If you’re a player that needs more ‘book of’ games in your life, you should check out Blueprint Gaming’s Tomb of Dead Power 4 Slots. All the excitement for which the genre is known is here, and it comes four times as fast. Tomb of the Dead is a new addition to Blueprint’s Power 4 Slots, a series of games in which players may get their ‘Ra’ dose by dividing their attention across four grids rather than just one. Other than that very substantial alteration, normal operations have been resumed.
Don’t enter Tomb of the Dead expecting to see cutting-edge visuals. Most of the screen is taken up by the machinery required to run four 5-reel, 10-payline grids, with only a few openings provided for sneak previews of the tomb itself. The music is an ordinary Egyptian tune, but the bass guitar part is more forceful than normal. If this is your first time, you won’t be shocked physically by anything outside the quad setup.
It takes a little more forethought to decide how much you want to wager. Bets can be placed in increments of 5 percent up to ten dollars and forty cents each window. At this degree of detail, the larger the screen, the better, although mobile users are not necessarily left out. The 96.48% RTP is a highlight, but riders should fasten their seatbelts for a wild trip.
Similar to the original game, this one also has 10 fixed paylines, and wins occur when at least three low payments or two high pays appear left to right on a payline. Ra’s legacy lives on in the symbols, which feature birds, Anubis, a pharaoh, and yet another Indiana Jones wannabe on the low end, and flowing 10-A emblems on the high end. Full-line premium winnings are between 150 and 1,000 times the stake each window. Again, that sum is deducted from the wager per window rather from the overall bet.
Slot Functions in Tomb of Dead Power 4
Free spins with growing special symbols is where most of Tomb of the Dead’s features shine. However, they are activated in a somewhat different fashion. As usual, the scatter icon, which also functions as a wild, is crucial. Scatters activate bonus spins when 3, 4, or 5 appear in the same play area. There are two steps that need to be accomplished before the bonus round can begin. To begin, a segmented prize wheel spins to distribute anywhere from one to ten free spins and a one-to-four-window play structure. Then, during the bonus round, one of the standard pay symbols will be chosen at random to increase in size.
When a special sign appears on the reel, it will grow to fill the entire screen. They are not restricted to a certain payline and instead pay regardless of where they land. When three scatters appear in the same window, a new round of free spins (consisting of five spins) is activated. Up to four extra windows can be activated with each subsequent retrigger.
Results from the Slot Test: Tomb of Dead Power 4
Tomb of the Dead is the next step in Blueprint’s attack on the quad reel industry, much as their quest to corner the Megaways market. This one takes a little more time to get used to than Megaways did. So far, there hasn’t been a groundbreaking release with truly must-play gameplay or features that take full advantage of four reel settings. If you’ve played Tomb of the Dead, you probably won’t put your faith in the revolutionary potential of anything as mundane as ‘Ra-style’ special symbol expansion. Including a fan favorite mechanic ensures some attention from players, but it also sets low expectations. If the thought of having four ‘book of’ slots spinning at once appeals to you, then Tomb of Dead is the game for you.
It all gets murky when it comes time to choose wagers and determine symbol values. The beneficial aspect of this game is that a victory with five archaeologists pays out 1,000 times the original window wager. However, when viewed from a different angle, that amounts to 250 times the total stake, which tends to damper the excitement. The problem is further clouded by the fact that, in theory, it is possible to hit winners on many grids simultaneously. Do you long for the days when there was just one reel set to manage?
The scales are balanced in that there are also good features. Potential might be a deciding factor, but evaluating it is complicated, too. The main screen of Blueprint displays a number equal to 50,000 times the wager. That’s a whole lot more than usual, and the numbers seem terrific in general. However, the chances soon become prohibitive when you consider how many consecutive free spins you would need to hit complete grid Indianas on all four windows at the same time. In terms of gameplay, there’s no need to go any farther than Tomb of the Dead because it’s as solid as it gets for this genre. There’s a reason ‘book of’ games are so common, and Tomb of the Dead doesn’t sully that honor by attempting to reinvent the wheel.
Many people have yet to make up their minds about quad reels. The games on Power 4 Slots have all been remakes of previous titles for whatever reason. Sometimes it seems like designers just cut a single set of reels in half for no good reason. A certain penny museum intrigue makes them hard to look away from if you’ve never played one before. If the overall quad concept fails to excite you, the temptation to simplify things by returning to a conventional set of reels will not be long in coming.