Lost City of the Djinn

Lost City of the Djinn: Slot Overview

Lost City of the Djinn is an online slot inspired by the tales of the 1,001 Nights from software provider Thunderkick. The game's name, coupled with the studio's interest in beasts, undead characters, and mythology, conjured up frightening images of powerful spirits running amok in a Lovecraftian nightmare of a ruined city, toying with hapless adventurers who had unfortunately wandered in. The reality turned out to be quite different. This is a disarmingly friendly looking game that is accompanied by massive mystery symbols, free spins, and Djinn spins as its key features.

Lost City of the Djinn initially came across as a 1,001 Nights retelling in the mode of Walt Disney's animated film Aladdin, if not even lighter-hearted. The main culprits were the cheerful characters gracing the five-reel game panel, while the big golden genie provided the closest thing to a jump scare. The rest is a swirling, Middle-Eastern flavoured slot, where Thunderkick has gone heavy on the pinks, purples, deserts, and domes imagery to design an exotic looking background. The result is an unusual mix of comedically infused magic, while the visuals are eye-catchingly distinctive.

Cartoon style graphics aren't always a reflection of what's chugging away behind them, and this is certainly the case in Lost City of the Djinn. Thunderkick has wound the game's volatility up to a 'Very High' setting, while ensuring the math model produces a default return to player value of 96.07%. Potential is noticeably higher than what Thunderkick usually goes with, so players keen on the studio's singular style with larger winning capabilities should have their interests piqued. Any device is suitable for hunting for the Lost City, where stakes range from 10 p/c to $/€100 per game round.

Played on a 5x3, 25 payline game panel, winning combos are formed when at least 3 matching symbols land from reel 1 in adjacent reels. Card suits - clubs, spades, diamonds, and hearts make up the low pay section of the paytable, turning out wins of 3 to 3.5x the bet for a five of a kind hit. Then there is a pilot, a scholar, an explorer, and a Djinn as the premiums, worth 10 to 30x the stake for winning lines of five symbols. Helping link matching symbols together is a wild, which lands on any reel to subsite all normal pay symbols. The wild is also worth the same as the Djinn, should it create winning lines of itself.

Lost City of the Djinn: Slot Features

All features in Lost City of the Djinn have been used before and include Massive Mystery Symbols, free spins, and Djinn Spins.

Massive Mystery Feature

In the base game, 3x3 sized Massive Mystery symbols can randomly land on reels 2, 3, and 4. When the Massive Mystery symbol hits, it transforms into any symbol except the free spins scatter.

Free Spins

Landing 3, 4, or 5 free spin scatter symbols awards 10, 15, or 20 free spins, respectively. While this feature is active, a Massive Mystery symbol is guaranteed to land on every free spin.

Djinn Spins Feature

The second scatter type is cash scatters, and when at least 3 of them are in view, Djinn Spins are awarded. This feature starts with 3 spins, with the triggering scatters locked in place. All other symbols vanish, and during the feature, only cash scatters, special feature symbols, or blank spaces land. When a symbol lands, it locks in place and resets the number of free spins back to 3. Once spins run out, the values of all cash scatters are added up and applied. Each cash scatter can be worth 1 to 50 times the stake when they initially land. The two special symbols are the Upgrade symbol which adds its value to all other bet multipliers on the reels, and the Copy symbol, which collects the values of all other symbols to itself.

Another crucial element of Djinn Free Spins is the Pattern Collect feature. During the bonus round, 5 positions are highlighted with blue frames. When these positions are filled, the value of the symbols in the five positions is summed. The total amount is doubled and given to the symbol in the middle position of the Pattern - all other symbols from the Pattern are removed to make space for new ones to land. A new pattern is then added to the reels.

Lost City of the Djinn: Slot Verdict

Thunderkick must have had success on their hands with Baron Bloodmore since Lost City of the Djinn is essentially a clone of that Gothically vampiric slot. One noticeable non-theme related difference is a slight drop in RTP, though what players get in Lost City of the Djinn (the default value at least) is still a respectable figure, so no issues there. The rest is pretty much the same, so if you found Baron Bloodmore thrilling, then Lost City of the Djinn serves up a satisfying second helping. This time it comes with an outer shell steeped in concepts such as magic, Djinn, and desert exploration.

Whether exploring lost cities is preferable to avoiding fangs sinking into your neck, we'll leave to personal preference. Because while Thunderkick might have flipped the view, the features have remained the same, and these are pretty good. Massive Mystery symbols retain their Wolf Gold connotations, so the base game and regular free spins are pretty old-school standard stuff. Djinn Spins are where the desert heat gets a chance to ignite. As is usually the case with these sorts of bonus rounds, normal symbols can drum up and okay win, helped along by special symbols which can make a real difference.

In terms of special symbols, Lost City comes up a little short when compared to the big hitters it's going up against, namely MT2 et al., since there are just two of them, and they are pretty basic. However, basic can still be effective; plus, when factoring in the Pattern Collect feature, Lost City of the Djinn can go bananas in the right set of circumstances. Like Baron Bloodmore, max win tops out at the impressive level of 25,000 times the stake.

Lost City of the Djinn isn't as creative as they usually are from Thunderkick, seeing as it is basically a clone. It was a little surprising to find out the studio hadn't added anything in the way of innovation, so, no twists, turns, or clever new features. However, the lack of gameplay originality doesn't stop Lost City of the Djinn from being a well-made free spin/respin machine with masses of volatility and potential for players drawn to this style.