Book of Shadows Nolimit City Slot Review, Demo Play, Payout, Free Spins & Bonuses

Book of Shadows (Nolimit City) Review

This is NoLimit City’s first game in the ever-popular book slot series, and we guess it was about time these guys also joined the club of “bookworms”. We give a standing ovation to the fact that this developer has decided not to play it safe with their debut, and Book of Shadows is bound to make some waves in the community. This is not least due to the massive 30,338x max win potential, but also because it comes with some rather unorthodox features.

The theme itself is far from your typical Ra-style copycat, and you’ll be taken to a spooky graveyard with cartoon-style symbols here. The game comes with the standard 5x3 reel setup with 10 paylines, but you can alter this from the get-go to a 5x4 or 5x5 setup via the Shadow Rows feature. This will cost a bit more per spin, however, but it also slightly increases your RTP and, of course, the number of paylines (from 10 to 15 or 20). Keep in mind that the customizable RTP ranges can be adjusted from casino to casino.

It’s refreshing enough to not get yet another trip to some ancient Egyptian tomb, and this game also allows you to lock reels in place for an extra cost. In addition, you can gamble all wins and there is even a special gamble feature where you can win the bonus round. All in all, you have a lot of different options to play with here, and this will suit players who enjoy taking destiny into their own hands. The bonus round is surprisingly standard though, which is perhaps the biggest drawback we can find in this game.

What are the bonus features?

First of all, you have the Lucky Locks feature, which is similar to what Microgaming calls Hyperspins. You can lock up to 4 reels in place after every spin, and spin only the remaining unlocked reel(s).

The cost of each Lucky Locks spin will, of course, depend on how many reels you’ve locked, what symbols are on the locked reels, and so forth. You can, for example, lock 2 scatters in the hope of landing a third one, but this will naturally cost more than a spin that cannot trigger such a potentially lucrative outcome.

Of course, you also have the ability to gamble your winnings here, a feature that most book slots offer.

What makes this game stick out is the fact that you can also gamble to win the free spins bonus round. The feature is called the Wheel of Bonus, and your chances of winning increases with the size of your bet. You cannot bet above 60x your stake, however, and you will see a satanic, pentagram wheel of fortune with a red segment that spins. The size of the red segment increases with your bet size, and you can win 10 free spins via this feature.

Free spins in Book of Shadows

You need to land at least 3 book scatter symbols anywhere on the same spin to trigger the free spins bonus round here. How many spins you get depend on your number of rows:

• 3 rows and 10 paylines equals 14 free spins.
• 4 rows and 15 paylines equals 12 free spins.
• 5 rows and 20 paylines equals 10 free spins.

Like with all book slots, a special symbol will be chosen before the feature starts. This is called the Golden symbol here, and you have a chance to reshuffle the deck if you’re not happy with the outcome the first time. This might also downgrade the golden symbol though, and you have to accept whatever comes on your second try.

The golden symbols will expand to cover the full reel after the regular win calculation, and the good news is that these expanded reels do not have to be adjacent to win.

On average, the free spins round is triggered on every 150 spins or so, but you also have the option to buy the feature (not available for UK players). The bonus buy option will set you back 60x, 90x or 120x your stake for 10 free spins with 3, 4, or 5 rows, respectively.

How to play

Undoubtedly, Book of Shadows is a bit different from other games in the series. It comes with some unusual options that you will not find anywhere else, and here we’ll take a closer look at how you can best play this game. The interface is simple enough, and we will guide you through everything you need to know here.

The dollar sign icon down to the left allows you to choose a bet level between 10p and £100 per spin, but that’s only if you go with the default 3 rows option. There is a black semi-transparent blind covering rows 4 and 5 (shadow rows is the in-game name for it), and you can click the upwards pointing arrow to activate these extra rows.

Keep in mind that the game comes with customizable RTP ranges, so you might see lower values than this from certain casinos. Anyway, the volatility remains very high no matter how many rows you go with, and the base game is all about landing matching symbols on 1 or more of the 10 paylines from left to right to create winning combos. Of course, when you add the 4th or 5th row, the ways to win will increase to 15 or 20 paylines, respectively.

You can check out the paytable via the hamburger menu, but you’ll need to scroll through the feature information first. The highest value symbol is the book scatter/wild and the goth girl. You need only 2 of the premium symbols on a payline to win, while 3 are needed for the low-value royals. The 5 regular premium symbols pay between 500x and 50x, which is solid, and the book scatter serves double duty as a wild symbol (which is common for the book slot series).

Finally, you can switch on the fast play option via the lightning icon next to the spin button. You can also set up the autoplay feature with between 10 and 1,000 autospins.

Where to play Book of Shadows?

The wide release is right around the corner as we write this review, and we expect this game to be available at a decent variety of quality casinos. NoLimit City is quite a popular developer, and they have released several successful games lately. We have a feeling that this original take on the book slot genre will hit home with many players, and here you get the best options as to where you can play the Book of Shadows slot.

If you are already familiar with the book slot saga, you might know enough already to get started with this game. We have walked you through all the essentials above, and with your experience, you can probably add two and two together. You get the best possible overview of where to play via our casino scan feature. All the casinos that carry this game are listed up above this review. Follow the link up there, and get yourself a nice welcome offer to play the Book of Shadows slot with.

If you are brand new to the book slot series, or you are new to online slots in general, it’s perhaps a good idea to check out the free demo version of the game first. Many people with experience do this also, as it’s a great way to get to know new games without risking anything from your own pocket. You can get started right away via the link, as we have the Book of Shadows demo game installed and ready at the very top of this page.

The 200 Spins Book of Shadows Experience

The visuals of Book of Shadows slot immediately caught our attention, as the game certainly looks very different than other games in the series. We also liked the twists NoLimit City has added to this game, and not least the insane 30,338x potential. For all of these reasons we could hardly wait to take Book of Shadows for our 200 test spin experience, and below we’ll tell you all about how it went.

We decided to immediately unlock the 2 shadow rows, which made the game into a 5x5 grid. This increased our bet size from €4 to €8, but we just had to play this one at maximum capacity. We won around 3x our stake after a few spins, and decided to check out the gamble feature. We chose the red card and won, and immediately decided to see if this winning streak could carry us all the way into the bonus round.

We chose the Wheel of Bonus option, and spun the pentagram wheel with the 3-eyed goat in the middle. Lady Fortuna put her foot down however, and we lost the gamble. After a few more spins we landed a book scatter on the middle reel, and decided to use the Lucky Locks feature to keep it in place. We landed yet another scatter on the second reel, and decided to lock that reel also.

Incredibly enough, we actually landed the sorely needed third scatter on reel 5 on the next spin, and the bonus round was ours. We got the 10 royal symbol as our chosen symbol, and decided to go with that. We had several teaser spins with 2 book scatters present, and won smaller wins each time. With only 4 spins left we had our first golden symbol expanding reels feature, and this landed us a 10x win.

In the end we won a total of €98.8, but getting the feature via the locked reels cost us €166.63, so not exactly profitable this time. A bit hooked, we immediately bought the 5 rows bonus round for €480, and crossed our fingers once again. This time the A royal symbol was chosen, and we immediately won 16.8x with 3 expanded rows. We kept getting minute wins after that, until we got 4 expanded A rows with only 2 spins left. This landed us 120x our stake, which was decent, and in total we won €627.2 from the bought bonus round.

Review Summary

Very seldom do we see such a creative take on the already crowded and overused book genre. NoLimit City has bravely decided to stray pretty far from the common path most developers take, and there is a lot more to see here than a simple little twist to the tale. Book of Shadows is literally a dream come true for every book fan who wants a massive potential and the ability to tweak and play with different options.

Most book slots are limited to 5,000x your stake, so a 30,338x potential is certainly bound to raise some eyebrows in the community. The ability to lock reels is clever, but it can be quite expensive if you lock scatters. Also, the option of expanding the reel set is fun to play with, but might also frustrate indecisive players. The bonus round is the least innovative thing in this game, paradoxically, as this is where the twist usually comes from most developers.

Pros

• Choose between 3, 4 or 5 rows (10, 15 or 20 paylines)
• Pay to lock up to 4 reels per spin
• Free spins with chosen expanding symbol
• Extreme volatility and 30,338x max win potential

Cons

• Customizable RTP ranges
• Might be too volatile for some casual players

If you love Book of Shadows you should also try:

We have 129 book type slots in our catalog at the time of writing, so you have plenty to choose from. Not many of them will be like the game at hand though, at least not when it comes to the extra features and the potential. We have done our best to hand select a few games for you here, and you can find out more about each game via the respective links.

Legacy of Dead - is close to the original Book of Dead, but here you have the ability to expand all 9 of the symbols in the bonus round. Just like with the game at hand, you don’t need adjacent expanded symbols to win, and this is a highly volatile Play’n Go title with a standard 5,000x max win potential.

Book of Oz Lock ’N Spin - is somewhat similar to the game at hand, as it comes with the Hyperspins feature that allows you to lock up to 4 reels. In addition, you have a chance to reshuffle the chosen symbol in the bonus round, just like in Book of Shadows. The potential is the standard 5,000x though, and this is a highly volatile title from Triple Edge Studios.

Ali Baba’s Luck - comes with one of the more original and fun twists to the tale we’ve seen so far. Red Tiger has namely opened up for the possibility of expanding symbols also in the base game. This was unheard of before, and certainly adds balance to the gameplay. The potential of 5,362x is also a bit unusual, and you can get all 9 symbols as expanding symbols if you’re lucky in the bonus round.

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