Terracotta Army

Terracotta Army: Slot Overview

Terracotta Army is an online slot from provider Blue Guru Games, which refers to a real-life army of terracotta sculptured warriors that were rediscovered in China in the 1970s. The army was created and buried along with the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang (259-210 BC), to help protect him in the afterlife. It's a big army, too, and worth tracking down a photo to see how much time and effort must have gone into its creation. By some counts, the collection includes more than 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots, 670 horses, and the mausoleum complex was built by 700,000 conscripted workers. Clearly, then as now, there is a colossal chasm between the ruling elites and the common everyday man or woman in the street.

This brings us to Terracotta Army, the slot, which is a rather striking game, optically speaking. Blue Guru Games' artisans have carved out a stone-heavy spot for players to inhabit that flips from a greeny grey pallet in the base game to a more golden one in free spins. Using a top-down, bird's eye view, players peer down on a 5-reel, 3-row gaming panel, which has a ways to win pay system that offers a minimum of 243 ways to win, rising as high as 30,375 thanks to ways multiplying mystery symbols. It's all very Chinese-looking, but Blue Guru Games has done it in a fresh, interesting way, rather than just chucking a bunch of dragons, frogs, and koi at players in the traditional slot sense.

Terracotta Army provides gamblers with stake options of 20 p/c to $/€100, as well as furnishing them with three bonus buys. The game is a better suit for players in the mood for something highly volatile, though its 96% return value should have more general appeal, as should its max win. To collect some cash, regular wins occur by landing matching symbols from the left-hand side of the grid, spread over at least 3 adjacent reels.

Eight pay symbols appear in the game. The lower-paying 4 are artistically designed representations of a snake, bird, tiger and dragon; okay, there are some dragons in Terracotta Army, while the 4 high pays are terracotta warriors. Hitting a winning way consisting of 5 identical low pay symbols awards 1 to 2 times the bet, while better values come from landing 5 identical high pays where the payouts are 2.5 to 5 times the bet. The wild, a sort of jade lion-looking symbol, is able to substitute for all other symbols except the scatter.

Terracotta Army: Slot Features

Mystery symbols play an important role in Terracotta Army and not just as revealing symbols. They are joined by the Palace of Mercury feature, free spins, and bonus buys.

Mystery Symbols

Mystery symbols appear on reels 2, 3, and 4, in the base game and in free spins. When mystery symbols hit, they expand to create additional ways to win. Mystery symbols transform to reveal the same type of symbol, displaying multipliers of x2 to x5.

Palace of Mercury

Available in the base game, the Palace of Mercury feature triggers when the first reel is stacked with the same type of high-pay warrior symbol. When this happens, the remaining reels respin and only display stacked high-pay symbols. If a win does not occur, another respin is awarded.

Free Spins

Scatter symbols are present on all reels, and hitting at least 3 of them triggers the free spins bonus round. Scatters award an extra spin or an extra sticky mystery symbol.

• 3 scatters award 4 to 7 free spins with up to 3 sticky mystery symbols.
• 4 scatters award 4 to 8 free spins with up to 4 sticky mystery symbols.
• 5 scatters award 4 to 9 free spins with up to 5 sticky mystery symbols.

In free spins, when a scatter symbol lands, a sticky mystery symbol is awarded, which sticks in place on the grid till the feature ends. Sticky mystery symbols are placed on the lowest position of reels 2 to 4 until all positions on the reel manage to be filled. Landed scatters are also collected on a meter. When 3 scatters are collected, a low pay symbol is removed from the reels for the remainder of the round. Up to 3 low pay symbols can be removed this way.

Bonus Buy

From the bonus buy menu, players have access to 3 free spins options. One costs 45x the bet where 3 scatters award 4 to 7 free spins, the next costs 90x the bet where 4 scatters award 6 to 10 free spins, and the last costs 180x the bet where 5 scatters award 9 to 14 free spins. Landing a scatter awards +1 free spin and a sticky mystery symbol.

Terracotta Army: Slot Verdict

Opening up Terracotta Army probably won't be anywhere near as awe-inspiring as discovering the real thing, but there is some good stuff here for players to find. Terracotta Army, the slot, isn't without its own interesting episodes, as well. It managed to spark thoughts of games like Net Gains, Iron Bank, or Temple of Wealth with the sticky mystery symbols element. Here they do work quite differently, not only revealing symbols as they usually do but helping to expand ways up to an impressive 30,375.

Free spins are a highlight, too, not just because mystery symbols can be sticky there, stacking on the reels, but also because being able to remove pesky low-pay symbols from the reels when scatters are collected might lead to the cobbling together of larger payoffs. Capping off a game of solid numbers, Terracotta Army's largest payoffs max out in the vicinity of 10,000 times the bet.

And so concludes our trip to China's distant past, courtesy of one of Blue Guru Games' stronger releases. With its decent stats and nicely designed features, Terracotta Army is capable of delivering a potpourri of expanding, mysterious, and potentially rewarding gameplay.