Mayan Gold Slot
Here’s some good news for all of you Aztec slot fans, remember the incredible Wild Fire Riches game from Ainsworth? Well, it’s been cloned with a brand new theme featuring all the Mayan imagery you know and love. The Wild Fire Riches game has an incredible free spins feature game and wild system and thus, I have high hopes for this game too!
This new online video slot takes us back in time, as early as 2000BC, to an ancient world located in Central America, to a time characterised by cities filled with large stone structures and iconic pyramids dedicated to the gods, towering hundreds of feet tall above the jungle.
The Maya are probably the best-known of the classical civilizations stemming from Mesoamerica as they are the original developers of astronomy, calendrical systems and hieroglyphic writing. Not only are they one of most celebrated civilizations, but the Aztec theme embraced by Ainsworth in this game is super popular in the world of free and real money slots. Another popular slot which has done a good job embracing this theme is Aztec’s Treasure.
Theme & Icons
Visually, I wasn’t totally blown away by the presentation. As indicated by the name of the game, the background features the infamous Mayan pyramid made of gold, standing in front of a rising sun surrounded by a dark cloudy sky. There are flames on either side of the temple and the land is gold, barren and cracked. Although the production quality isn’t poor my initial thought was an overdose of gold as even the reels are coloured this way. However, it’s still a well-produced game it just perhaps doesn’t quite stand up to the best 3D animated slots from the likes of iSoftbet or NetEnt.
Sticking to the theme, the high value icons are Mayan masks, golden pyramids, exotic birds and flowers, jewels, and dollar signs. There are also a range of playing card icons which carry smaller prize amounts than the other symbols. A cool animation by the graphics team sees gold coins flying out of the temple every now and then. The game also has a flashing message box giving you extra information in the form of hints and tips on playing the game.
Overall, my only negative is that the print used in the information table is very small which had me squinting to read, making it not very useful friendly, this was on mobile though, I’m sure on desktop it’s just fine.
Gameplay & Features
The reels in this game take on an unusual shape with both 2x3 and 3x4 reels for a total structure of 33444 – needless to say, compared to most 5x3 games this is quite unique. With up to 100 possible pay lines which you can adjust along with your bet there’s more than usual here also. Although, it’s possible to reduce the number of pay lines, I don’t recommend it. Like other games of this type, it can be expensive to play for those with a smaller bankroll, especially when it comes to using real money, as your total bet is your bet multiplied by the number of lines. On the flip side, with 100 lines in play you have more chances to win and, more importantly, more chances to hit bigger combinations with the wilds. The bet sizing is generous too, with min/max bets of between 0.01 and 100.00 credits.
What’s interesting about this game is that it has multiple variations of its icons which appear when individual game features are activated. The game has many different forms of wilds all represented by a W icon which can be found on every reel excluding reel 1. The Whopper Wild and Dollar Wild symbols (A scatter which is also wild!) only appear in paid games, it’s the first which carries the power as when it hits, the whole 4x3 second section of the reel grid goes wild!
In the game, the good old American Dollar is the scatter. Not only does it pay, but it also triggers 8 free games when you hit 3 or more scatters. It is only during the Free Games Feature that three new symbols, Green Whopper Wild, Whopper Multiplier and Cash Rose, come into play all of which have extra rewards such as x2 and x3 win multipliers. Furthermore, during the Free Games Feature any 3 or more scattered Dollar will trigger 5 additional free games. When this feature is activated, it is the feature pay-table which is used, which also has a 100 pay lines though laid out differently as the feature reel grid is a stacked system with three of the base game reel grids on top of each other – it’s exciting for sure but whether it increases or decreases the hit ratio is one for the mathematicians! One last thing to note is the game history button, a useful feature, which I think real money gamblers will appreciate.
Summary
Overall, Mayan Gold is a simple but solid game in terms of audio and animation. It plays well and the Whopper Wild and Whopper Wild Multiplier symbols ensure excitement! RTP is 94.13% on this medium volatility slot, which is pretty good if not the outright best and it is readily available to play here on the site for free before you head over to one of our reviewed casinos to play for real money. It is also optimised for play on both desktop and mobile devices.
