Ingots of Cai Shen Slot Machine: Review & Demo
Designed for Microgaming by one of several exclusive suppliers that they work with, going by the name of All41 Studios, this new slot machine appears to be designed for a very specific niche. Ingots of Cai Shen follows the design guidelines that almost all developers seem to be working with, when creating content for East Asia. I can only assume that its combinations of red and gold work well there.
Spinning 5x3 reels, Ingots of Cai Shen delivers wins via 243 ways to win. A jackpot worth 1,000x the stake appears to be the highest that it can go. Moving on to special features, it’s a list that revolves around several scatters, respins, but also free spins with special nudges. Its RTP is 96.42%, while the volatility is above average.
Ingots of Cai Shen Betting and Prizes
Spending a minimum amount of only $0.10 will get the slot going. Should you want to spend more on the next round, you may go up to $100 with your wager.
First, let’s see what the fixed jackpots of Ingots of Cai Shen can deliver. Using its fixed jackpots, the game can pay anywhere between 25x and 1,000x the stake, using its respins. The regular combinations are not going to do a lot better, as the Fish symbol will pay at most 10x the stake per line.
For a game which is supposed to have high volatility, I’m not seeing impressive top jackpots, but the RTP is at a level that is good enough right now, of 96.42%.
Slot Features
With a lot of the new slots that have been launched in recent months, a certain type of feature has been used to deliver the biggest rewards that they had to offer. That same feature, which revolves around respins and fixed jackpots, is part of this one as well. They did change one thing though, and that’s the way you get things going. You only need 3 scatter symbols to do that here, the ones showing the image of a Gold Ingot.
You receive 3 respins to start with, where the triggering symbols are sticky on the reels. You’re trying to get more Gold Ingots to appear, which also resets the respins back to the original 3. Once you have no more respins, the feature is over. The other way to reach the end, is to simply fill all positions with Gold Ingots, 15 being needed to trigger the Mega Jackpot (1,000x). At the end of the respins, all Ingots in view will pay a prize, either regular or fixed jackpot.
They haven’t forgotten about the free spins, there will be 8 rounds triggered if the other scatter symbols show up three times in view. The thing that makes this mode special, is that Ingots benefit from a Nudge feature, if they only land once or twice on the reels. This could bring you the rest of the Ingots needed for the respins.
Theme & Design
Chinese themed slots have this sort of look, where gold and red are used in abundance, and yet it doesn’t look bad. The God of Wealth is the one that is the star again, but we’ve seen him in slots before, from multiple developers.
You start with the symbols of low value, using icons with Royals, but then you also get the themed ones, with images of Gold Fish, Paper Lanterns, Gold Coins, Bells or Gold Ingots.
Conclusion
Ingots of Cai Shen looks fine, has the right return odds, but at the same time it has fairly boring features and a design style which you can get from dozens of other Microagming slots. Easily forgettable, but at the same time it can work for someone that enjoys the Asian-style genre.
