Crystal Quest: Arcane Tower

Introducing Crystal Quest: Arcane Tower slot

Crystal Quest: Arcane Tower is the second instalment in the Crystal Quest series to come from the gaming developers at Thunderkick. The Redhead Explorer Gemma is back however she is in another area of the jungle called the Arcane Tower to try and find her fortune. If you are a fan of the original you will realise that this slot is similar and the gaming statistics remain much the same, however a feature or two have been swapped around. If you feel like you want to assist Gemma on her search, then read on.

Game Play & Symbols

I must admit that when the screen loaded, I was rather sceptical as the slot looked like the first in the series as well as promising free spins and an unlimited multiplier. The slot then moved to the gaming area where the set up is just what you would expect from Thunderkick, this being a six reel, four row grid with a massive 4,096 ways to win and again this is like the first game but this is a popular setup that works incredibly well. To begin with the visual did not look like an Arcane Tower, with a few old trees, books, and candles framing the screen, however, when the symbols fall on every spin or are detonated off of the screen thanks to the avalanche feature, the tower can be seen in the far distance. The best thing at this point is that from a theme point of view Arcane Tower bears no resemblance to the first slot of this series.

There is a wide bet range which will suit a variety of players, beginning with a minimum bet of 10p per spin up to a maximum bet of £100 per spin. The math model is like other slots however in this slot everything apart from the potential is slightly raised. The return to player stands at 96.14% - 96.17% and the slot remains highly volatile but not enough to make a true difference.
Whenever you land three or more matching symbols starting from the left to the right and beginning on your first reel the win line will be lit up. Should you land the sorcerer symbol you will benefit from a reward for landing two. The sorcerer is the highest paying symbol and will award you with 20x your bet when you land 5 of a kind.

The sorcerer is followed by the knight henchmen, three middle paying red, green and blue crystal. There are also five low paying gems which you can see at the bottom of the pay table and these are coloured orange, yellow, pink, blue, and green. The wild in this game is represented by the pale blue circular gem tile which can land anywhere and substitute for all the symbols except for the scatter to create winning combinations. The wild is comes into its own in the bonus game which we will look at next.

Features

As usual Thunderkick has not cut back with regards to the features, and there are five of these available to play in this slot. The Avalanches come complete with multipliers and are in play throughout the entire game. You will also come across linked reels, a wild explosion feature, and free spins.
All winning symbols are removed with the Avalanche feature and replaced with symbols from above. The Avalanches will carry on provided new wins appear in the same spin sequence. There is also a win multiplier which is continually active, it starts with x1, and then increases by one level every time the Avalanche feature is activated.
There is a random extra which comes in the form of the linked reels, where up to six adjacent reels can synchronise on the 1st spin. All linked reels then become an identical copy of themselves, but you should note that this feature does not appear in the middle of an Avalanche sequence.

The wonky treasure chest symbol is the games scatter and the way to activate the free spins feature. Landing 3 treasure chest scatters will award you with twelve free spins. Whilst you are playing the feature any two scatters that land in view will reward you with an additional 3 free spins whilst any scatter of two or more will add two spins. The best thing with this feature is that there are no limits on how many you can win.

The free spins feature benefits from two things that are not included in the base game. The first is that the win multiplier does not reset between spins meaning that it can continue to grow with no limitations. The second is that the wild explosion feature also comes into play. When you have no winning combinations, all wild symbols on your reels will explode removing the pay symbols in a horizontal and vertical line, and this will then activate the Avalanche device.

Final Thoughts

Providing you look at Crystal Quest: Arcane Tower as a standalone game you will see that it is a quality and highly playable game from Thunderkick. Visually it has a bold and slight cartoonish look which complemented by the slick animation and sound effects when the symbols drop or explode. The features are well thought out as they play off each other leading to some very thrilling gameplay.

I really enjoyed playing this slot, the theme is a little unusual however the graphics are bright and the game plays at a good pace. Gemma brings a whole host of fun extras with her as well as high potential and wins of up to 15,000 times your bet is possible. Although, this game is like previous offerings, I found it to be unique enough in its own right. When I tested the slot, I was pleased to land some decent wins and for this reason I would rate this game at a solid 7/10.