Book of Ra Deluxe

Now, don’t get us wrong. We enjoyed the original Book of Ra for what it was when it first came out. But nowadays, there’s really no good reason to go back and play it. Not when there’s a perfectly good remade slot sitting right in front of you!

Novomatic promised a visual update with a few minor improvements, and that’s exactly what we’ve gotten. All of the core game mechanics remain the same – barring one.

Book of Ra Deluxe Slot Review

Book of Ra Deluxe is played on a five reel board, where each reel is three symbols tall. There are a total of ten flexible paylines players can turn on and off at will. To win, simply collect three or more identical icons in adjacent positions, starting with the leftmost reel. All winning combinations must follow one of the active paylines, or the cash prize won’t be granted to the gambler.

There were no changes in the field of special features. Your sole bonus remains the free spins round with its lucrative expanding symbol mechanic. An icon that grows to cover an entire reel, and pays from any location, not caring at all about the payline? It was one half of what put the original physical machine on the map! The other, of course, being a shot at winning 5000x your total stake.

Theme & Symbols

Novomatic’s release decided not to tamper with the graphics too much. It should be immediately familiar to players. The rolling hills, sprawling desert, and a pair of pyramids sticking out in the distance! But now, the rays of light illuminate a few things. Everything isn’t pitch black anymore, which makes the slot look a lot better. Not to mention the developers going out of their way to decorate the reels!

Rather than having a completely black background image, we’re now treated to the inside of a temple. Reels are also transparent, allowing us to look at the gorgeous visuals even as we spin the reels! The image is dimmed, making any real details a bit more difficult to make out. But it’s not like you can read those hieroglyphs anyways!

Symbol design has also seen an obvious improvement. The icons themselves stayed the same – they’ve just received a massive visual upgrade! The explorer is the most obvious example of this, but every symbol has seen a drastic improvement. Of course, that does mean some of our old gripes were carried over into this game as well. Hello, playing card royals, our arch-nemesis. We meet once more.

How to Play Book of Ra Deluxe

Book of Ra Deluxe is played on a 5×3 board with 10 flexible paylines. These can be turned on and off at any moment, allowing online gamblers to fine-tune their total bet. This version keeps the high volatility of the original release, so you can expect some awesome prizes out of it. Just don’t complain when you have to grind your wallet to dust in order to land those juicy jackpots!

As we already mentioned, there’s nothing new in the special features department. We’re a bit conflicted on this, we’ll be honest. On one hand, we’re glad Novomatic didn’t try and tamper with the slot, potentially ruining it for loyal fans. On the other, that does mean gameplay is almost identical to the original Book of Ra. And that one change isn’t anything you’ll see. Not that it’ll stop you from benefitting from this mystery alteration!

Despite being launched for desktop and mobile devices, this game still likes to pretend it’s a physical machine. That’s why some versions will only display your value in coins – and others will show actual cash bets. Which one you stumble upon depends on the online casino you play it on. Players can wager between €0.04 and €40 on each spin. Not a bad betting spread, but we’ve seen better.

Bonus Features

Book of Ra Deluxe comes with only one special feature. It’s a damn good one, but we still think having one or two more bonuses would have improved Novomatic’s release. As it stands, it’s just a constant march between free spins and regular gameplay. Nothing in between to spice things up.

• Free Spins

Land three or more Scatter-Wilds to activate ten free spins. At the start of the extra turns, one symbol is randomly chosen to become the expanding icon. This symbol will only expand if it means a cash prize will be awarded! Furthermore, the expanded icons have Scatter pays: they can win from any position, regardless of paylines! We’ve yet to play this bonus and not have a blast doing so!

• Gamble

After each win, gamblers can choose to collect their win, or try and gamble it further. If you choose to play through, you’re taken to a separate screen. Here, you have to guess the color of the face-down card. Pick the right one, and your win doubles. But if you guess wrong even once, you lose everything.

Book of Ra Deluxe ayouts

The slot has a high variance and a jackpot worth 5000x your total stake. The game’s RTP is 95.1%, which is a drastic improvement over the 92.13% of the original. Remember that mystery change we mentioned? Yup, this is it!