Book of Ba’al

Book of Ba’al Overview

Once again, a slot provider has gone back to Ancient Egypt's fertile yet powerfully overused world to bring us another slot in the popular Book of format. This time the provider is Iron Dog, and as is customary for slots of this nature, they have put little to no effort into coming up with anything even remotely original. Considering that Ancient Egypt is a vast and complex subject with many thematic avenues to explore, most providers create the same product repeatedly, and this slot is no different. However, we will review it anyway to see where this slot ranks in the massive canon of similar slots.

Regarding the feature content for this game, the usual bonuses are available. These revolve around the book symbol, which fulfils the roles of both free spins scatter and wild. This means that it can replace other symbols to help form more wins and trigger a round of free spins when landed in multiples. However, the free spins are a little different as a random symbol is chosen to become the expanding icon at the beginning of the round. The most original feature is this game's mini-feature round, a kind of re-spin feature with expanded special symbols taking up some reels. All features will be explained in greater detail later on in the review.

Theme and Symbols

There are very few surprises when it comes to this slot's theme. The Ancient Egyptian aesthetic is familiar to anyone who will have played an online slot game. The most interesting thing about this game, though, is its name. Most providers go for one of the more recognisable gods when naming their slots. However, Ba'al or Baal is a niche god that very few people will have heard of. According to various online sources, Baal was a god worshipped in many ancient Middle Eastern communities, including Egypt and was a fertility god with dominion over the heavens.

The background for this game is the typical Ancient Egyptian scene of a temple or palace looking out onto the vast desert. Columns and braziers give the setting an aesthetic of importance and grandeur, hinting that the temple is one of the more important in the kingdom. If nothing else, the background is fairly well detailed and a lot better than some of the shocking artistry that this theme often attracts.

The playing board is a golden construction in the style of the palace around it, with blue features setting it off nicely against the golden interior.

The symbols for this game are split into low-paying, high-paying and special symbols. The low-paying symbols are the 10, J, Q, K and A in playing card royals. The A is the most valuable of these, worth 15x the stake for the top combination. On the other hand, the higher value symbols are the Ankh, the Eye of Horus, the scarab, and the long-haired explorer. The explorer is worth the most at 500x the stake for the top combination. The special icon in this game is the Book, which, as mentioned, performs the scatter and wild duties.

Game Play

Book of Ba'al is played on a 5-reel, 3-row machine with ten fixed pay lines. To win combinations, players must land three or more matching symbols on pay lines moving from left to right, starting from the leftmost reel.

The betting range for Book of Ba'al is 10p to £50 per spin. To adjust their bet levels, players can toggle their stake up and down using the tool located at the bottom left-hand side of the screen.
Further information, including a short tutorial and a display of the paytable, can be found via the menu button in the right-hand corner of the screen. The spin and auto spin buttons are located in the centre of the screen.
Volatility for this slot is rated in the very high range. The return to player percentage for Book of Ba'al is 96%, which is about average. The biggest payout that players can win on one spin is 5,100x your stake.

Features

The book symbol is the wild and scatter in this game. As a wild, it replaces all regular symbols to help form more wins. However, when you land the scatter in multiples of three or more simultaneously, it becomes a scatter, triggering the free spins game and paying out an instant cash win.
The size of the instant cash win is proportionate to the number of scatters that you used to trigger the bonus. The largest instant cash win is 200x the stake.
However, before these free spins begin, one of the regular symbols is randomly chosen as a special expanding symbol. When this symbol lands, it will expand to cover the entire reel on which it falls, helping to increase the likelihood of you registering a win. You can also retrigger the free spins by landing an additional three or more scatters during the feature.
Finally, there is the mini-feature round. When a book symbol lands but does not help trigger the free spins, it is collected in a meter. When this meter reaches 25, the mini-feature round is activated. When this happens, one regular symbol transforms into a special symbol and covers the reels on which it falls. These expanded reels are frozen in place while the board re-spins to find a big win.

Conclusion

As Ancient Egyptian slots go, you could do worse than this one. Yes, there isn't much interest from a theme perspective, but the features are pretty interesting, and the win potential isn't half bad either. At the end of the day, though, this is just another copycat Book of slot that can be found on any provider's site.