Pharaoh's Fortune starts with a hilarious animation of a traditional Egyptian pharaoh with sunglasses and a wide toothy grin. He looks like the kind of pharaoh you could have a shot of whiskey with and probably go to a heavy metal concert. It sets the tone for this playful Egyptian game. Considering Egypt is such a common slot theme - there are so many variations of games based on this culture. Some of them center around the Pharaoh such as this one, many centers around Cleopatra, the Egyptian gods, and more. That being said - it takes some true creativity to stand out among the competition for slots in this theme. That being said - this slot did a pretty good job to stand out amongst the endless sea of Egyptian, or historical epic-themed slots based around ancient civilizations.
Music, Appearance, Navigation, and Bet Options
This game confused me somewhat with the music - It wasn't the kind of music I expected, but it's playing along with this Pharaoh's fun aesthetic - this is a more rock n roll Egyptian king. You won't be hearing any traditional Egyptian drums or cinematic strings within the soundtrack for this game. This slot is visually stunning and thrilling - one part playful and one part historically accurate and depicting the mystical Egyptian culture in the best possible light. When the board appears on screen, you see that this grid is supposed to be located within this Egyptian rock god's tomb, and is laid against a wall of bricks covered with thick gold, and even subtle embroidered jewels surrounding the board in the colors of lavender, aqua, gold, green, powder blue, and baby pink. The board itself is easy to navigate without a doubt. All the buttons you'll need are available at the bottom of the screen - which isn't unfamiliar if you've played other IGT slots. On the furthermost left side is a red and yellow gear button, this button is used to pull up the varying bet options - and it's a wide range of bet options. Some coin size options include $0.10, $20.00, $15.00, $50.00, $10.00, $0.01, $5.00, $1.00, $0.50, $0.25, $0.05. There are 10 pay lines and the maximum bet you can make is a high rolling $500. IGT usually makes their slots more catered to higher rollers compared to those who prefer the penny slots. Honestly,$500 for one game is a lot, so I would only recommend this to people who are very familiar with these sorts of games, who have a lot of extra money to spare and want to try and double or tripled their bet. Next to the setting button on the right side is the total bet - which is self-explanatory. This is the total bet you're making for the whole board and can be adjusted using the arrows on the left and right sides of the total bet button. Just press them to increase or decrease your bet. In the middle of the screen, towards the bottom is the win window. This window is larger than every other mini window located at the bottom of the screen - perhaps for a reason, as given how high you can bet on this window, you likely can win big on this window, too. On the right side of the screen is your balance section, which just displays your total balance throughout the game. On the furthermost right sections is the smaller auto spin button, and the larger manual spin button. I'm a sucker for an auto-spin button, but if you are truly betting max I don't recommend putting it on auto-spin, 500 bucks per game are no joke, and the manual spin is not that bad! Both buttons look very similar to each other, both are red and yellow with an arrow that turns into a C.
Visuals
This board contains many well-designed symbols and each symbol itself is a piece of art in its own right. While the playful loading screen depicts a less traditional Egyptian king, there are still some ancient stables on this board, and it doesn't seem to be themed otherwise. You won't see any sports cars or sunglasses on these reels - but do expect to see the Pharaoh's Fortune logo, male and female pharaohs, a blue animal of sorts, a blue snake, a horseman, an owl, and a scarab. The Pharoah symbol is the happiest Egyptian pharaoh I've ever seen - so remember this is still the cool, chill pharaoh from the loading screen. This is a pharaoh who runs away to Vegas on the weekend! The spinning song reminds me of the Bangles classic walk like an Egyptian - so perhaps this is aimed for a certain generation that might feel nostalgic about the 80s since most younger folks I know don't have 500 bucks to spare, however, it doesn't isolate low rollers either. You can bet fairly low amounts, but I think IGT does make efforts to play to an older demographic. Perhaps folks are stuck in their offices on a Friday looking for a little escapism. I think nothing is wrong with that - I positively mean this.
The Free Spins Bonus Feature
This feature might be the best feature this slot offers. If you are lucky enough to trigger this feature, you'll receive three free spins at first, with a low x1 multiplier. Try landing three or more of the Pharaoh head to trigger the Free Spins feature! When this occurs, you get to choose from the tiles on the wall, which adds more free spins to the total plus more multipliers, giving more endless options for growth and bonuses. The free spins play out on the expanded 20 pay line machine. You can win as much as 10,000x stake wins, which is pretty generous in this slot player's opinion. Once you have been selecting the tiles for a while, you'll eventually run into a "start bonus spins" block that will end the selection process.
Wilds and Scatters
Winning in this game is standard - try to trigger three matching symbols on a single spin for a payout. The highest value standard symbol is Horus. You should aim for landing the Pyramid wild. This wild will substitute for all others, except for the scarab scatter and pharaoh bonus, which will create winning combinations for the lucky player. The scatter in this game doesn't trigger any bonus games, but you can land some multipliers if you land more than one scarab during a spin on any position on the board. For example, 2 scarabs is an x2 bet, 3 is an x5, 4 is an x10 and 5 is an x50, so the scatters are still very worthwhile
Summary
Generally, I was enthusiastic about this game. The special features were really fun - and this brought a new twist to the typical theme many might right off as nothing special because it's so common. The wilds and scatters were rewarding, as well as the free spin bonus features. I thought the pick-em game involving the bricks was a well animated and fun feature. I think this game would be fun for low rollers and high rollers alike.
