Dead Man's Gold Slot - Review, Demo, Casinos, Bonuses

Dead Man's Gold Review

We have enjoyed every exploration and adventure Kane has taken us on so far, and this time you’ll join him in a good old-fashioned pirate treasure hunt. The treasure island backdrop is stunning with a waterfall hiding behind the dynamic 6x4 default grid, and you’ll catch glimpses of it as the grid expands and symbols are removed via the Avalanche feature. Audiovisually, this is one of the best installments in ELK’s popular gold series, which is saying something.

Fans of the series will recognize the core features and mechanics, which includes big symbols and big wilds. ELK has thrown in a few new innovations for good measure, which is often the case with this series, and the most notable one is a cannon feature which turns target symbols wild. You also get a bottomless chest, and both innovations are persistent or semi-persistent in the bonus round. We have no complaints about the 25,000x potential, but you will be dealing with a 94 % RTP in this installment.

Dead Man's Gold Slot - Reels Screen

Dead Man's Gold Slot Features

You win 0.8 to 1 x your stake from 6 of a kind with mid-level symbols, while the top-tier symbols pay between 2 and 5 x your stake for the same. You can land all pay symbols as Big Symbols in sizes up to 4x4, while Wild symbols can land in sizes up to 3x3. The wild symbols step in for pay symbols to help complete and/or improve wins, and gaps below big symbols are always filled with symbols that match the big symbol.

Winning symbols are removed from the grid via the Avalanche mechanic, and new and/or existing symbols will drop down to fill the gaps. An extra row is added per avalanche win, and you can thus grow the grid up to 6x8 in size. The avalanche feature continues as long as you keep winning, even if you have already maxed out the grid.

You will see two cannons on either side of the grid, and these are activated by cannonball symbols. The cannons fire when you land a Treasure Target symbol in view, and this turns the affected positions wild. It also removes non-winning symbols around the wilds, triggering the avalanche mechanic. Hit multiple treasure targets to also increase the global win multiplier.

The Bottomless Chest has no value of its own, but it pours gold coins into empty spaces below itself. This produces high value symbols, wilds, and/or cannonball symbols in all the empty positions below any bottomless chest.

You need at least 3 bonus symbols in view to trigger the Bonus Round, and you get 10, 15, 20, or 25 free drops from 3, 4, 5, or 6 triggering bonus scatters, respectively. Both Treasure Target symbols and Multiplier Treasure Target symbols remain in play until they take part in a win, and Bottomless Chests remain in play for the duration of the bonus round. You get extra spins from landing 3+ bonus scatters anywhere in view.

The X-iter Bonus and Feature Buy menu is available in some jurisdictions, but not in the UK for sure. It comes with the following options this time:

• Big Block - pay 5x your stake to get a spin with at least one Big Symbol.
• Chest Plunderer - pay 10x your stake to get a spin with a Bottomless Chest.
• Super Cannon Spin - pay 25x your stake to get a spin where each cannon has unlimited cannonballs to fire at any Treasure Target symbols.
• Bonus - pay 100x your stake to trigger the Bonus Round.
• Super Bonus - pay 500x your stake to get the Super Bonus Round, which comes with unlimited cannonballs for the duration of the feature.

The 200 Spins Dead Man's Gold Slot Experience

You get a brief taste of the base game, before we purchase and trigger the Super Bonus Round at 0:39 into the 3:51 minute highlights video. The feature takes you into a cave with a massive treasure in the backdrop, and you can see for yourself how we fared by hitting the play button below.

Review Summary

It’s been a joy to follow Kane around to different, and often highly unusual, locations, and ELK’s Gold series seemingly never gets old. Dead Man's Gold does not feel stagnated or boring at all, despite following a similar recipe as these games usually do. ELK always throws in just enough innovation to keep things fresh and alive, and the stunning audiovisual presentation helps in that regard as well. This is a series we simply cannot get enough of, and it feels like you get a lot more value from these games than what you might end up with in terms of winnings.

So much is happening all the time that you almost stop caring about winning, which says a lot about the entertainment value. The cannonball feature is a fun way to get wilds, and we also like the bottomless chest feature. These innovations are persistent in the bonus round, which can lead to payouts up to a solid 25,000x your stake. The 94 % RTP is a dealbreaker for some players, we know, and cynically speaking there are better slots if your sole aim is to win money. If you’re looking for a daring and adventurous time, however, you cannot go wrong with Dead Man's Gold.