Oasis of Dead

Oasis of Dead: Slot Overview

As well as a green fertile part of a desert, another definition of the word 'oasis' taken from Dictionary.com is 'something serving as a refuge, relief, or pleasant change from what is usual, annoying, difficult, etc.' Developer Play'n GO has turned this definition on its head when bestowing the title Oasis of Dead on the online slot we're about to explore. An 'oasis of dead'? It sounds pretty heinous. If someone was lost, parched, wandering through the desert, trudging over seas of hot sand, gagging for water, one of the last things they'd want to stumble upon was an oasis of dead, surely. However, in the world of slots, for wanderers hankering for some Book of Dead-style gaming, Oasis of Dead could be just the thirst quencher they're looking for. How about we join in to find out?

If anyone knows how to make an Egyptian-themed 'book of' slot look snatched, it's got to be Play'n GO. Fair enough, the studio has had a lot of practice, but it shows and Oasis of Dead resides in an attractively rendered Ancient Egyptian patch of ground. Sand might be common in this part of the planet, but not so much in Oasis of Dead, where ivy clings to stone structures, and a lotus flower-littered water feature sits before grand Egyptian buildings, such as pyramids and so forth. Oasis of Dead has a definite Play'n GO look that fans should easily be able to spot, and this is no bad thing, as the graphical standard here is as good as one would expect.

For better or for worse, Oasis of Dead conducts itself in coins, where players pick stakes by selecting a coin value of 1 c to ￡/€2, the number of coins from 1 to 5, and the number of lines from 1 to 10. In easy terms, total bets range from 1 cent to $/€100 per spin. The volatility has been rated high (8 out of 10), and the max RTP is quite high as well at 96.58%; with four lower return models available, too.

Oasis of Dead plays out on a 5-reel, 3-row matrix, with 1 to 10 paylines depending on player preference. On the reels, 10-A card ranks as the lower paying symbols as well as 4 high pays, including snakes, scarabs, crocodiles, and pharaohs. Lines of 5 low pay symbols award 80 to 120 coins, while lines of 5 matching high pays are worth 600 to 5,000 coins (when 1 coin is selected as the bet). As bet multipliers, it would appear that 5-matching lows award 8-12x, and 5-matching highs pay 60-500x.

Oasis of Dead: Slot Features

In Oasis of Dead, the golden building symbol acts as both wild and scatter. As the wild, it substitutes for other symbols. As the scatter, landing 3, 4, or 5 of them awards 8 free spins, plus a cash payout of 2x, 20x, or 200x, respectively.

Before free spins begin, one pay symbol is randomly selected to be the special expanding symbol for the duration of the round. During free spins, after regular wins have been calculated, if the special symbols can form a win, they expand to cover their entire reels and pay all active paylines. Expanded symbols do not have to be adjacent to each other to form wins.

Landing 3 scatters during the feature retriggers 8 free spins and another additional pay symbol is randomly selected to be an expanding special symbol as well. A meter above the reels keeps track of which symbols are the special expanders or not.

Gamble Round

After wins in the main game or at the end of a free spins round, it may be possible to try to increase the prize in a gamble round. Correctly guessing the colour of a face-down card doubles the prize, or guessing the correct suit quadruples the prize. Guess wrong and you lose the entire win. The gamble round can be played up to 5 times in a row or a limit of 2,500 coins.

Oasis of Dead: Slot Verdict

Are there any other studios that have as many 'book' slots under their belt as Play'n GO does? As well as the iconic Book of Dead the studio has released a sandstorm of related releases. So much so that the developer appears to be repeating itself. Oftentimes, to their credit, when the PnG team drops a book slot, it comes up with some sort of innovation to get the Book crowd revved up to try something they may never have experienced before. One example right off the bat could be those Pyramid Spins within free spins found in Cat Wilde and the Lost Chapter. Other times, innovation is not so present. Oasis of Dead is one such example, as it is in many ways a repeat of Legacy of Dead.

It might not be a total copy (though it is close), but there just isn't much of anything in Oasis of Dead, from a gameplay perspective, to get overly revved up about. Admittedly, on its own, when viewed in a vacuum, it is a competent book slot with little to complain about. It looks ace, drips Ancient Egyptian grandeur, and gives players a lot of control over how they'd like to gamble, from a single line, single penny, all the way up to full capacity. The potential appears to be significantly higher than Legacy of Dead, and there is nothing here preventing keen book fans from getting stuck into a robustly built, attractive book slot.

At the same time, Oasis of Dead is by no means a must-see event. It just doesn't have anything hugely exciting to offer the crowd of expanding symbol pundits who have masses of other options to choose from, many of whom may be slavering for the next big innovation.