Oasis of Dead

Theme and Design

The Trees Part To Reveal Long-Lost Pyramids and Lakes ...

Oasis of Dead takes us to another Ancient Egyptian setting. This time it feels like we’ve trekked through jungle to find a clearing with a giant pyramid, crumbling stone temples and an expanse of green water all behind a gold reel set. There is a supernatural feel, with pharaohs with glowing green eyes and buildings emanating glowing smoke in the paytable. The soundtrack is classic temple music with pipes and harps. It’s not the most original production, but fans of Ancient Egyptian slots will enjoy it.

RTP and Variance

Oasis of Dead has five RTP rates – 96.58%, 94.51%, 91.51%, 87.56% and 84.55%. Casino operators can choose to run the game at any of these settings, and many choose to go low, sometimes lower even than 90%. So, it’s worth checking the RTP wherever you play before you start spending money. You can do this by hitting the ‘?’ link at the bottom of the game screen, then scrolling down through the rules until you see RTP. If it’s less than at least 94.51% I would try elsewhere.

I recommend playing at MrQ from Lindar Media which is one of the few UK slot sites to consistently run slots from Play n Go, and other slot providers, at the optimum rate.

The volatility in Oasis of Dead, as with all ‘Book of … ‘ slots, is high. So the win distribution will be uneven. These games can be frustrating for long periods before kicking out a nice sequence of wins with expanders and an extended free spins round. So set your stake to last the distance.

Maximum Win

The maximum payout here is just 5,000x. That is disappointing. There are now many Book of game with much better win potential, including Book of Duat from Quickspin (32,760x), Book of Power from Relax Gaming (15,000x) and Play n Go’s own Banquet of Dead (35,000x).

Symbols and Paytable

The game format here will be familiar to all ‘Book of …’ fans. There are 5 reels, 3 rows and up to 10 paylines to win across. You can choose to bet on just 1 line if you wish and adjust the coins for each bet too.

Wins are triggered by landing 3 or more identical symbols across paylines from left to right, starting at the left most reel. There are 9 symbols in the table. 10, Jack, Queen, King and Ace are at the low end, valued at up to 12x for 5 Aces. Premium symbols are the snakes, scarabs, crocodiles and pharaohs, valued at up to 500x for 5 pharaohs.

As always, the key symbol is the Wild, represented here by a golden temple, that also doubles up as the scatter. So, it will substitute for any pay symbol to complete a payline AND trigger the free spins round when 3 or more land on one spin.

And in this instance, it also has a value of 2x, 20x or 200x for 3, 4 or 5 on a payline.

Features and Gameplay

There are no surprises in the features. It’s all about hitting that free spins round and getting lucky with the expander symbols found in all ‘Book of …’ slots.

This is how it works.

First, you need to land 3 or more of the wild / scatters ANYWHERE on a single spin. That will get you 8 free plays.

Before the bonus round begins one symbol is chosen as your expander. Whenever it lands during free spins it expands to full reel height, if by doing so it can create a win. Importantly, expander symbols do NOT have to be on adjacent reels to trigger wins. For example, you could have one on reel 1, and one on each of reels 3, 4 and 5 for a 4 of a kind win.

Things get more interesting when you land 3 more scatters and extend the round by a further 8 spins. Now, another symbol is chosen to be an expander as well. So you can have TWO in play at once, or even THREE, or FOUR … or more. You’ll see active expanders highlighted above the grid.

Gamble Your Wins

Not to disappoint their fans, Play n Go have included the Gamble feature in Oasis of Dead too. After any win in the base game OR at the end of free spins, you can gamble on the turn of a card. Guess the color and double your money. Guess the suit and quadruple it.

But remember, if you guess wrong then you lose the lot!

You can gamble up to 5 times on a win.