Pragmatic Play
As a result of the exponential growth of Bigwinboard, now recognised as one of the leading independent European iGaming 🌻 news sites, many game providers reach out to us asking us to review their games. It's a risky move as 🌻 we've become known to be slayers of slots we don't like, although many providers do in fact appreciate the honest 🌻 input expressed in our reviews.
The other day we got a message from Pragmatic Play asking us to check out their 🌻 products, which initially didn't trigger much excitement to be very frank. In our view, Pragmatic Play has for a long 🌻 time been a generic freak of a provider, failing to evoke one's curiosity. But just like is the case with 🌻 Red Tiger, or Push Gaming, that might be about to change.
We're not going to go into detail here about the 🌻 company; we'll leave that to the dedicated page we're working on, although a short presentation might be in place since 🌻 it's the very first time we cover any of their games.
The company was originally launched in 2007 as TopGame but 🌻 was rebranded, and renamed Pragmatic Play in 2024, to mark a new beginning after having been involved in some minor 🌻 controversies. Things have indeed changed, and today we see a growing company represented on all the major online casinos and 🌻 an EGR Software Rising Star 2024 award winner.
Da Vinci's Treasure Introduction
At first glance, the game does not appear to stick 🌻 out in any particular way. It's got the typical characteristics of a Pragmatic slot and a setup of 5 reels, 🌻 3 rows and 25 pay lines. The game takes bets ranging from €0.25 up to a maximum of €125 and 🌻 is delivered with a 96.53% theoretical return to player. It should be pointed out, however, that Pragmatic, just like Play'n 🌻 GO, Novomatic, and many other providers, allow operators (casinos) to choose a different RTP setting, so always make sure to 🌻 take a look at which version you're playing. It could potentially be as low as 90.04%.
Before anyone reacts in outrage 🌻 to this - adjustments may sometimes be necessary depending on market of operation. Some off-shore casinos might, of course, take 🌻 advantage of this, which is why we only promote the best online casinos in the industry. Also, Pragmatic Play (and 🌻 Play'n GO) are fully transparent about this fact, which is more than what can be said about many other providers.
Regarding 🌻 the theme of the slot, we think you've seen it before. Yes, it's another "book of" concept game. But as 🌻 you will see, it's far from a clone and has enough meat to stand on its own two legs. Funny 🌻 side note - for a while we were led astray by a debate regarding the looks of the main character 🌻 John Hunter, and whether or not he's more handsome than Rich Wilde (Book of Dead). What do you think? Comment 🌻 below (lol).
Da Vinci's Treasure Symbols
First of all, a round of applause to Pragmatic Play for designing an easy to understand 🌻 paytable! It not only makes our job more comfortable but also helps to avoid confusion for players. There's nothing worse 🌻 than having to calculate perplex coin values related to bet lines and whatnot. Ban that **** from all slots!
So what 🌻 you see here are the standard low-value card suit symbols, as well as 5 premiums represented by crossbows, some weird 🌻 looking object we can't identify, knapsacks, books, and our main man, John Hunter. He's, of course, the top symbol, worth 🌻 32 times the stake for 5 across a full pay line.
The wild symbol, which carries an image of Leonardo Da 🌻 Vinci, only appears on reels 2, 3, 4 and 5.
Da Vinci's Treasure Bonus Features
There are 3 bonus features included in 🌻 the game, 2 of which are low potential features, likely only added to spice up the game with some diversity. 🌻 All features, including the free spins, can be activated by landing 3 bonus symbols on the middle reels. When this 🌻 happens, one of the following 3 bonus features will be randomly awarded:
Map Quest Feature - progress on a treasure map 🌻 made up of 23 squares. By spinning the wheel, you either move forward on the map while collecting incremental prizes, 🌻 or the game ends. Reaching the goal and a 100x win is awarded.
- progress on a treasure map made up 🌻 of 23 squares. By spinning the wheel, you either move forward on the map while collecting incremental prizes, or the 🌻 game ends. Reaching the goal and a win is awarded. Prize Picker - choose one of 3 paintings to reveal 🌻 a cash prize .
- choose one of 3 paintings to reveal a . Progressive Multiplier Free Spins - this is 🌻 the one you will want to trigger, and for good reasons. Land this feature and you will benefit from 12 🌻 free spins with a multiplier increasing by 1 on each spin. This means that by the final spin you can 🌻 look forward to a 12x multiplier, and with the chance of re-triggering the bonus with up to 60 free spins, 🌻 you can potentially reach a 60x multiplier. In that scenario, the maximum win potential of 48,000 times the stake becomes 🌻 a reality.
Da Vinci's Treasure Conclusion
We're always excited to see high variance and high potential slots of this calibre, which was 🌻 also the reason we wanted to give it a review. Visually it didn't do much to impress us, although it's 🌻 far from the worst design we've seen. Pragmatic slots, just like Red Tiger, has a reputation of being hard to 🌻 bonus trigger (free spins) and that is certainly the case here as well. It can without a doubt be a 🌻 bit frustrating to land 3 scatter symbols only to miss out on the free spins. To be fair, however, this 🌻 is a very high variance slot, and just like most other slots on the same side of the volatility index, 🌻 it's merely the nature of the beast.
The free spins mode, we must say, is extremely entertaining. We appreciate the fact 🌻 that Pragmatic avoided going down the same road as most other providers have done with their Book slots, and gave 🌻 their own twist to the bonus. On the last spin alone, you have a chance of winning 9600 times the 🌻 stake should you be lucky enough to land a full-screen John Hunter symbols as he appears stacked on the reels. 🌻 We all know how unlikely that is to happen, as in any other high potential slot, but for most of 🌻 us its enough to know that there is a chance to make us excited. For all the reasons mentioned here, 🌻 Da Vinci's Treasure is without a doubt worth giving a try.
