Book of Shadows Slot – Free Demo

Ten paylines that can become twenty

The book slot continues to prove popular to slot studios, coming back to the reels on a routine basis, and this time it's Nolimit City that's had a go, issuing their game Book of Shadows back in August 2020. Amatic's Book of Aztec is one of the plainer builds of the same skeleton, and Book of Shadows adds to it rather than strips it back. When it comes to features, well, there are expanding rows and locking reels while thumbing through this spellbook. The locking reels go by the name Lucky Locks, and they are offered after every base game spin. A golden symbol and a pair of gambles are up for grabs too.

Book of Shadows is a lot more simple than its title implies, and the action occurs on a playing field composed of 5 reels, 3 rows and 10 paylines. The rows are not fixed, though. The Shadow Rows choice expands the layout to 4 rows and 15 lines for 1.5 times the bet, or to 5 rows and 20 lines for 2 times the bet.

Book of Shadows provides stakes of 1 to 100 credits per spin, and RTP differs depending on setup. The standard value is 96.01% at three rows, climbing to 96.07% at four and 96.19% at five. Over the 420 spins played for this review, 4,200.00 went in and 1,620.00 came back, a return of 38.6%. The volatility is as steep as it frequently is at Nolimit City. Fire in the Hole comes out of the same studio. Here it's graded extreme, or 6/6 for those who favour a numerical rating, with a hit frequency of 33.33%.

Due to the arrangement, combinations of three of a kind and up are feasible on the low pay symbols. Ten regular symbols make up the paytable, the royals from 10 to A and five premiums above them. The premiums pay from two, while wins pay on lines from the leftmost reel. As to amounts, premium five-of-a-kinds payout from 50 to 500 times the stake. The largest win outside the free spins in testing was 84.00 from a 10.00 stake, 8.4 times the bet. The Book wears both hats, being the wild and the scatter in one, and it substitutes for any pay symbol to create a winner.

Lucky Locks and the Golden symbol draw

For a compact little 5x3 game, Book of Shadows has managed to cram quite a few extras, and during the base game, look out for the Book. Every other extra here costs something, either a fee or a win you have already banked. 3 or more in sight trigger 10 free spins at the present row setting. The single round the test session saw took the balance from 8,424.00 up to 9,139.00. Assisting players out after a spin that didn't land is the Lucky Locks feature: on any base game spin, players can lock up to 4 reels and respin the remainder for a computed price. That price depends on which reels you freeze and what is showing on them. The respin may or may not reveal the Books required to trigger the free spins.

In any case, on the next screen, one symbol is chosen at random to be the Golden symbol. The draw happens before the first free spin is played. One redraw is permitted if the choice doesn't appeal. There is only the one, so whatever the second draw gives you is what you play the round with. During the free spins, the Golden symbol expands to cover its reel whenever it can create a win. The expansion happens after the normal line wins have been counted. The expanded symbol pays on all lines from any spot, with no need for adjacent reels, and three or more Books arriving during the round retrigger the feature.

Two gambles and the Nolimit Bonus

There are two gambles on offer too, and the plain 50/50 Gamble is double or nothing on a win. It is offered after free spin wins as well as base game ones. Gamble to bonus, the Wheel of Bonus, stakes a base game win of up to 60 times the bet for a chance at the free spins instead. Anything larger than that has to be taken as it stands. For those who would rather not linger, the Nolimit Bonus buys 10 free spins for 60x, 90x or 120x the bet at 3, 4 or 5 rows. The price tracks the row setting, so the widest grid costs twice what the narrowest one does. In some regulated markets, both the buy and the gamble to bonus may be withdrawn.

One trigger in 420 spins

Nolimit City has crafted quite a vicious slot, with the upsides and downsides in about equal measure, and few book slots cram as many extras as Book of Shadows, or demand as much for them. The driest patch in testing ran to 26 spins without a win. The base game is fairly plain. It is also where the money goes, since the free spins arrived once in the whole run. The hit rate proved comparatively low over 420 spins at a 10.00 stake - 59 paying spins, 14%, well below the quoted 33.33%, and 19 of those paid less than the stake back.

Lucky Locks for one, isn't the most thrilling, or profitable, since the respin is paid for, and neither is the 50/50 Gamble. The next four best results of the session came to 84.00, 70.00, 66.00 and 38.00 against that 10.00 stake. Larger thrills are more likely to be found during the free spins. The one round that arrived in testing, on spin 179, drew a Golden A, retriggered, and paid 725.00 from a 10.00 stake, 72.5 times the bet and 45% of everything the session won back.

1 / 2

The Minty Take: Book of Shadows doesn't feel suited to the laid back player, despite the respectable win possibilities. No second round turned up in the remaining spins. The overall production, the occult antics, and the extreme volatility feel like a better fit for a more hardcore approach. That feature was also the only point in the session where the balance moved up by more than 100.00 at once. The balance never once climbed above the 10,000.00 it began with, ending at 7,420.00, but there are amusing moments to be had for sure.