Kathmandu Slot Machine
Kathmandu is the capital of Nepal, but it’s also the name of a 5-reel, 9-line video slot from Microgaming. It has to be said that Kathmandu is one of very few Nepalese-themed slots in the market, but it’s all the better for it. Slot games based on the spoils of Ancient Egypt, or the neon-lit optimism of the casino floor, struggle to differentiate themselves from one another. Kathmandu should have no such trouble.
The Kathmandu slot has been around for a number of years now, and though it’s aged a little – don’t we all after a few years? – it’s still a perfectly good game to play. The low-variance title has a free spins bonus, multipliers and a wild symbol to help the gamer trigger regular wins. All wins pay left to right except scatters, which pay any. Read on for a detailed breakdown of this beguiling video slot.
Getting Started
There are nine paylines in Kathmandu, but players are free to play on however many they wish between one and nine. They can also stake between one and 20 coins, and the coin denominations go from 0.01 to 0.25. At maximum bet, you can stake 45 per spin.
Welcome to Kathmandu
The 5x3 reel grid is simply designed, but everything’s there that you need. At the bottom of the screen, you’ll see buttons for Spin, Bet Max, Select Coins and Select Lines. Either side of the game logo, there are View Payout tabs and there’s also a Help tab should you get stuck. Once you’ve determined your bets, you’re good to go.
One last thing: clicking Expert opens up options for Auto Play: you can play up to 500 automatic spins, and set the mode to stop when spins are complete or when a win exceeds an amount determined by you. Auto Play will also pause on any feature contained in the game.
There are a dozen symbols in Kathmandu, seven of them relating to the theme, plus five playing cards, from 10 to A. The playing cards are the low-value symbols in the game, but the themed icons – sacks of local produce, towering palaces, a map of the city, an elephant herd with his charge, a glorious Taj Mahal esque temple, a bell and a golden wild artefact – pay much better. The wild pays the best sums in the game: 12 for two, 200 for three, 1,000 for four and 6,000 for five. It also stands in for all symbols, except the scatter, to help you form wins.
Generous Free Spins
The free spins feature is activated when three or more scatters appear in view, anywhere on the reels. The scatter icon is a large bell which sits inside a traditional Nepalese arch. Three or more bells grants the player 15 free spins. Not only that, but all wins made during free spins come with a 5x multiplier attached. Land four aces, for instance, and the pay-out will go from 50 to 250! Land some of the better paying combinations and you could be looking at a four-figure pay-out. The free spins bonus can be reactivated during the feature itself, simply by once again finding three or more scatters.
But wait, there’s more. During free spins, an extra wild comes into play. Not only will the wild gold artefact stand in for symbols to help you make wins, but so will the bonus extra wild, which takes the form of a glorious temple. Just remember that neither the regular wild, or the bonus one, can replace scatter symbols.
In addition to performing wild functions during free spins, the temple icon pays generous sums in its own right: four for two, 25 for three, 100 for four and 750 for five in a line.
Gamble Feature
After every winning combination, you have the chance to opt-in on a double-or-nothing gamble game. Just hit Gamble if you wish to play. If you can guess the card colour, or even the suit, you could double or quadruple your stake.
Head for Kathmandu
Kathmandu is a solid slot that has stood the test of time, in relative terms. The game is nice to look at, with a theme which hasn’t been done to death by a million slots developers over the years. Its pay-table is pretty generous, it comes with free spins and multipliers and even an additional wild. There’s not much you can say against the game, in fairness, though the animations could be better and more paylines would be nice.
