Minotaur Slot
In Greek mythology, the Minotaur was a fearsome beast with the body of a man and the head of a bull, that lived in a labyrinth and dined out on the local population until it was killed by the heroic Theseus. This grim tale is played out without the gory details, across the reels of the Minotaur video slot from Octavian Gaming, an Italian developer that’s released a number of beautifully-designed games in recent years.
Online slots themed around ancient Greece are fairly common, so players will be looking for some unique twists to draw them into this game, and Octavian Gaming has given us bonus features such as expanding wilds, reel respins and a ‘Find the Minotaur’ game which leads you through the maze to some of the top prizes in this game, and no bull.
Even in the base games you will be looking at some attractive design features, with a beautiful woman, who we guess is Ariadne, a heroic picture of Theseus and the Minotaur itself, which is a very angry-looking creature and who can blame him, when someone is in your labyrinth trying to chop your head off? The 5 reels are framed by nice golden columns against a classical Greek landscape of temples and mountains, and the you can choose to have a soothing soundtrack playing along in the background to complete the atmosphere.
The Octavian Gaming company is based in a state of the art office complex in Verona, from where they have released a wide range of slots, which are played at land-based casinos, online and at mobile optimised sites. All of their range has been certified for fair play, while the company promises fool-proof security and protection systems to ensure that spinners can just chill out and enjoy the games.
Into the Labyrinth
There’s a choice of activating 5 paylines or 10, with prizes being won whenever enough examples of the same symbol land in a continuous run across a line from the left side. While the classic playing card symbols, each with a bit of a Greek makeover, will make up the lower-paying combinations, there’s plenty of stylish picture symbols that give this slot lots of visual appeal.
The Minotaur’s colourful axe is worth between 300 and 600 coins, while a fire pit pays out between 60 and 100 coins, there’s a treasure chest that’s worth up to 300, Theseus rewards you with a high limit of 600 and then the best prizes in normal gameplay are won by Ariadne, who can expand across the reels and return up to 3,000 coins. Octavian Gaming like to add little design touches to their games and here we see any symbols in a winning line becoming surrounded by a golden frame, while the character symbols will move around a little when they are part of a win.
The Minotaur is, perhaps inevitably, a wild symbol which is able to replace others, apart from the scatter symbol, and therefore complete combinations. If there’s a gap in the line of matching symbols and the Minotaur is in the right place to fill it, you still get paid out the win, while shorter lines of matching symbols can be extended into higher-paying combinations if the wild symbol is on the right-side reels.
The ball of string that Theseus used to find his way back out of the maze is a scatter symbol that won’t need to be in any particular places on the reels and can pay out some of the top awards.
In-Game Features
If the Minotaur lands next to the bonus symbol, which is the doorway to his labyrinth, he can expand right across 2 reels, and while this isn’t guaranteed to result in some new winning lines being created, there’s a great chance that punters will get some nice rewards when this happens.
When the bonus symbol and Ariadne land next to each other, the doorway turns into a golden Minotaur wild symbol which stays locked in place while the rest of the reels spin once more for free. If any other wild symbols appear in this reels respin, they too remain in place for a further spin, and so on until no more wilds appear.
Minotaur Hunting Feature
Landing Theseus next to the bonus symbol starts the main feature, as you enter the labyrinth and head down a dark tunnel before arriving at a room with 5 wooden doors, surrounded by ornate columns and statues. The task is to click a door and reveal a win multiplier behind it, which is accompanied by a burst of flame and coins showering out from within the doorway.
A second stage to the feature can then be triggered and this takes you down another corridor, deeper into the labyrinth where 3 more doors are found. Again, a click on a door will lead to a burst of flames as it opens, where a treasure chest can reveal some big win multipliers.
Classical Betting Options
Placing a bet on this game is very simple, although the range of potential wagers is fairly limited. Stakes can be 0.50, 1.00, 2.00, 5.00. 10.00, or a high limit of 20.00 per spin, which may put off high rollers, but should be fine for the vast majority of gamblers and of course the amounts won will increase with higher stakes.
Other Journeys to Ancient Greece
While there’s plenty of online slots based on ancient Greek mythology, for some reason very few of them feature the Minotaur, but an exception is Minotaurus, from Endorphina. This game is set completely within the labyrinth and has high-paying symbols of Ariadne, Theseus, and the monster is an over-sized wild symbol.
When the Minotaur appears, players are given a free respin, with any resulting wins being multiplied by a random amount. It’s got a unique gamble feature that can be played after any win, which takes place in the maze and sees wins doubled if Ariadne is found, while meeting the Minotaur loses the triggering bet.
There’s a fun spin on Greek myths in Microgaming’s Stash of the Titans video slot, which has cartoon style graphics and various Greek Gods, heroes and flying horses dotted around the 5 reels. A buxom Medusa will trigger free spins with multipliers when she lands in any 3 or more places at once, and during this round, punters who are lucky enough to land the game logo across all reels could have their own stash of 200,000 coins heading their way.
Are we a-mazed with the Minotaur?
Beautifully designed symbols with nice animations certainly make this game stand out, while the bonus features, particularly the in-game extras like respins and expanding wild substitutions, can be triggered quite frequently, adding to the appeal.
We found the labyrinth bonus to be a little harder to enter, but there’s the potential for a big payoff at the end of the tunnels, so it’s not going to be awarded all the time.
If there’s a couple things we would have liked to see changed, it’s the fairly limited betting options, while there’s also no free Minotaur video slots available, so players can’t try it out before making real cash bets. But it’s a fair, reliable slot machine, and most people will just go ahead and place their bets. With the nice style and interesting features, it’s a pleasing game to play.
