Katmandu Gold

The intrepid explorer returns for another reel adventure on the slot from Elk Studios. Katmandu Gold is taking you alongside Kane on a journey to the Himalaja highlands in search for inner peace, only to discover an ancient temple with hidden treasures. No time to rest as the fifth creation in the Elk Gold series comes with cascading symbols, expanding reels, wild substitutions, mega symbols up to a 4×4 size, an Ice Climber feature, an Expanding Win modifier and a free spins round that can lead to wins of up to 10,000 times your bet. The slot will be the first game from Elk Studios to feature a Bonus Buy option.

Slot Details

Katmandu Gold is a cascading video slot with six reels, up to nine rows and up to 531,441 ways to win. Pays are awarded for three to six adjacent matching symbols from left to right only. You can join Kane on his reel quest on desktop, tablet or mobile from 0.20 to 100 coins. The game has high volatility (9/10) with an RTP of 96.20% and a hit rate of roughly 1:4.5 spins. Using the two Bonus Buy Options will increase the RTP values to 96.30% and 96.40% respectively.

Kane starts his fifth reel expedition on the outlook for a relaxing vacation in the Nepalese highlands. After all, he spent the last four editions on a tiring hunt for gold in Tahiti, Ecuador, the Louisana swamps and bitter cold regions of Yellowknife. But fate had other plans as he rumours of a temple gold make the rounds. Never one to let an opportunity for hidden treasures to slip by, he starts his ascend to dizzying reel heights of up to nine symbol blocks on a dynamic game area set in front of an ancient temple. The mountainous region of the Himalayas on a sunny day provides the fitting backdrop to his latest expedition while dragons on either side of the reels guard the gameplay.

All pay symbols including the wild can appear in 1×1, 2×2, 3×3 and even 4×4 sizes. Any empty space below a mega symbol will be filled with a matching 1×1 symbol. They start at the low end with card royals from J through to A, awarding across the board 0.3x your bet for a single six of a kind. The medium symbols are made of orb-like icons in blue, green, purple and red colours, yielding 0.8x to 1x your stake for six. The premiums are three mythological creatures – phoenix, tiger, dragon – and Kane himself. Hit six across the reels to win 2x to 5x your bet. A golden icon marked with a red gem and the word itself is the wild symbol, substituting for all regular pay symbols. Lastly, an ancient Chinese coin marked with ‘Bonus’ acts as the scatter.

Katmandu Gold Slot Features

Katmandu Gold is meanwhile the fifth slot in the ELK Gold Series and the first slot of its kind from the developer to have a Bonus Buy option included. Quite the success for Elk Studios since they started the series in February 2019 with the release of Ecuador Gold. They surely kept the intrepid explorer busy, sending him on a hunt for gold to various regions across the planet. On this occasion, he is travelling to the Himalayan highlands with a few new modifiers and reel twists in his explorer bag, ready to unleash them across a dynam 6-reel set.

Katmandu Gold Slot – Ice Climber Feature

Core to the gameplay is, as usual, the Avalanche mechanic that cascades symbols onto the default 6×4 grid at the start of a spin sequence. Any winning combos are first paid before they shatter and disappear to make room for new symbols to drop into place. After each winning avalanche, the expanding game mechanic activates, adding one row to the game window after every win and gradually increasing it from four rows and 4,096 ways up to a maximum of eight rows and 262,144 ways to win. Triggering one of the modifier features can further extend that to nine rows and 531,441 ways. In the base game, the grid always resets to the default size and the round concludes when no new wins occur after a fresh avalanche. The total win is accumulated and paid before the next spin sequence starts.

A range of modifiers can come into play at any time during a spin sequence. Landing two or more Yin Yang symbols on the reels will trigger the Ice Climber feature once now more winning avalanches occur. The Yin Yang symbols and all above on the reel will ice over and transform into a random premium or wild symbols. Should you have any empty spaces under a big Yin Yang symbol, then the gaps are filled with wilds. In case the feature is activated on the eighth row, it will add a ninth row of symbols.

New on Katmandu Gold is the Expanding Win feature, which will basically multiply your win. All pay symbols including wilds can appear with up or down arrows or both. Once the dust settles, they will expand in the direction of the arrow and turn all symbols in their path into the triggering symbol. The win evaluation will be done after all expansions have been completed. The sample screenshot shows the J symbols expanding from the bottom row up to the top, including the big 2×2 symbol.

Katmandu Gold Slot – Super Bonus Free Spins

Having three, four, five or six bonus scatters in view by the time a spin sequence ends will trigger the bonus game with 10, 15, 20 and 25 Multiplier Free Drops respectively, which can be indefinitely retriggered. Any bonus scatter landing on a free spin will increase the win multiplier by x1, no limits. The feature ends when you run out of free drops or reach the win cap of 10,000 times your bet.

Katmandu Gold Slot – Buy Bonus Screen

Elk Studios are debuting their Buy Bonus feature on Katmandu Gold. Players residing in countries where feature buys are not restricted can bypass the base game and head straight to the main event. It will cost a one-time bet of 100x the stake for a standard Multiplier Free Drops feature or a steep 500x the stake for the Super Bonus round with a progressive win multiplier starting at x10. Either choice will commence a spin that will land a minimum of three scatters once the purchase has been confirmed.

Final Verdict

Katmandu Gold is yet another fine addition to the Elk series of slots with their superhero Kane, who seems to be tirelessly in pursuit for hidden riches. On this occasion, that tops out at a respectable 10,000 times bet, combined with new twists and turns that differentiate the gameplay sufficiently from the other slots in the series to let Katmandu Gold stand on its own.

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