Fortunes of Ra Slot
It’s time to hunt down the riches of ancient Egypt once again, as the Fortunes of Ra slot follows the adventures of a beautiful explorer, who creates some of the highest-paying combinations over the five reels. She won’t be the first person to visit this realm, as online casino slot machines based on the subject are about as common as grains of sand in the desert. There’s a massive collection of games that feature the gods of Egypt, usually alongside scarab beetles, ankhs and pharaoh masks. The Fortunes of Ra video slot is hardly original, but no developer wants to miss out on the huge market for these games and Blueprint Gaming can hardly be blamed for wanting their own title out there.
Ten paylines cross these reels, with any three, four, or five matching symbols across a line being enough to collect a prize. There’s wild substitutions, free spins and scatter pays added to the mix, plus special expanding symbols which can all help you to earn a few more coins. Although these features are nothing that we haven’t seen before, and the design is fairly derivative as well, it’s a good-looking game that will appeal to fans of the genre. The reels are framed by columns and lit by fires to each side, while palm tress and pyramids can be glimpsed in the distance. The graphics are certainly up to scratch, with fairly realistic symbols, each enriched with plenty of color to make them stand out against the stone walls and hieroglyphics.
You won’t need a crash course in ancient Egyptian to understand what’s going on, as this is an easy game to learn. Free Fortunes of Ra video slots are provided if you want to get some practice spins in before playing for real cash. Blueprint Gaming has been in the casino business since 2008 and have released some hugely popular games over the years. Ted, The Naked Gun and Inspector Gadget are among their licensed slots. This UK-based developer has some experience in releasing games based on ancient civilisations, with Fortunes of Sparta and Cleopatra’s Riches among their collection.
Ancient Symbols
While you may be more than happy to see playing card symbols making up the lower-paying combinations, we can’t help wishing that Blueprint Gaming had been a little more imaginative and made everything related to the theme. But we have to work with what we’ve got and at least these icons are colorful. You win multiples of the amount staked on each of the ten paylines, with the 10, J and Q symbols all worth five times, 25x, or 100x when seen on three, four, or five reels across a line. The K and A pay up to 150x, but the picture symbols are worth far more. They also look better and give this game its own character.
They will pay out just for appearing on the first two reels from the left side, so it should be fairly easy to collect a few prizes. The scarab beetle makes its almost inevitable appearance, paying between five and 750x your line bet, depending on how many reels it lands across. A selection of decorative urns will pay the same amounts, while you claim up to 2,000x the line stake when the colorful winged God symbol stops all the way across a payline.
The best prizes are paid by the explorer and the game logo symbols, each of which has been valued at 10, 100, 1,000 and 5,000x the line stake when seen on two, three, four, or all fives reels. The game logo can also work as a scatter symbol, returning winnings when it’s in any places, not necessarily across a payline.
Discover the Bonus Features
Although its not worth anything on its own, the wild symbol is able to act as others if it then means that winning combinations can be completed. The wild will fill in any missing pieces of a continuous run of other symbols and can also extend combos further across to the right side, which means higher prizes.
When any three or more logo symbols appear, not only do you claim the generous prizes from this icon, but you’re then rewarded with ten free spins. Before the bonus games begin, another symbol will be picked at random and when it’s seen during the round, it will expand to fill an entire reel. This can be particularly useful in completing combinations, although it won’t happen every time.
Three or more scatter symbols in a single free spin will add another five free games on to the end of the current round, with a second special expanding symbol added to the mix.
Free Entry to the Temple
Although this game is available in freeplay mode, anyone actually wanting to win anything will need to make cash wagers. Casual gamblers can start with stakes as low as 0.01 per line, or 0.10 for each spin, but to win higher prizes, you’ll need to make correspondingly higher wagers. The maximum bet is 100.00 per spin and with the potential to claim up to 5,000x your line stake, the riches of Egypt could be heading your way on any spin.
You could be claiming them a little faster and with less effort when you activate the Auto function. Click the circular arrow button and then decide how many times you want them to spin for, along with any limits that will end the round.
Other decisions that are up to you include activating the soundtrack, which is suitably ‘ancient Egyptian’ sounding, and choosing whether to play on a PC or mobile device. It’s optimised for Android smartphones or tablets, iPhones, iPads and Windows. If your favourite online casino is mobile optimised and features the Blueprint Gaming range of slot machines, then Fortunes of Ra is ready to be played on the most popular devices.
Other Slots to Explore
We couldn’t hope to list all the slots based around ancient Egyptian civilisation, as there’s just too many, but here’s a quick peek at a couple of player favourites. First up, we have the classic Cleopatra, from IGT. It seems as if this game has been around since ancient times, but the reasons for its long life are nothing to do with mummification and everything to do with great design and popular features. Classic symbols appear on the five reels and 20 paylines, awarding bonuses such as wild multipliers and free spins where wins are tripled in value. Simple, but very effective.
While we’re looking at similar slots, be sure to check out Scarab Treasure, by Amatic. It makes sense that this over-used scarab symbol gets its own game, but this slot has a unique twist, with just a single symbol position in play and the grand total of just three symbols. Land the Eye of Horus, or Ankh to collect coin wins, but cash them out before that pesky scarab turns up, as it removes all winnings from the game. It’s an exciting slot machine that you should try out, even if you’re no fan of the theme.
A Tomb of Treats
We can’t pretend that this slot is particularly original, either in the theme, design, or even the features, but why would it need to be? Blueprint Gaming have delivered a game that’s going to appeal to a huge audience and with the exception of expanding symbols in the free games, there’s nothing that players won’t have seen before, so no real surprises in store.
Wild substitution and free spins are proven to be popular with punters around the world. With an expected average return of just over 97% and the guarantee of fair gaming that comes with this fully licensed game, it’s a great way to explore the remains of this captivating civilisation and see what treasures can be dug up.
