In Ancient Egyptian times, all manner of animals were revered for a variety of reasons. Dogs were important, partly because of their hunting prowess, while Apis bulls were apparently honoured with an embalming and burial process when they died. That brings us to the focus of today's review, cats, which Ancient Egyptians were said to have believed brought good luck. Oftentimes, cats are represented in online slots by the goddess Bastet, but in Cleocatra, developer Pragmatic Play has gone completely feline and made cats the stars of the show.
In doing so, Pragmatic Play has taken a humorous approach, presenting cats in an adorable way to create a chucklesome mood. The rest of the game is fully Egyptian, though, meaning sultry music, plenty of sand, desert, warm skies, and pyramids. In fact, the sights and sounds would be pretty generic if not for the clowder of cats swarming over Cleocatra's 5x4 reel set and standing guard on either side of it. Aside from the cat characters, Cleocatra is essentially business as usual from Pragmatic Play, so players can expect an almost physical-like slot experience that's as shiny and smooth running as they get.
As well as the largely familiar view comes a batch of dependable Pragmatic Play stats. RTP comes in three settings, topping out at 96.2%, though it can be found at the lower levels of 95.5% or 94.5%. In all settings, the action is highly volatile (rated 5 out of 5) and includes trying to link wild multipliers with line wins. The game provides 40 fixed paylines to do so, and wins occur when three to five matching symbols land across them, starting from the leftmost side. Any device can be used to play Cleocatra, and bets range from 20 p/c to $/€100 per spin.
Time for a closer look at the kitties who are used as the four highest paying premium symbols. After the four cats come an Ankh, a crook and flail tile, then 10-A card ranks as the lower value symbols. Landing a five-of-a-kind winning line is worth 1-1.5 times the bet for the lows, 2.5-3.75x for the two mids, and 5-20 times the stake for five cat symbols. Wilds can be pretty exciting in Cleocatra. They land on reels 2, 3, 4, or 5 to substitute any pay symbol. They also have multipliers of x2 or x3 when they land, which gets applied to any win they are part of. When more than one multiplier wild is used in a win, the values are added together.
There's been a bit of mixing and matching of previous slot features in Cleocatra, where we find such extras as a Respin Feature, plus a round of Free Spins with sticky Wilds.
In the base game, when a full stack of cat symbols lands on the first reel, the respin feature can trigger. All matching cat symbols or wilds in view are locked into positions, and all others are respun. Respins will continue to be awarded until a winning result is produced.
Paw print scatters appear on all reels, and when 3, 4, or 5 of them are in view, players win 5x their bet, plus 8, 12, or 16 free spins, respectively. While free spins are active, whenever wild symbols land on reels 2, 3, 4, or 5, they remain sticky on the screen for the rest of the bonus round. Like the base game, wilds land with multipliers of x2 or x3. If a full stack of cat symbols lands on the leftmost reel, +2 additional free spins are added to the remaining amount.
For the cost of 100x the total bet, eligible players can instantly trigger free spins from the base game by landing 3, 4, or 5 scatters.
Given the respect cats had in Ancient Egypt, their focus makes sense in an Egyptian slot, and using them so exclusively gives Cleocatra a measure of individuality. The overall effect is similar to 3 Tiny Gods, except we got the impression Foxium put more energy into being original with their game, whereas Cleocatra kind of feels like Pragmatic Play took a collection of stock Egyptian images and sound files then tossed in a few cats. This is because the rest of the game is almost a textbook example of an Ancient Egyptian slot, which, will be a positive or negative thing, depending on personal tastes.
Another factor is while the gameplay is fairly unique-ish when viewed as a whole, each individual feature comes across as a modification of an earlier device. This isn't a criticism so much as an observation of Cleocatra's inner workings and an indicator of what to expect. The Respin feature, for example, has Great Rhino connotations, while the sticky wild feature is straight from The Dog House's playbook. Where it builds on The Dog House is that wild multipliers can appear (and stick to) reel 5 in Cleocatra, not just the middle three reels - there are also double the paylines. By adding these two things together, you'd assume bigger thrills are theoretically possible from Cleocatra than in The Dog House, though we'll let the cat and dog enthusiasts duke that one out. One final caveat is that despite the extra ways and reel for wilds to land on, potential comes up slightly short when compared to its canine compatriot, Pragmatic Play, having put a 5,000x the bet win cap in place.
So, high production values, proven features, and adorable felines mean Cleocatra should have all the necessary ingredients to entertain Egyptian fans or those looking for a replacement for The Dog House. It has to be said, in the spirit of objectivity, Cleocatra, minus the cats, does give off a sense of having seen most of it before. Clever name though.
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