Play Pharaoh's Ring for Free in Demo Mode by Novomatic

Pharaoh's Ring review

Theme and Storyline

Will slot players ever tire of Ancient Egypt? Given the staying power of the genre and its infinite variations on the reels, the answer to that question is most probably not. In three thousand years, archeologists will most likely be discussing 21st Century hieroglyphs in gaming.

In this monumental pyramid, Pharaoh’s Ring is a rather bland addition. It offers hieroglyphs, pharaonic headdresses and yellow Saharan sandstone galore, but nothing that we haven’t seen in a thousand other slots dealing with the same theme.

Graphics, Sounds and Animations

The graphics for this slot are pretty standard. They have the familiar look of Novomatic slots with an Egyptian theme and make little effort to stand out. It feels almost as though people will click on it by mistake, thinking they are getting Book of Ra.

The soundtrack is similarly borrowed, using win and spin sounds from other slots in the Novomatic stable and making only the most gestural effort to add a desert atmosphere.

The animations are plain, but effective. They make the gameplay clear but, again, add no flare or atmosphere.

Gameplay

The gameplay is simple, with twenty winlines on five reels with three symbols each.

An interesting extra bet setting adds to the cost of playing, but also puts a new symbol that plays as both a Wild and a Scatter onto reels two and four. This greatly changes the gameplay.

The other key features are a double or nothing game that players can gamble their winnings on for a little extra volatility and a free spin bonus for the luckiest players.

Wilds, Bonuses and Free Spins

The Wild symbol substitutes for all symbols. Unusually, this includes the Scatter symbol, which is normally exempt from things like this. Wilds will only appear if the player has the Extra Bet setting activated, and even then, only on reels two and four.

The Extra Bet is five times the bet per line. So, for example, a bet of $1.00 per line is $20.00 per spin without the extra bet and $25.00 with the Extra Bet.

The Scatter pays out for three or more symbols and also triggers ten free spins.

At the start of the free spins, a symbol is selected to be an expanding symbol. The expanding symbol then fills all three slots of any reel it lands on, but only if there is a win possible.

Bet Sizes, RTP and Variance

The return to player of this game is 95.16%, which is buried in a sarcophagus far below our yardstick for average of roughly 96%. This is not great, and means effectively that the game is too expensive to play for our recommendation.

With the Extra Bet active, the range of bets on the site we tested ran from a minimum bet per spin of $/£/€0.25 up to a maximum of $/£/€125.00 per spin.

The volatility of this game is high, which would make it a great match for our preferred slot machine strategies if the RTP were higher. As is, the high volatility does mitigate some of the poor RTP as we target the highest possible volatility.

Conclusion

Pharaoh’s Ring has really only got one stand out feature, its high volatility.

The rest of the slot’s features are a grab bag of recycled and familiar things. The visuals and theme are standard Ancient Egyptian slot fare, the sounds are from the limited sound bank of Novomatic, and there is no gameplay feature to make a player sit up a little straighter in excitement.

All this is capped off with a dismal RTP of 95.16%. We do not recommend this game.