Rich Wilde and The Book of Dead

Book of Dead Overview

Book of the Dead is Play' n GO's flagship game and forms part of one of their most popular series – the Rich Wilde series. As you may or may not know, Rich Wilde is Play' n GO's answer to Indiana Jones. In fact, the similarities are so close that they could be getting close to lawsuit territory. However, it's not our job to judge intellectual property; it is to see if this game is any good. Thankfully for Play' n GO, this game visually is very high quality, plus the top win of 5,000x your stake is pretty tempting. This, combined with a great feature and well-loved franchise, should mean this slot does well from players old and new.

There is only one feature involved in this game; it is the free spins feature, triggered when players land three or more book scatters on the reels simultaneously. Then, depending on how many scatters you land, you will instantly be given a cash payout of between 2x and 200x your spin. After this initial mechanic has played out, you will be taken into a different temple chamber and provided with ten free spins. Landing additional sets of three or more scatters from within the game will top up your spins by ten at a time. This feature also comes with an expanding symbol dynamic.

Theme and Symbols

The theme, as you will have probably guessed, is Ancient Egypt. Apparently, the narrative for this slot is that Rich Wilde has been taken to the underworld temples of Anubis for his crime of trespassing in the sacred pyramids. Rich now has to play his way out of this predicament, and your job is to help him find the Book of the Dead and use the incantations inside it to free himself of Annubis' grip and escape the underworld. It's either that or a general ancient Egyptian theme that we have read way too much into. Either way, at least the graphics are high quality, and the symbols look enticingly high in resolution.

The background for this slot, as is the convention for most ancient Egyptian themed slots, is the interior of a temple that is covered in mysterious hieroglyphics. The temple could be mirrored on one of the more famous temples, such as the Luxor Temple, built-in approximately 1400 BCE. It is difficult to know which temple or temples this game took its inspiration from. However, the columns, steep walls and sandstone facades could put it anywhere in the ancient Egyptian world. For the purposes of the game, it fulfils an important role, as it gives us the setting for this exciting game.

The playing board has been fashioned to look like an Egyptian tablet decorated in gold, with the reels separated by sceptres of gold and blue.

The symbols are split into low-value, high-value and special symbols. The low-value symbols are the 10, J, Q, K and A in playing card royals. These are worth up to a maximum of 15x the stake for the top combination. On the other hand, the more valuable symbols are the Horus, Anubis and Osiris Egyptian Gods. Anubis is the most valuable of these symbols, paying out at 200x the stake. However, the most valuable symbol is the Rich Wilde icon, which pays out at 500x the stake for the top combination.
The only special symbol in this game is the Book of the Dead scatters, which helps to trigger the free spins.

Game Play

Book of Dead is played on a five-reel, three-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 Dead is 10p to £100 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 high range. The return to player percentage for Book of Dead 96.21%, which is above average. The biggest payout that players can win on one spin is 5,000x your stake.

Features

There is just one bonus feature in this game. It is the free spins game. It is triggered when three or more of the Book of Dead scatters land on the board at the same time. You are initially given a payout of between 2x and 200x your stake when this happens. After this, you enter another screen in which you are given ten free spins to play with.
During this feature, players should be on the lookout for more scatters as another set of three will top up your free spins tally by 10. Before every free spin round, a special symbol is also randomly selected to expand the game's symbol. Depending on the baseline value of the symbol, you could win up to 5,000x the stake by landing the special symbol on the board and forming it with a win.

Conclusion

It is surprising that considering that this is one of Play' n GO's main flagship games, they have given it the one solitary feature. However, the winning potential has been designed to be quite high with a favourable RTP and an exciting top prize that should have plenty of people wanting to dive into the temples of ancient Egypt looking for the Book of Dead.