She was taking on T-Rex’s and other prehistoric beasts inDinosaur Rage, and involving Anna the Explorer in what amounts to Quickspin’s ‘book slot’ debut feels like a natural choice. She blends right in with the ancient Egypt environment, and this Ra-inspired installment comes with a massive32,760xpotential. The pre-bonus Pick & Click Game makes Book of Duat stick out in a major way also, and it’s overall a very solid effort.
Duat is the realm of the dead in ancient Egyptian mythology, so in a clever way the title pays homage toBook of Dead. The base game is the usual featureless grind, but with excellent pace and visuals. The pick-and-click feature can award a serious amount of extra spins though, as well as plenty of extra expanding symbols. It’s the multiplier that will make the biggest difference however, and retriggers award extra mid-feature picks.
The medium pay symbols award between 75 and 200 x your stake for 5 of a kind wins, while the top-tier Anna the Explorer symbol is worth 500x your stake for 5-oak. The Book symbol is both wild and scatter, and as a wild it steps in for all regular pay symbols to help complete winning combinations.
You trigger the Bonus Round when you land3, 4 or 5 book scattersanywhere in view, and this awards3, 6 and 12 picks, respectively, in the up-front Pick & Click game. You’llpick from 20 tiles on a 5×4 grid, and here’s what’s up for grabs:
You get4 free spinsand1 expanding symbol by default, in addition to everything you get from the Pick & Click game. During the bonus round, the chosen expanding symbols pay no matter if they land on adjacent reels or not, just as long as you land enough instances on different reels. The expanding symbols take turns doing their thing if more than one symbol type hits, and they pay after the regular win calculation.
With 12 picks, the best case scenario is the following: anx9 multiplier(4 picks), all9 symbols as expanding(4 picks) and+23 extra spins(4 picks). You win+2 extra free spinswhen you land3, 4 or 5 book scattersanywhere on a free spin, and this also awards1, 2 or 4 mid-feature extra picks, respectively.
Non-UK players canpurchase 3 different tiers of the Bonus Roundvia the in-game menu:
Just to be clear, you can get up to 5 scatters from both of the lower tier options, but this will not happen all that often, of course.
You get a small taste of the base game grind, before we purchase the top-tier bonus round at the 1:20-mark. We got 21 free spins, an x2 multiplier and all 9 symbols marked as special expanding symbols from the pick and click game. You can see for yourself how we fared in the rather lengthy 14:34-minute highlights video below.
We highly respect how Quickspin is bursting onto the ‘Book slot’ scene with an installment that can compete with the likes of NoLimit City’s Book of Shadows, at least in terms of potential. Book of Duat pays homage to the Book tradition by sending Anna the Explorer to the Egyptian tombs, so the visual experience is very familiar. You can plow through plenty of spins with the turbo switched on, which is good since the base game is the usual grind.
The Pick & Click Game is what truly makes Book of Duat shine however, as it’s always fun to see how much goodies you can bring with you into the feature. A full screen of Anna awards the regular 5,000x your stake. However, a decent multiplier can skyrocket that up to32,760x, which was the maximum achieved during 100 billion simulated spins. One thing seems certain. Book of Duat will hardly pass unnoticed, and it’s bound to be on every book slot fan’s lips for the foreseeable future.
Pros
Cons
Book of Shadows- has already proven itself in the wild, so to speak, with several above 20,000x payouts. This is NoLimit City’s book slot debut, and it comes with a similar 30,338x potential. You can pay for extra rows/paylines, and for single reel respins. The book feature is traditional, with a randomly chosen expanding symbol.
Book of Truth- is the book slot debut from TrueLab, and it comes with the regular expanding symbols bonus round when only 3 or 4 scatters land. The True Spins feature is triggered by 5 scatters however, and it comes with all symbols as special expanding symbols. This can lead to 15,000x your stake payouts.
Gonzo’s Gold- is NetEnt’s somewhat unusual take on the ‘book of’ mechanic, as this game plays out on a 5×5 cluster pays grid. The chosen expanding symbol can fill both rows or reels when it expands, and this can lead to payouts up to 6,500x your stake (the standard 5,000x is the most you can get from a single spin though).
