Book of Maya

Let’s cut to the chase. The theme and game design aren’t going to blow you away. There’s something very crude about the symbol design, and our main adventurer character looks like a roughly-hewn combination of the child of Indiana Jones and a Ken doll. I tried not to look at him too much.

The other symbols are what you expect from this sort of theme, lots of eerie features carved into colored stone. The soundtrack was appalling, a series of whirrs and beeps straight out of the very first arcade game, designed to make your ears bleed from prolonged listening. I turned the sound to a resolute ‘mute’ as soon as I realized it wasn’t changing.

The grid, set against a jungle and temple ruins, is made up of A to 9 cards plus an assortment of Mayan carvings, a gold throne and our extremely polished adventurer. The Book of Maya in question also appears, acting as both Wild and Scatter. Quite frankly if you racked up this slot alongside all the other Mayan themed games available right now, you’d struggle to pick it out of a line up.

Aside from a variation on the usual free spins offering, the special feature gameplay is a little different in Book of Maya. Whether this serves to make the slot more interesting or simply unnecessarily confusing is up to you, but here’s how it all works.

There’s definitely decent money to be won during this tour around Ancient Maya, but it won’t be easy. Our avid explorer is the slot’s highest paying symbol, offering 25,000 coins for 5 of a kind. This is followed by the Book of Maya and the green Mayan God who represent the same value. Unsurprisingly, the card suits are the lowest value, with the remaining symbols taking middle place.

The mysterious Book of Maya serves a dual purpose, acting as both the wild and scatter. It replaces all other symbols (except the special expanding symbol) and also triggers the game’s Free Spins feature. The payline bets in this slot can be customized, as can the bet placed per line, giving players an added layer of flexibility.

The slot does feature autoplay, but it can’t be programed for a pre-set number of spins, you’ll have to hit stop if you want to call it a day. So be sure to watch your balance on that one! In terms of a strategy, I would advise players to keep bets low with this slot. You’ll want to make your bankroll stretch out as long as possible, giving you time to hit on the special features, because that’s the only place you’re going to excavate any value.