Desert Riches - Review, Demo Play, Payout, Free Spins & Bonuses

Introduction

NetGame is a rapidly growing game provider with a very strong creative team, some excellent partnerships and a reputation for their innovative mathematical modes and game mechanics. As a result NetGame free play slots are widely available around the world. They are very good at delivering what the market wants although the appetite for a slot with free spins seems to be quite strong, so it’s a surprise that free spins are absent from this game. This is not to be confused with the Desert Gems slot even though there are some similarities.

Desert Riches uses a 5-reel grid with 3 rows. It has 10 fixed paylines. The minimum bet size is 0.10 and the maximum is 500.. There are 11 regular symbols: the Ankh, the Eye of Horus, the Scarab, the Shen, the Lotus and the 6 highest playing cards. The wild is a golden serpent. There are other special symbols, the Collect Sphere, the Payer Sphere and the Last Chance Sphere.

Theme, Graphics and Soundtrack

The graphics are very smartly rendered. The temple that is visible in the background has been created with great care, and the flaming torches cast authentically flickering shadows. The colours are bold and sophisticated, the artwork is uniformly strong and the soundtrack is suitably sombre. We did feel a human presence was missing, but that is only a minor complaint.

Desert Riches RTP and Variance

Desert Riches has an RTP of 95.84% slightly below average. The variance is high.

How to Play Desert Riches

1. To set your bet level you can either use the plus and minus symbols either side of the bet indicator or you can click on the currency symbol to the top left and pick your preferred number or simply click on max bet.
2. If you wish to use the automatic play mode click the small play button at the bottom left. The lowest choice is 5 spins but you can select several options or even indefinite spins. Here you can set a loss limit, a single win limit and you can also set the mode to exist whenever a bonus feature is triggered. You can also switch on turbo spin in this menu.
3. Turbo spin also has its own control button above the auto play button.
4. Click the spin button or the space bar to start spinning the reels with the current bet. You can stop the reels early by clicking again or pressing the space bar a second time.
5. The wild symbol substitutes for all symbols except for bonus spheres. When it substitutes it doubles any value.
6. Winning combinations count from left to right except for the bonus spheres. Only the highest win per line is paid,
7. We support safe gambling initiatives like BeGambleAware. We urge you to gamble responsibly. Do not bet more than you can afford to lose. If in doubt, play for fun only. If you do bet money then remember you can use the time-out and self-exclusion functions in your account to regulate you gambling. When you are no longer enjoying a game, please stop playing.

Bet Sizes and Paytable Wins

The bet range is from 0.10 to 500. The maximum payout is 4,750x.

The paytable values run from 2x or 3x up to 5x and the highest multipliers for each symbol are as follows:

Ankh, Eye of Horus
5 = 7.50

Scarab
5 = 4.00

Shen, Lotus
5 = 2.50

Ace, King
5 = 1.25

Queen, Jack, 10, 9
5 = 1.00

Max-win 4,750x

Volatility High

Top RTP 95.84%

Desert Riches Bonus Features

Hold ‘n’ Link Bonus

Six or more bonus sphere will trigger Hold ‘n’ Link. All bonus spheres stick on the reels during the bonus. Only bonus spheres appear on the reels during the bonus game. Three respins are awarded at the start of the bonus. Each new bonus sphere resets the number of respins to 3. The bonus game continues until either all respins are finished or all 15 spheres are collected.

Cash Sphere

This appears during the base game and the Hold ‘n’ Link bonus. It contains one of several possible values and may contain a mini or minor cashpot.

Collect Sphere

This collects all visible values on the reels and adds them to its own value. Appears in the Hold ‘n’ Link game only.

Payer Sphere

This lands with a specific value and adds this to all other visible symbols on the reels, except Last Chance and Cashpot Spheres. Appears during Hold ‘n’ Link only.

Last Chance Sphere

This is activated if the number of respins equals zero. After activation, the Last Chance Sphere initiates one additional respin and is removed. It appears in Hold ‘n’ Link only.

Cashpots

During the Hold ‘n’ Link bonus the mini cashpot symbol awards 20x the total bet, the minor cashpot symbol awards 100x the total bet and the grand cashpot symbol awards 1000x the total bet.

Desert Riches Review: Our Verdict

While nothing special, this is a solidly workmanlike effort. The bonus game is complicated without being particularly exciting and the RTP is not impressive, but if that makes this game no better than average, it still has something about it which kept our attention for a while. That may be largely down to the graphics, but the visual experience is often as important as anything else.
 

Disclaimer: Desert Riches trademark / license is owned by NetGame Entertainment. This site is not endorsed by NetGame Entertainment.