Desert Temple

Desert Temple: Slot Overview

Hacksaw Gaming's partner Backseat Gaming has felt the perennial pull of Ancient Egypt and gone and designed Desert Temple, a slot that takes players on a trip to the famous monument-dotted land. Again. What is it with Ancient Egypt and slot makers? Like popping a can of Pringles with the plan to eat just one or two then going on to devour the whole lot, they just can't say no to this exotic theme. For Desert Temple, Backseat Gaming has designed a cluster paying slot to go alongside the history and a symbol multiplier system packing an inviting doubling up on each win component.

Visually, Desert Temple offers a pretty yet generic view of a Sphinx-style statue, stone structures, palms, pyramids, and sand. The 7x7 aligned gaming grid has a hastily put-together look about it, as if not a massive amount of time or resources were available to paint a gripping Egyptian scene. The scenery is all nice enough, there's nothing wrong, but the artwork fails to be a hugely gripping rendition of this part of the globe or epoch when set beside some other games in the Ancient Egypt genre - including Backseat Gaming's earlier effort, The Cursed King, for example.

Exploration of the Egyptian domain begins by choosing a stake of 10 c to $/€100 per spin. Playing this way produces a maximum RTP of 96.24%, though lower return value models are available, and using bonus buys can affect the figure, as well. Bonus buys also come with different volatility ratings, though the overall general level is 4 out of 5 or medium-high.

Desert Temple functions as a cluster paying slot, so 5 or more connected symbols are needed to create a winning combination. For low pays we find 10-A card ranks, then an Ankh, an Eye of Horus, a scarab, and a pharaoh mask as the highs. Clusters made up of 5 matching symbols pay 0.2 to 0.6 times the bet, increasing to 6 to 25 times the bet for 31+ sized clusters. Winning symbols explode off the reels, and symbols drop down from above to fill the holes, providing an additional chance to create winning combinations. While a cascade feature is present in Desert Temple, wilds are not.

Desert Temple: Slot Features

Desert Temple's features are its symbol multipliers, Mystery symbols, two bonus rounds - Temple of Temptation and Fortune of Pharaohs, plus bonus buys.

Symbol Multipliers & Mystery Symbols

After a winning combination appears, all symbols of the winning type get a symbol multiplier, which starts at x4 and doubles after each following winning combination of that type on the same spin. The highest multiplier value possible is x1,024. At the start of each spin or cascade, it is possible for a cluster of 5 or more mystery symbols to land, all transforming into the same pay symbol. Transformed symbols get a symbol multiplier if the symbol type already has one.

Temple of Temptation

Players activate 10 Temple of Temptation free spins by landing 4 scatter symbols in the base game. All symbol multipliers persist for the duration of the feature, and hitting 3 scatter symbols awards an extra +10 free spins.

Fortune of Pharaohs

Landing 5 scatter symbols in the base game awards 10 free spins in the Fortune of Pharaohs bonus. In this feature, all symbols start with an x4 symbol multiplier, and symbol multipliers persist till the bonus ends. Hit 3 scatter symbols to win a further +10 free spins.

Bonus Buys

Desert Temple's bonus buys are made up of these choices: BonusHunt FeatureSpins (2x the bet) - Each spin is 3 times more likely to trigger a bonus round. Sphinx Mystery FeatureSpins (60x the bet) - Each spin guarantees 5-15 Mystery symbols with multipliers between x2 and x256. Temple of Temptation (100x the bet). Fortune of Pharaohs (500x the bet).

Desert Temple: Slot Verdict

Once again, a Hacksaw Gaming partner has thought up a relatively straightforward yet effective set of features to pull players in with simplicity and potency. Like their daddy studio, both Backseat Gaming and Bullshark Games are getting pretty darn good at this, and Desert Temple is a good example. It didn't look like much to start with, and the features weren't exactly bubbling over with intricately intertwined gadgetry. But get the game going, and it shouldn't take long to get an idea of their potential effectiveness.

In some ways, Desert Temple is like a cluster paying version of a DoubleMax game. In some ways. Just to avoid any confusion, when a symbol type gets a symbol multiplier, a winning combination's payout is boasted just once. For example, a 5 of kind pharaoh mask combination with an x4 multiplier pays 0.6x times 4. In other words, individual symbol multipliers in the same win are not added or multiplied. This might be a bit of a letdown at first, but the fact that multiplier values double on each win should negate any possible negativity. Another factor to consider is symbol values appear to have been depressed as a compensator. Bare naked winning combinations of 31+ OAK without multipliers aren't worth a lot when compared to other cluster pays slots, but again, the multiplier doubling effect is there to help tip the balance back.

Desert Temple's system is good for wins of up to 15,000x the bet, though this is not achievable in the base game. That was surprising, considering how often Hacksaw Gaming and Backseat Gaming slots are able to knock out their max win in all phases. Ah, well, it is what it is, and the lack of base game max win doesn't prevent Desert Temple from being another efficiently made slot from Backseat Gaming capable of producing some multiplicative mayhem.