Aladdin is, when you strip away the songs and childhood nostalgia, a story about a homeless teenager who steals for a living, lies about being royalty, and somehow still ends up marrying into the ruling family.
Jasmine spends most of the movie trying to escape an arranged marriage, Jafar is one workplace grievance away from launching a coup, and the Genie is an all-powerful cosmic being trapped in what is essentially the worst employment contract in history. Other than all that, it’s a beautiful story.
Rather than turning this deeply dysfunctional workplace into an Agrabah version of The Office, Mascot has instead appropriated Aladdin for its new Fly High Arabian Nights crash game.
Make way for Prince Ali
At its most basic, Fly High Arabian Nights is a crash game that’s features high volatility and offers an expected RTP of 97%. You click bet, and totally-not-Aladdin and his carpet go flying through the air. Along the way, he’ll hit multiplier additions or multipliers that boost your win multiplier and keep him flying. You may also hit a cobra, which will cut your current win in half and negatively affect your flight path.
Once he gets low enough, Aladdin must land safely on a rooftop for your win to be credited. If he doesn’t, he’ll be lucky to walk away with a few broken bones, and you’ll leave with nothing.
That’s the basics. Then come the bonus symbols, each of which gives you a temporary advantage:
- Wind: Gives you a push forward.
- Gem: Pulls nearby positive multipliers towards you.
- Shield: Activates a shield that protects you from cobra symbols.
- Dagger: Destroys all cobra symbols around you.
Each special feature is only active for a few seconds.
Beyond those temporary boosts, there is also a really interesting “bonus buy” feature that guarantees a safe landing. That privilege, however, will cost you 50x your bet amount every round you use it.
With all that flying, collecting, and dodging, rounds can take a little time to play out. If you want to speed things up, though, the game offers four different speed modes, ranging from watching paint dry to blink-and-it’s-over fast.
Is Fly High Arabian Nights worth the threat of falling out of the sky?
There is only so much you can do with a crash game. That said, Fly High Arabian Nights makes the absolute most of everything available to it, and the result is surprisingly compelling.
The appeal starts with some really fun graphics that tap into the nostalgia of one of my favorite childhood movies and is strengthened by gameplay that keeps you guessing with all the possible outcomes.
In my opinion, it’s about as good as a crash game can get. I give it a rare ten out of ten.
If you’re looking for a few other Mascot games that I would recommend, try out Trump Card Queen and Wasteland Riches.
