Escape the Pyramid – Fire & Ice Slots

This fortress of spinning fortune boasts 6 reels, each offering a scatter pays system so that winning is achieved simply by landing eight or more identical symbols anywhere on the grid. Cascading mechanics remove winning symbols for new ones, making it easy for players to connect wins.

What’s it about?

Following in the footsteps of a legion of other slots before it, Escape the Pyramid Fire & Ice begs players to slip on their figurative fedora one more time, stuff a torch in their pocket, and burrow into the stygian depths of an Egyptian pyramid. Except this time, they’re joined by a protagonist who looks like he’s moonlighting from a movie. The title indicates some sort of flaming face-off or permafrost brawl, but the overall presentation does little to support that. The Fire & Ice bit seems shoehorned in for the sake of drama, and you’re left feeling as if the Pharaohs were also experimenting with climate control.

Game Theme And Design

In terms of visuals, what you would expect from a modern Pragmatic Play release is solid graphics and polished-looking animations if a touch generic. The Egyptian milieu is gilded, with scarabs, jewels, and columns. The music is the typical epic Egyptian score; nothing is serviceable or game-changing. Are you spitting the threads of mediocrity, or are you just filling another slot with sand?

Paytable And Symbols

An ancient Egyptian-themed motif enhances symbols on the paytable. Payouts for clusters of 8 to 36 symbols for the most valuable symbols range from 1x to 500x your bet. Low-value symbols include a range of colored gemstones, paying 0.10x to 120x the bet for clusters of 8 to 36. The wild symbol, appearing as a golden emblem, replaces all symbols except for the Fire and Ice scatters and pays a maximum of 1,000 the bet for a combination of 36 symbols.

Bonus Features

Escape the Pyramid Fire & Ice may not set the world on fire regarding innovations, but it provides a range of features to keep players interested. With various tumbles, themed features, and bonus buy options, Pragmatic Play doubles down on proven mechanics while providing a slight twist in its Fire and Ice interplay.

Fire Bonus

Then, when a Fire scatter appears on the leftmost reel, the Fire feature is activated. After any tumbles resulting from the triggering spin, all positions featuring symbols of Fire become wild. For each tumble up to the feature, a multiplier increases by 1, which is used for all wins with wilds in play during the Fire feature. For players who want to jump straight into the action, a bonus buy feature enables players to trigger the Fire & Ice Feature instantly for 100x your bet.

Ice Bonus

The Ice bonus gets triggered when you land an Ice scatter on the rightmost reel. Every position showing Ice symbols gets transmuted into a selected payout symbol, giving the player three re-spins. Throughout the respins, the selected symbol stays sticky on the reels, and Upgrade symbols can increase their value to the next high-paying symbol. On top of this, a single spin symbol can also prolong the round, allowing the action to go on. Like the Fire feature, a multiplier increases by 1 with each tumble.

Fire & Ice Bonus

The Fire & Ice Feature combines the best of both worlds and is activated whenever fire and ice scatters don’t appear in more or less the same chances. All ice and fire-marked positions turn wilds for the feature, and players receive three re-spins with blank, wild, and one-spin symbols. Wild symbols remain on-screen until all re-spins are finished, the screen returns to its state before the start of the process, and wins are assessed according to the new grid. For each tumble that occurs before the feature activates, a multiplier is incremented by 1. The win from wins at the end of re-spins is multiplied by the current feature multiplier.

The ancient Egyptian setting itself is clichéd, but while trying to do something new, the mechanics improve its status to not-crap. The features themselves are functional and fairly novel. The gameplay doesn’t seem a patchwork of concepts cribbed from other, superior slots. Given the numbers and difficulty landing, the maximum win you can get from the bet is decent and exciting. The sheer frequency of free spins feels generous, which is a thing considering the experience does not come without the pay-off to warrant the effort.

It’s an adequate way to fill the time but unlikely to leave any lasting impression. These hands deliver more content and fun than usual for players searching for either. It’s a solid release and an exciting title at once. Pragmatic Play really has knocked it out of the park here.