If the online video slot world is anything to go by then archaeology and ancient history and anthropology courses are going to be oversubscribed, and not just because they come at the start of the university prospectus. Developers and players seem to love Ancient Egypt. There’s a good reason to be enamoured of this fascinating time and culture. Though, let’s be honest, it’s the highly dramatic imagery and colourful mythology that most people in the gaming world are most interested in.
Cleopatra slot is the latest trip into this particular historical period. It’s a five-reel game from IGT (WagerWorks) that very much fits into the classic fruit-machine mould. It has a scatter, wilds, and a Free Spins round and can deliver a top jackpot of 10,000 coins from its 20 pay lines. Cleopatra slot machine has a theoretical return to player of 95.02%.
Its big selling point is a free-spin round that is essentially unlimited and can deliver 180 free spins.
The Cleopatra slot machine is set up in the usual way with five reels and three rows for a 15-symbol screen. The backdrop is of an Egyptian-style temple, complete with loads of hieroglyphs.
The reels show flat-faced symbols, all Egyptian styled in some way, including in the fonts for the standard card-deck symbols. The pay-lines are marked up to the side of the reels with coloured squares.
With a notional bet of one coin, the paytable reads like this: the card symbols run from 9 to Ace. Nine pays 2 coins for two symbols up to 100 coins for five. The 10 pays from 5 coins for three to 100 for five. Jacks pay 5, 25, and 100 for three, four, and five symbols, exactly the same as the queen. The king pays 5, 50, and 100. The ace pays 10, 50, and 125.
Egyptian symbols pay 10, 50, and 250 for the eye; 10, 75, and 250 for the hook and flail; 15, 100, and 400 for the tablet. The top three symbols pay from pairs upwards. Fans pay 2, 25, 100, and 750; scarab beetles pay 2, 25, 100, and 750.
The Cleopatra slot game logo is a wild but also pays out 10, 200, 2000, and 10,000 coins.
The wild won’t substitute for the scatter, a Sphinx’s head. That pays out too as well as triggering the main bonus game.
Two scatters pay double your bet. Three pay 5 times. Four pays 20 times the bet. And five pays 100 times your total bet.
Three scatters or more trigger the Cleopatra bonus game.
That’s a free spin round with 15 free spins and a multiplier that triples all wins except the 5-times game logo top prize. The scatter can retrigger the free spins again during the bonus game, up to a maximum of 180 spins.
And that pretty much covers the gameplay.
Cleopatra slot game is quite an old-fashioned looking machine that could have been on show in an off-line real-world casino not so long ago.
The backdrop is not overly detailed or impressive, but the effects of the reels are nice. We’ve already mentioned the stylized text for the letters on the playing cards. The other symbols are nicely designed too.
The machine is colourful and easy to find your way around.
If we have one major problem with the design and graphics, it’s that a couple of specific images in the help pages are too small to clearly make out.
Running this game will be a doddle to anyone who knows slots.
There’s a row of controls that run along the bottom of the main screen.
To the left, you can select the pay-lines you would like to bet on. This climbs from 1 to 5 to 9 to 15 to the full 20.
Then there is the line bet window and controls that follow this scale: 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, 20, 30, 50, 100, and 200. Those two work together to give you your total bet amount in the next window.
Remember to check the coin amounts and win limits on the machine that you’re playing on. It’s possible that you’ll stake an amount that goes beyond the maximum win potential, so bear that in mind as you play.
In the centre is a spin button. Then the win amount window. Your balance is shown next by an auto spin button that allows you to set 10, 20, 30, 40, or 50 free spins. It’s not very sophisticated and stops only on bonus wins. Finally, the settings spanner allows you to set the graphics quality.
Underneath it all is a grey panel with the sound control, a game rules panel that clicks to open up a new window with the rules on, and then the paytable button, which opens up a four-slide information page.
IGT WagerWorks is the name of International Game Technology, a company that has been going since 1975. That means it has its roots deep in the real-world casino market. Since 2015 it has been part of the Gtech group of companies, an Italian gaming giant.
They have a massive amount of games, including a load of real-life – or cabinet – games.
They have their fingers in pies all over the gaming world, and among their most popular online video slots are: Baywatch 3d, 100 Pandas, Magic Castle, Pixies of the Forest, and Sherlock Holmes the Hunt for Blackwood.
This is a fairly standard classic fruit machine. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a very good game though, and its popularity is such that it features across hundreds of sites and in dozens of gaming lobbies. It’s really easy to play, with a nice atmospheric soundtrack to help transport you back to Ancient Egypt.
The massive top prize is a big attraction, no doubt, and any game that offers as many as 180 free spins – 180! – is bound to bring in people looking for big wins. The bonuses are a bit light on innovation, but they deliver on the simple gameplay.
All in all, Cleopatra slot won’t rock your world on gameplay or graphics alone, but it might change your life if you hit a really big win. Give it a try at your favourite casino site today.