Dawn of Kings

Theme and Design

A Classic Ancient Egyptian Explorer Game

Dawn of Kings is yet another variation on one of the most popular slots formats of all time – the ‘Book of …‘ game that was started way back with Novomatic’s Book of Ra and Play n Go’s Book of Dead. This is Hacksaw’s first foray into the arena and they don’t mess too much with the classic narrative. We are in Egypt. Exploring ancient temples … probably underground. With a heroic explorer. This time a woman called Amy Dawn, distant relation to Lara Croft perhaps and taking style advice from Rich Wilde with that hat and khaki shirt. There is an epic quality to the towering reel set, and lots of gold light and Egyptian iconography including the gods Anubis and Horus. So, Hacksaw play safe with the audio visual the production, albeit at their usual high standards. Now read on to find out how they deal with the gameplay.

RTP and Variance

Like many Hacksaw slots Dawn of Kings comes with four RTP settings. They are 96.24%, 94.25%, 92.21% and 88.07%. To give yourself the best chance of winning you should play at a slot site where the RTP rate is set to 96.24%. Not all casinos do this. I recommend MrQ or Barz Casino, both of whom consistently run games like this at the optimum RTP settings.

But if you are not playing at either of those then do a quick check on the game info screen before you start by hitting the hamburger menu button under the reels, then clicking the ‘I’ link. RTP is published at the bottom of that page. If it’s lower than 94.25% I suggest trying another casino.

This is NOT one of Hacksaw’s most volatile games. Instead, it comes in at a volatility rating of medium. Despite their reputation for high variance this studio does produce medium variance slots like this from time to time including slots like Frank’s Farm and Gronk’s Gems, and they are usually of a high standard and a more accessible entry point for casual players rather than high risk fanatics. So, this could be a good starting point if that’s you.

Maximum Win

For a medium variance slot Dawn of Kings has a good max win potential of 10,000x. That puts it on a par with other medium variance games from Hacksaw like Dork Unit (10,000x), RIP City (12,500x) and King Carrot (10,000x).

Symbols and Paytable

The game format is 5 reels, 3 rows and 13 paylines. Wins are triggered in the usual way by landing 3 or more identical symbols across the reels from left to right, starting at the left most reel.

There is some really high value in the paytable which is promising too! At the low end are the cards 10 through to Ace. These are valued at from 0.2x for 3 10s up to 10x for 5 Aces. The premium symbols are the character symbols – the scarab beetle, gods Bastet, Anubis ad  Horus, and our explorer hero, Amy. These are valued at from 3x for 3 scarabs up to a whopping 1,000x for 5 explorers.

There is a Wild symbol too, represented by the Book. It will substitute for all pay symbols to complete lines and has additional scatter qualities to open up the bonus round as explained below.

Features and Gameplay

Dawn of Kings takes the standard Book of … gameplay format and twists it a little to give you several different ways of triggering the famous expander and free spins.

Book Of … Expander in the Base Game

One fun part about Dawn of Kings is that you don’t have to enter the free spins round to trigger the expander feature because at any random point in the base game it can trigger. When this happens, one random symbol is chosen before the next spin to be the ‘special’ one. It will land 3 to 5 times in the subsequent spin and once all standard pays have been made, each instant of this symbol will expand to its full reel height.

They then pay for ANY combination that passes through them, and form win lines even when there is a reel space between them.

Free Spins Bonus Rounds 

That’s all very well, but what about the free spins? This is where Dawn of Kings really kicks on. To trigger it you will need to land at least 3 Book symbols at the same time. Remember, the books are both wild AND scatters.

The awards for landing scatters are as follows:

• 3 Book Scatters – Book of Dawn Bonus Feature
• 4 Book Scatters – Triple Book of Dawn Bonus Feature
• 5 Book Scatters - Triple Book of Dawn Bonus Feature plus a 1,000x win

In addition to this, you can also land a ‘Best of Bonus’ symbol at the same time as your scatters, which triggers enhanced bonus rounds as follows:

• 3 Book Scatters AND the Best of Bonus symbol – Best Of Book of Dawn Bonus Feature
• 4 Book Scatters AND the Best of Bonus symbol – Best Of Triple Book of Dawn Bonus Feature
• 5 Book Scatters AND the Best of Bonus symbol – Best Of Triple Book of Dawn Bonus Feature plus a 1,000x win

Here is a breakdown of how each of those bonus rounds looks:

Book of Dawn Bonus

• 10 free spins
• Before the round starts, a book is opened and one PAY symbol is chosen as the expander. You need AT LEAST 3 to land at the same time for them to activate. After all normal pays are made, the symbols do their thing, expanding to full reel height to complete paylines. Remember, paylines can be separated by one or more reels in this case.
• Landing 2 books at the same time in this round gets you 2 more spins and landing 3 books at the same time gets you 4 more. Landing 4 will upgrade you to the Triple Book of Dawn bonus feature and get you 4 more spins.

Triple Book of Dawn Bonus

• 12 free spins
• Before the round starts, a book is opened and THREE PAY symbols are chosen to be expanders, one of which is GUARANTEED to be a high value pay symbol.
• To trigger an expansion you need to land more than one of these symbols on AT LEAST 3 reels on a single spin. Each will then expand and trigger wins in turn.
• And once again, landing 2 books on one spin gets you 2 more free spins and landing 3 books on one spin will get you 4 more.

Best of Book of Dawn Bonus

• Here you get THREE Book of Dawn features playing out one after the other. The scores of each are recorded next to the grid and the best is chosen as the payout. 

Best of Triple Book of Dawn Bonus 

• You guessed it! In this instance you get THREE Triple Book of Dawn features playing out one after the other. The scores of each are recorded next to the grid and the best is chosen as the payout