Scarab Ascension Slot Review
In 2013, a team from Wits University in Johannesburg and Lund University in Sweden figured out how dung beetles 🪲 keep their balls rolling in a dead straight line at night. They steer by the glow of the Milky Way. 🌌
To test it, the researchers took the beetles into a planetarium and fitted a few of them with tiny cardboard caps that blocked out the sky. The capped beetles rolled in circles - kinda like me trying to find my way home after one Jack Daniel’s too many.
This is Scarab Ascension slot, built by NowNow and released through Hacksaw Gaming. These beetles don’t wander around; they have a job, which is to climb up a ladder that pays up to 10,000x at the top.
Gameplay
NowNow Gaming puts the reels in a desert under an orange, cloud-streaked sky, with pyramids on both sides and a shaft of light coming down from above.
The 5x3 grid carries 9 paylines, the RTPRTP stands for “Return to Player.” The RTP describes the total bet amount that a game returns to players over millions of spins, and that figure is represented by a percentage. Table games, such as Roulette, typically have higher RTPs than many slots.
RTP needs to be considered in conjunction with a game’s volatility rate. is 96.3%, volatility is medium, and the max multiplier reaches 10,000x. The max win is $350,000, with bets running from $0.10 to $35, and every currency is cool to use.
At the bottom of the paytable, the Pink Gem, Blue Gem, Green Gem and Purple Gem symbols pay 1x each for 5 of a kind. The Eye of Horus pays 4x, the Cat 5x, and the Jackal 10x. The Falcon leads the regular symbols at 15x for 5 of a kind.
The Wild substitutes for all symbols in the paytable and pays 20x for 5 of a kind.
Then there's the Scarab Gold, which looks kinda like a Scarab with wings? It lands on any reel, forms no line wins, and substitutes for nothing.
Instead, every Scarab Gold on a spin gets counted together and paid off the ladder to the left of the screen, right after the line wins. The count resets after every spin, so nothing carries over.
The ladder goes like this: 5 Scarab Gold pay 5x, 6 pay 10x, 7 pay 25x, and 8 pay 50x. After that it gets serious, with 9 paying 100x, 10 paying 250x, 11 paying 1,000x, and 12 paying 10,000x (the max multiplier).
Features
FREE SPINS:
It takes 3 FS Scatter symbols to trigger Free Spins, which the game calls the Scarab Rise Bonus. FS Scatters land only on reels 1, 3 and 5, one per reel at most. They pay nothing and don't show up inside the round.
You always start at Level 1 with 3 Free Spins on a 5x3 grid, and the sky turns night-dark blue.
Every level has a Scarab Gold target to hit within its 3 spins. Hit it and the level upgrades on the spot, the counter resets to 3, and the next level opens on a bigger grid with more paylines and a bigger jackpot.
Level 1 asks for 5 Scarab Gold on 9 paylines for a 5x jackpot. Each level after that adds a row and 5 paylines, so by Level 4 you need 20 on a 5x6 grid for 50x.
Level 7 wants 40 for 1,000x. Level 8 is the top, with 50 Scarab Gold on a 5x10 grid, 44 paylines, and a 10,000x jackpot.
Miss the target inside the 3 spins and the round ends, and it also ends when you top out Level 8.
Either way, only the jackpot of the highest level you reached pays. The levels don't stack, so walking out of Level 6 gets you Level 5's 100x, not 100x plus everything below it.
BUY BONUS AND ANTE BETS:
The Buy Bonus menu gives you 3 ways in, and every one of them comes with high volatility.
Bonushunt FeatureSpins costs 3x per spin and makes every spin 7 times more likely to trigger the Free Spins. Its RTPRTP stands for “Return to Player.” The RTP describes the total bet amount that a game returns to players over millions of spins, and that figure is represented by a percentage. Table games, such as Roulette, typically have higher RTPs than many slots.
RTP needs to be considered in conjunction with a game’s volatility rate. is 96.3%.
Scarab Gold FeatureSpins costs 50x per spin, and every spin is guaranteed at least 1 jackpot value from the Scarab Gold ladder. FS Scatters can't land in this mode, and the RTPRTP stands for “Return to Player.” The RTP describes the total bet amount that a game returns to players over millions of spins, and that figure is represented by a percentage. Table games, such as Roulette, typically have higher RTPs than many slots.
RTP needs to be considered in conjunction with a game’s volatility rate. is 96.3%.
Look at the words "at least 1 jackpot value" before you get excited. The bottom of the ladder pays 5x, so the guarantee on its own gets you nowhere near 50x.
The Scarab Rise Bonus costs 100x outright and triggers the Free Spins right away. Its RTPRTP stands for “Return to Player.” The RTP describes the total bet amount that a game returns to players over millions of spins, and that figure is represented by a percentage. Table games, such as Roulette, typically have higher RTPs than many slots.
RTP needs to be considered in conjunction with a game’s volatility rate. is 96.27%.
Performance
The game's theme might center around deserts and old things, but there was nothing ancient and decrepit about the software running this game. It had no problems handling different browsers and devices, so you shouldn't have any issues either.
Maximum Win
Put the max multiplier of 10,000x on the top bet of $35 and the max win comes to $350,000. The minimum bet is $0.10.
Conclusion
Scarab Gold is where the money lives. In the base game it pays off the ladder every spin, and in Free Spins it drags you up the levels until the highest jackpot you reached pays out.
Line wins are small change next to that. The Wild tops out at 20x, the Falcon at 15x, and the 4 Gems pay 1x apiece.
So, there are 2 routes to the max multiplier.
You can land 12 Scarab Gold in a single base-game spin, which is 12 of the 15 positions on a 5x3 board. Or you can clear Levels 1 to 7 in Free Spins and reach Level 8, which asks for 50 Scarab Gold on a 5x10 grid.
The 96.3% RTPRTP stands for “Return to Player.” The RTP describes the total bet amount that a game returns to players over millions of spins, and that figure is represented by a percentage. Table games, such as Roulette, typically have higher RTPs than many slots.
RTP needs to be considered in conjunction with a game’s volatility rate. supports longer sessions. The buy RTPs barely move (96.3%, 96.3% and 96.27%), so buying costs you next to nothing in return. What you really pay with is variance, because every buy is labeled High against the base game's medium.
Bonushunt, with 7 times the trigger chance, is the buy-in I'd take, since it's the cheapest way to see more Free Spins. Scarab Gold FeatureSpins is a skip for me. A guaranteed rung sounds great until you remember how little the bottom one pays.
Credit to the studio here, because medium volatility with a max multiplier this big is a generous deal.
Medium-bankroll players who like chasing a trail are who the slot is built for. Players who want steady line wins should pass, because a paytable where 4 symbols pay 1x won't keep your balance ticking over.
Slot Details
Game Provider: NowNow
Game Type: Video Slots
PaylinesPaylines are preset lines that run across the reels, and when you land matching symbols on them, that will result in a payout. The more paylines, the more ways you can win, but also the higher your bet per spin.: 9
RTPRTP stands for “Return to Player.” The RTP describes the total bet amount that a game returns to players over millions of spins, and that figure is represented by a percentage. Table games, such as Roulette, typically have higher RTPs than many slots.
RTP needs to be considered in conjunction with a game’s volatility rate.: 96.3%
Volatility RateSlot games can have low, medium, high, or extremely high volatility rates (or a combination thereof).
The less volatile the game, the more often it should pay out, but the lower the amount, the less the payout, as this is in keeping with the risk you’re taking. Volatility rate should be considered in conjunction with a game’s RTP.: Medium
Bonus Round: No
Progressive: No
Free Rounds: Free Spins
Max Multiplier: 10,000x
Max Win: $350,000
Published by
BitStarz, award-winning Bitcoin Casino
