Temple of Tollan

Temple of Tollan: Slot Overview

First thing first, 'Tollan' was apparently a name used for the capital cities of two Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican empires, one being Teotihuacan, the other Tula. In this instance, no, we're not talking about the Tollan people, the alien race from Stargate SG1. Instead, we're heading to Central America for a blast of cluster-paying action courtesy of Play'n GO's online slot Temple of Tollan. PnG sure knows a thing or two about cluster paying slots, having designed one or two very memorable examples, so let's see how the team has incorporated the system into a Mesoamerican-inspired world and check the extras that have been rammed in there.

Temple of Tollan has an Aztec-type look to it, with an emphasis on a certain fanged animal, which is a jaguar, at a guess. If so, then big glowing stone jaguar heads adorn the temple on either side of the gaming grid, and a slightly scary-looking dude stands next to it, oddly emitting smoke from the neck and sporting paws instead of feet. One of the most striking things about Temple of Tollan is the voice-over work, a throatily calling out/growling out of features, and so on. The music is quite good, too, transitioning from chilled base game panpipes to Psy-trance for the free spins session and drum 'n bass for big win count-ups. It feels like the design team had a bit of fun coming up with Temple of Tollan's audiovisuals.

Played on a 7x7 active game space, Temple of Tollan is a cluster-paying slot with a cascading win mechanic. It is highly volatile, rated by Play'n GO as 9 out of 10 for volatility, and has been made with several RTP configurations in mind. The default return value is 96.2%, and bet levels go from 10 c to $/€100 per base game round.

Five stone blocks with fluorescent patterns on them are Temple of Tollan's low pays, while 4 stone animal sculptures are the highs. Clusters made up of 4 matching symbols are worth 0.2 to 1 times the bet, while the biggest clusters have 20+ matching symbols in them and are worth 20 to 100 times the bet. Wild symbols may be used to substitute for any regular pay symbol.

Temple of Tollan: Slot Features

To win in Temple of Tollan, you need at least 4 of the same symbol type to be connected in horizontal and/or vertical directions to form a winning cluster. The symbols in the cluster explode from the grid, and symbols drop downwards to replace them, providing additional chances to win. Cascading ends when no new win appears.

Special Symbols

At the beginning of each spin, 5 special symbols are placed on the grid. Special symbols have 1, 2, or 3 lives. When special symbols are next to a winning cluster, they lose 1 life. A special symbol that loses all of its lives triggers a feature before being destroyed. The special symbol modifiers are:

• Multiplier - this feature increases the win multiplier by 1, 2, or 4, up to a maximum of x50.
• Wild feature - adds 2 to 6 wilds to the grid.
• Destroy - removes symbols as a winning cluster.
• Transform - converts a set of symbols to another.
• Cross - destroys symbols in a cross pattern.

Free Spins

Destroying 5 special symbols triggers 4 free spins with guaranteed wins. The multiplier from the base game is carried over to the free spins and does not reset between free spins. In addition, special symbols are sticky during the round. Lastly, destroying 5 special symbols retriggers 4 additional free spins.

Temple of Tollan: Slot Verdict

Rich Wilde, Cat Wilde, Ancient Egyptian 'book of' slots, Play'n GO does go in for these temple-based, exploration of ancient civilisation type games, don't they? Perhaps if the team wasn't designing online slots, they'd be heading to blanked-out areas on maps to discover what's there, cracking timeless enigmas, or uncovering hidden treasures. Does that stuff still happen? It's kind of sad we've mapped the whole planet so extensively that armchair explorers can literally click on Google Earth to see what is there from the comfort of their own home. Whips, maps, Fedoras, bravery, and a keen sense of adventuring into the unknown are no longer necessary as long as you've got internet access, it seems.

As far as cluster paying slots go, Temple of Tollan is neither one of the more complicated examples nor is it an empty bag of wind either. There was enough to keep the pace going along in the base game, such as closing in on busting the requisite 5 special symbols to claw your way into the bonus round, where the persistent nature of the multiplier (and the special symbols) might be a big help. Temple of Tollan could possibly end up being a little bit repetitive if you get stuck in a base game loop that struggles to go beyond a few destroyed special symbols. However, there is actually a lot to play for, in theory, at least. The advertised 15,000x the bet max win potential sounds nice on paper, but PnG aren't exactly known to deliver a high frequency of max wins of this size. After all, the max win hit frequency is noted to be less than 1 in 100 million.

Despite the big number, it didn't seem like Temple of Tollan was heading for a showdown with Play'n GO's big-time cluster paying heavy hitters, Reactoonz et al. However, as mentioned, it does feel like the studio had a bit of fun making this game, in large part because of the music and gruff voice-overs as much as the gameplay, but cluster pays experts should be able to find moments of entertainment here, if they don't end up brutalised.