symbols also clear out normal symbols underneath them during the avalanches and drop them to the bottom of the grid.
The penultimate feature is the charged wilds feature. A charged wild is a 1x1 wild that can come with up to 3 lives. It is basically a wild that sticks to the reels until it is used in three wins, after which it leaves the board.

The final feature is the multiplier free drops feature. If you land three or more of the scatter icons on the reels simultaneously, you will trigger this feature. The more scatters that you land, the more free spins the game will give you. These spins come with a progressive multiplier. Land 3 multiplier symbols on the same free spin, and their values are combined and added to the overall multiplier.

The free spins begin on a 4-row machine with 4,096 ways to win. However, every new win adds a new row, up to a maximum of 8. This can take the number of ways to win up to 262,144. Finally, unlimited retriggers are possible here, too, by landing additional scatters.

Conclusion

With tons of features, a great top prize and some enviable gaming mechanics, Zulu Gold offers a lot. The letdown here is the RTP, which at 95% is not really good enough, even with all the exciting features. Players are sure to have an excellent time playing this game, though.