Developer Pragmatic Play gets all high fantasy in their slot Dragon Kingdom Eyes of Fire. It might sound like the first novel in a multi-volume epic, but the title alludes to the fact the game is full of dragons and eyes. Appearing alongside these two motifs is an unusual dead spin collection system, triggering multipliers, ultimately producing modest potential wins. A surprising number of dragon-themed slots have been released over the years, yet few have had the 3x3 treatment. As you can probably see, there is a fourth reel, but this is a special one that only holds multipliers - triggered at certain points. Core gaming occurs on the first three reels, where 5 paylines are provided to hit winners across. The rest of the screen is taken up by a cold blue-lit cavern full of gold coins and other smatterings of treasure. It's not exactly dripping in riches like Smaug's treasure room if you've seen the Hobbit, then again, neither is Dragon Kingdom Eyes of Fire as a whole, so the view is a pretty accurate representation.
Dragon Kingdom Eyes of Fire is a lot like Pragmatic Play’s Aztec Gems, yet it's not a clone as such. One area the two games differ is volatility, where Dragon Kingdom has a 2 out of 5 rating, putting it in the low/medium category. Default RTP is also slightly lower, though a value of 96.5% is well respectable, being higher than much of the competition. Stakes are available from 10 p/c to $/€25 per spin, which makes no sense given the fact the usual max bet applied by Pragmatic is $/€100 and lower caps are usually used for highly volatile, high potential games. Either way, changing your bet resets the Progressive feature, which we will cover below.
Three of a kind winners are the only type of combinations permissible in the game, using seven regular pay symbols. These are diamonds, clubs, hearts, and spade gems worth 0.4 to 1.6x the bet as the low pays. Higher value symbols are fiery sevens, a red dragon, and a blue dragon worth 2 to 4x the bet. It doesn't take long to realise a full screen of the top premium is worth a paltry 20x your stake. Fortunately, winning combinations benefit from those fourth reel multipliers when activated. The 'eye of fire' wild not only replaces pay symbols to complete a win, it's also worth 5x the bet so you might be able to squeeze a bit more value out of that.
There's only one feature to get to grips with when playing Dragon Kingdom Eyes of Fire - its Progressive feature. In a nutshell, the feature is based around collecting dead spins, or non-winning spin, as they refer to them here. When you've had 4 dead spins in a row, the fourth reel on the right side of the slot comes to life. This reel displays only dragon eggs carrying multipliers. The more dead spins there are, the greater the multipliers on the eggs can possibly get, like so:
The fourth reel remains active as long as non-winning spins keep occurring. On the next winning spin, the special reel is deactivated, remaining dormant until four non-winning spins pass by again.
If you've played Aztec Gems you'll have a good idea of how Dragon Kingdom Eyes of Fire operates. It's all about landing the most valuable symbols as possible on the reels at the same time as a multiplier on the fourth. Dragon Kingdom Eyes of Fire takes the multiplier feature in a new direction, yet the two games' are comparable. From a technical standpoint, this one is the less volatile, higher potential option, while the dead spin collection mechanic adds a different dimension.
For one, you don't want to win. Well, you do, but not wanting to win often is a better way of putting it. We've seen this type of approach used by Big Time Gaming for example (albeit more sophisticated), but it's a rather strange experience wanting to lose until you've had the chance to rack up a decent multiplier. The game is happy to oblige too, effortlessly ploughing through loads of dead spins as the bankroll evaporates. Dragon Kingdom Eyes of Fire isn't a game you play to experience a buffet of features. Either you get the multiplier mechanic to work in your favour, or not, that's it.
A funny thing during testing is Dragon Kingdom Eyes of Fire had a peculiar knack for returning to the starting balance, over and over again. Like clockwork, or better, like groundhog day. The account would take a battering while nothing much happened, then out of nowhere a win with a decent multiplier would hit to bring us back to square one – then the process would start all over again.
Technically, wins of up to 1,250x the bet are possible in a single spin, providing the reels are full of wilds at the same time a 50x multiplier lands. Do that, and you're laughing, but the low volatility and repetition can be tiresome. Wasn't it Einstein who said the definition of madness is repeating the same action again and again while expecting a different outcome?
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