Silk Road Slots
The Silk Road was an ancient link between East and West. It was actually a series of routes, not just a single road and the name comes from the lucrative trade in silk that began around 2,000 years ago. You can now enjoy some lucrative rewards when you link symbols across the Silk Road video slot from KA Gaming. Camels, merchants, deserts, and precious goods all appear over the five reels of this 35-payline game, which also features wild symbols, a treasure map bonus and a special free spins round. Landing the right symbols across the game can be worth a huge 3,000x the line stake during these bonus games.
Our unbiased review of the Silk Road slot machine will take you across the continents, where traders from Africa to China are waiting to meet you. It’s a great-looking game that sets the reels within a market stall against a backdrop of sand dunes and stars. There are some clever design details, such as the banners hanging down from the market stall which reveal the fact that this is a 35-line slot and the way that the reels are separated by bamboo poles.
But what is the purpose of the four traders who are lined up below the main game, with their valuable cargo next to them? All will be revealed soon enough but let us first travel to the glory days of the Silk Road and see what riches are waiting to be claimed along the route.
Enter the Market for Winning Symbols
If you review the paytable of the Silk Road video slot, you’ll see what every potential winning combination is worth. Payouts are calculated as multiples of the amount staked on each of the 35 lines and symbols fall into two main groups. Vases, horses, a desert town, books, and an oasis pay the smaller prizes, while a map and the four merchants pay out bigger rewards. Any of these standard symbols will need to be seen on adjacent reels from the left side across a line, with the top symbol of a Chinese merchant being worth a maximum of 1,000x the line stake.
Camels are a wild symbol that can act as any of those above if they are in the right places to complete combinations for you, although they don’t pay anything on their own. The wild can’t replace the scatter symbol either.
Find the Scattered Scrolls
The scatter symbol is a scroll with a traditional wax seal. Any time you see this in any three or more places at once you get an instant award worth 70 times the total stake for the spin. It’s followed by 15 free spins and during these, the purpose of the merchants below the reels will become clear.
The four sections become four chests and any merchant who lands on the right-side reel will add an item to his treasure chest. If the same merchant appears four times and fills a chest with four different objects, he then becomes an extra wild symbol for the rest of the free games.
Our reviewers managed to fill two chests during the Silk Road slot bonus round, adding two extra wild symbols to the reels. It’s possible to retrigger the free games two more times, for a total of 45 extra spins and in practice, this is the best way to get all the chests filled and all four merchants working for you as wild symbols.
Even if you just manage the basic 15 free games with no extra wilds, any wins during the bonus round will be tripled in value, so it can still be a very rewarding feature.
Help the Merchants for Coin Awards
Slot machines from KA Gaming usually have some sort of mini-game feature and Silk Road is no exception. If the symbol of purple silk is seen in four or more adjacent positions, you get taken to a new screen where a Merchant is looking for goods to trade.
In a simple ‘pick-me’ feature, you click on the various items on display and reveal coin awards when you find something that the merchant is looking for. Like most of these bonus rounds, wins are virtually guaranteed but at higher stakes, you claim bigger prizes.
No Need to Haggle
To change those stakes, or activate a couple of optional features, KA Gaming have given you a set of user-friendly command buttons. You can play between one and all 35 paylines, but as with any game, our reviewers recommend that you play all lines of the Silk Road slot machine. It gives you a minimum stake of just 0.35 per spin and if you want to play for higher wagers then the maximum of 1,400.00 should make this game perfect for casual gamblers, high rollers, and anyone in between.
Click the Autospin option if you want to sit back as the reels spin on their own and raise the volume to have Arabian-style music playing along. There’s also the option to play on a desktop PC or laptop, or enjoy the mobile optimized version on iPhones, iPads, Windows, and Android devices.
Other Treks Across Ancient Lands
This isn’t the only Silk Road slot machine, as Aristocrat have a game with the same name on the market. It has some advanced 3D graphics and the popular 243 Ways to Win format, where you just need to match symbols on adjacent reels to win a prize. The game logo is a wild symbol and you get multiplier payouts of up to five times when it completes combinations.
Take this Silk Road for a spin at some of the top real money online casinos that feature the Aristocrat range.
The Verdict: Follow the Silk Road to Success
Our reviewers like the style of the Silk Road video slot, where an international cast of merchants are there to help you to win some of the top prizes. We were a little less impressed by the difficulty of landing enough extra wild symbols during the free games, especially as they only become extra wilds for the remaining spins. Without retriggering the round you’re only likely to have one or two for a couple of spins.
This aside, the Silk Road is one that’s well worth travelling and with a high return to players percentage it can be a very rewarding path to take as well.
