Relic Hunters and the Book of Faith Free Play in Demo Mode by Wazdan

Relic Hunters and the Book of Faith review

Theme and Storyline

Where most ancient Egyptian treasure hunters tend to pick one of either the Mummy, the Indiana Jones, or the Tomb Raider franchises to pull their theme from, Relic Hunters and the Book of Faith boldly carves its own path… by doing all three.

There is a gun-toting, tank-topped heroine who works alongside a fedora-wearing archaeology professor in a leather jacket to counter the machinations of a fearsome linen-wrapped revenant in a North African setting.

That said, if you’ve played Book of Ra or any of its innumerable spin offs, this slot will have little that comes as no surprise to you. There are mummies, scarab beetles, hieroglyphs and a background of sandy dunes and sandstone ruins.

Graphics, Sounds and Animations

The main difference between this slot and the other Book of Ra style slots is that Wazdan bring their visual and acoustic flair. When Wazdan is at its best, this is the area they excel in, and Relic Hunters and the Book of Faith is one of their best products in this regard.

The safeness of the theme allowed them to pour a great deal of care into the imagery. The symbols all have a lot of character and pull of a cartoony style while still feeling high-quality. The overall visual feel is one of solidity and class.

The animations are clear and simple, just enough to make things visually interesting without feeling busy or overdone. As the reels spin, the soundtrack is made up of middle eastern instruments playing an upbeat tune. The spin and win sounds are well chosen and go well with the animations for each symbol.

Gameplay

The game play has also been given a polish with a few nice additional features thrown in to keep things exciting.

The main innovation in the base game is a set of counters which, when full, trigger the two bonus games (full details below). These fill during the base game, which is a six reel, three row slot with twenty win lines. The win lines play both left to right and right to left, increasing the number of chances to win.

As well as two bonus games, there is also a gamble feature, which players can use to wager their winnings in a double or nothing coin flip at the end of each winning spin.

Wilds, Bonuses and Free Spins

Relic Hunters and Book of Faith has a unique, counter-based bonus system.

The Wild symbol substitutes for all symbols except the Scatter, Bastet and Pyramid Exploration symbols.

When a Bastet or Pyramid Exploration symbol falls on the reels, it is added to the relevant counter. Depending on the number of coloured dots on the symbol, the counter is increased by either one, three, or ten. When the counter reaches twelve, the relevant bonus is triggered.

Filling the Bastet counter to twelve will trigger the Bastet Free Spins bonus. This is made up of five free spins in which five randomly distributed Wild symbols are overlaid onto other symbols. Special symbols do not appear on the reels during free spins, so they cannot be retriggered until the player returns to the base game.

When the Pyramid Exploration counter hits ten, the Pyramid Exploration Bonus is triggered, giving the player a chance to play a picking game with a cash prize that depends on how many credits and multipliers the player manages to find before advancing through the four levels.

Any Mummy symbols landing on the reels can remove one, three or ten symbols from one of the counters. Mummy symbols landing on reels one to three remove Bastet counters. If they land on the other reels they remove Pyramid Exploration counters.

Three or more Scatter symbols pay out an amount that increases the more symbols you hit. It will also trigger ten free spins with expanding symbols and walking wilds.

During Scatter Free Spins, the male explorer Wilds stay on the reels and move to the right with every free spin until they drop off the end of the reels. The female explorer does the same, but moving to the left instead of the right. If the male and female explorer meet on a reel, three additional free spins are added to the bonus.

A randomly selected symbol is chosen as the Expanding Symbol. When this symbol lands on three or more reels, it expands to fill the reel and pays out from any position.

Bet Sizes, RTP and Variance

The return to player of this game is 96.37%, a little over our yardstick for average of roughly 96% and so a perfectly respectable amount.

The range of bets on the site we tested ran from a minimum bet per spin of $/£/€0.20 up to a maximum of $/£/€100.00 per spin.

The volatility of this game is set by a button in the main game. We suggest setting it to the "high" setting as our slot strategies target the highest possible volatility.

Conclusion

With its classic theme, nice front end design and nifty gameplay mechanics, we are already pretty sold on Relic Hunters.

Then it adds in adjustable volatility and an above-average RTP and we are head over heels. This one is a real treasure that we strongly recommend.