Book of Dead

Book of Dead is a seminal slot from Swedish Play’n GO. Launched back in 2016, it still frequently pops up in crypto casinos’ most played games feeds, and rightly so.

At traditional online casinos, Book of Dead is the go-to title for welcome free spins. It has slowly dethroned Starburst, which used to be the game of choice to introduce players to online slots. At crypto casinos it is not as common in the context of free spins (mainly since Play’n Go does not support crypto denominated play), but it’s sometimes an option. The game is a must-play either way, and an important page in the online casino history books.

Book of Dead is not the first game about the main character Rich Wilde. The first game where he made an appearance is Aztec Idols from back in 2012, a game which has not aged as graciously as Book of Dead. After the success with Book of Dead, there have been numerous games with the “...of Dead” suffix, as well as spinoffs about Rich’s daughter Cat and his dad Gerard. Not to mention other studios’ attempts to copy the concept.

Talking about copies, Book of Dead is not the original Book of slot, but it is the most successful at online and crypto casinos. The original is called Book of Ra and its upgraded online version is Book of Ra Deluxe, made by Novomatic. Unfortunately, it is hard to find reliable information on exactly when these titles were released. The first one was likely introduced in the late 90s, before online casinos were a thing.

Book of Dead has a classic 5x3 layout and a simple, yet powerful game logic. The golden tomb symbol acts as both a wild and is the way to the bonus round. There is not much more to it, at least not in the base game which is all about lining up identical symbols from left to right on any of the 10 paylines. Depending on the symbol, you need to land a minimum of 2 or 3 symbols for a winning combo.

You can adjust the paylines but playing with the full 10 is without doubt the most fun and how the game should be enjoyed.

The game has a gamble feature which lets you double (and even quadruple) or nothing any wins. This feature is capped to winning at most 5000 coins, or 5 times in a row. In general, it is not advisable to use, even if it does not negatively affect the game RTP which is 96.21%.

The free spins round is activated by landing three golden tomb symbols, anywhere on the reels. This will take us to a screen where one of the game’s symbols is chosen at random.

If on one of the free spins the chosen symbol lands a win, then it expands to fill the entire reel. The symbol will also gain what in slots lingo is called scatter pays mechanic. This means that same symbols will pay, even if they do not lie directly on adjacent reels. Paired with the expanding symbol mechanic, this means that we will get paid on all lines every time we land at least three (or two high-paying) of the chosen symbols.

Landing 3 additional golden tomb symbols during the bonus round will add 10 more free spins. Free spins can re-trigger several times.

Whenever you see a Book of (something) slot game, it will imply this above-described scatter pays and expanding symbol mechanic in its full glory, or at the very least tweaked in some way.

For instance, activating more expanding scatter pay symbols when additional free spins are won. For an example of this, check out Legacy of Dead from 2020 which according to us is the best "Book of" game from Play’n GO.