Ali Baba’s Riches

Overview Ali Baba’s Riches

The story of Ali Baba and the 40 thieves is a tale that is often used as inspiration for games of chance, as many of the themes of the story are conducive to the experience of gambling. You have a cave full of wondrous treasures, that is represented by the thrilling prizes you can win when playing this slot. You then have the thieves and their threat of retribution; this represents the anticipation of risk in any game of chance. Finally, there is the prosperous life Ali Baba lives as a result of his courage, this is represented by the player’s eventual triumph over the game and the revelling in the prizes won.

Not only does GameArt’s Ali Baba’s Riches slot entice with an enchanting narrative but also comes with some concrete features that make playing the game a joy. These include the huge Mega Blocks game engine, as well as cascading wins and a Free Spins round that has the additional pleasure of attached multipliers.

Theme and Symbols

The exotic theme of Ali Baba and his adventure is not the freshest theme out of the box but is one that seems to be consistently favoured by many software providers. One of which is GameArt. In picking a theme like this, they have had to work hard to give the freeslots some distinctive design features and a quality finish that gives Ali Baba’s Riches some impact. They have done this by placing the player in a highly detailed desert city complete with rising dunes and a bazaar. Most of the space on the screen however is occupied by the game window, which is a clever interpretation of the famous cave where Ali Baba finds the thieves’ treasures.

Standard symbols for this game are a collection of 5 playing cards in bright colours and written in a cursive script. The King and Ace symbols are the most valuable of these, paying up to as much as 30 times the coin value. Special symbols on the other hand are a little more thematically driven. In this collection, there is a golden ring, gemstones, a shining necklace, a diamond in a chest, one of the 40 thieves, and finally Ali Baba himself. He is the most valuable symbol in the game, paying out as much as 500x your stake under the right conditions. The wild symbol is represented by the beautiful Morgiana.

Game Play

The first thing a new player to this game will want to do is set the value of their coin. The minimum you can bet for this game is 1p and the maximum is £10. Further information about the game and the playing options can be found via the orange information button displayed on the bottom left-hand side of the screen.

The base game is played on a 5-reel, 3-row board, with 30 pay lines available. The format changes slightly when you enter the bonus game, as another row is added to the board. To score wins playing Ali Baba’s Riches, you need to match a minimum of 3 symbols across the active pay lines in formations starting from the left-most reel. The volatility for Ali Baba’s Riches is described by the creators to be at the very high end of the spectrum. The return to player percentage is 96.36%, a touch over the average. The most you can win on one spin for this game is 500x your stake.

Features

There is quite a selection of special features for Ali Baba’s Riches. The first one that players will probably notice is the Mega Blocks feature. This means that any medium or high-value symbol is liable at any time to land as an expanded symbol, taking up multiple spaces on the playing board. They can come in 2x2 and 3x3 blocks. This increases the likelihood of you scoring wins thanks to the reduced variety of symbols on the board.

Just like regular symbols, if they are part of a winning combination they are destroyed and taken away from the board. This is where the second feature comes in to play. Every time a winning combination is made, the winning symbols are immediately replaced by a fresh set from the top of the reels. This is called the cascading reels feature and means that players get extra chances to form wins from the same spin. There is no limit to the number of times this feature can occur.
Here is where things get a little more exciting. For every cascade which is triggered, one of the five golden genie’s lanterns that you can see above the reels will light up. Lighting up all five lanterns will activate the special Baba Bonus.

Should this happen, players are taken to a new screen filled with 12 lanterns. You need to now pick lanterns to reveal their contents. If you reveal purple lanterns, you are rewarded with instant cash prizes. The blue ones on the other hand grow a win multiplier. However, the most valuable lanterns are the red lanterns, as these will trigger the free spins round.
In the free spins round, both sticky Mega Blocks and stacked wilds are in play, both of which help you to score bigger and more frequent wins.

Conclusion

GameArt has done a terrific job with Ali Baba’s Riches in both breathing new life into an ailing theme and creating a game that is both multi-featured and truly engaging to play. This is helped by the great combination of Mega Blocks with a cascade feature, accelerating play to a dizzying pace. The only thing left to do now is to see if you can collect all the stolen treasure before the thieves return and catch you red-handed.