Desert Gem

Get ready for a journey through the treacherous desert in your quest for gold and precious gems on the slot from Kalamba Games. Experience a personalized gaming session with variable volatility, your own progressive jackpot, collectable bonus spins and a free spins round to take home the treasures worth up to 5,763 times your bet.

Slot Details

Desert Gem is a video slot with five reels, four rows and 1,024 ways to win. Pays are awarded for adjacent symbols from left to right only. Play the game on mobile or desktop from 0.88 to 109 credits. The RTP of this high variance game is ranging from 95.84% to 97.97%, based on how many gold symbols are selected.

Graphics and Visuals

Set in a desert landscape with a creek meandering through the rocky scenery, the game impresses with colourful graphics that are pleasing the eye. On top of the game window are two displays, one for the activated gold symbols and the second for the progressive jackpot. A range of gold-digger tools and items populate the reels while a suspenseful soundtrack is interrupted by the usual thumps when scatters or treasure chests land on the reels.

Pay Symbols

All pay symbols except bonus scatters, treasure chests and wild symbols can appear super stacked on any spin. At the low end are six types of cactuses, all paying 0.6x bet for a single five of a kind. They are followed by an explorer’s diary, a pickaxe, a compass, a set of binoculars and a treasure map. Standard pays for a five of a kind range from 0.7x to 0.9x your stake, increasing to 3.4x your bet when they are activated as golden symbols.

Desert Gem has three wild symbols, all appearing on reels two to five only – standard, x2 and x3 wild. The latter can land in the free spins only. Scatters are a red diamond with all three need from reel one to three to trigger the free spins. A blue treasure chest will add one gem to the bonus counter on the right of the game window.

Desert Gem Gold Symbols

The first part of the personalization on this slot starts with gold symbols which will have an impact on the payouts and the chance to hit the bonus jackpot. The six high-value symbols are displayed in the top left corner. All, except the map and the wild symbols which are by default always gold symbols, can be activated to appear as well as gold symbols. The bet amount will increase by 20 to 34% for each symbol, depending on the bet size. The example below shows the changes at the minimum bet of 0.88 credits:

• 0.88 credits/spin: map symbol appears as gold symbol
• 1.28 credits/spin: the map and the diary symbols appear as gold symbols
• 1.58 credits/spin: the map, the diary and the pickaxe symbols appear as gold symbols
• 1.88 credits/spin: the map, the diary, the pickaxe and the compass appear as gold symbols
• 2.18 credits/spin: the map, the diary, the pickaxe, the compass and the binoculars appear as gold symbols

Activating the gold symbols has two purposes. Firstly, to win the bonus jackpot, you will need to hit a specified amount of gold symbols in one spin. The more pay symbols appear as gold symbols, the higher the chance to trigger the jackpot.

Secondly, the pays for three, four or five of a kind are boosted for gold symbols. Whereas they peak at 0.9x your bet for a single five of a kind standard symbols, the pays increase to 3.4x your bet for a 5OAK golden symbols.

The Desert Gem Bonus Jackpot

The second part of the personalized game features on Desert Gem is the progressive jackpot. It is a unique jackpot for each player and is stored once the game is closed. The default seed value is 20,000 times the total bet divided by 88, 128, 158, 188, or 218 when 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 gold symbols are activated. In essence, the more gold symbols are active, the easier it will be to hit the jackpot, but the lower will be the win in terms of times the total bet. The contribution to the jackpot is 1% of each bet in the base game.

The jackpot is triggered and instantly paid out when minimum 18 gold symbols land on a spin in the base game or free spins. The wild symbols count as one, two and three symbols for the standard, x2 and the x3 wild respectively. Jackpot wins are added to any potential line wins from the spin. Once paid, the jackpot amount is reset to the default seed value.

The Desert Gems Bonus Spins Feature

There is one more personalized feature on this slot that you can decide to play at four levels – Bronze at 40 gems, Silver at 60 gems, Gold at 100 gems and Platinum at 140 gems. A counter on the right indicates the progress. Any treasure chest appearing on the reels in a spin will add one gem to the counter.

Upon reaching a level,  you can decide whether you want to play the bonus spins or keep collecting more symbols to reach the next level. However, once the decision is made, you cannot play the lower level spins and will have to continue until you reach the next level.

The bonus spins are played with only treasure chests, blanks and +1 spin symbols on the reels. Initially, three bonus spins are awarded and the aim is to collect as many treasure chests as possible during the feature. The more are collected, the higher the winnings, which are calculated based on the average bet size used to reach the respective levels.

• 20 symbols – Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum level pay 12x | 15x | 40x | 60x average bet
• 30 symbols – Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum level pay 25x | 40x | 60x | 80x average bet
• 40 symbols – Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum level pay 25x | 40x | 60x | 80x average bet
• 55 symbols – Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum level pay 50x | 70x | 140x | 200x average bet
• 70 symbols – Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum level pay 80x | 150x | 250x | 300x average bet
• 80 symbols – Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum level pay 100x | 250x | 500x | 1,000x average bet

The Desert Gem Free Spins Feature

Hitting bonus scatters on reels one, two and three in one spin will trigger 10 free spins. Two and three scatters during the feature will award an additional +3 and +10 free spins respectively, and that without limits. During the free spins, the x3 multiplier wild can appear on reels two to five in addition to the standard and the x2 multiplier wild. More than one multiplier are multiplied by each other.

Final Verdict

Wow, this is some complex game at first glance. Lots of features and designed to allow players a more personalized gaming experience. The difference from lowest to highest volatility is with approximately 2% RTP quite significant. It is up to the player to bet more for easier triggers of the jackpot or collect more gems to play the bonus spins on the higher levels. However, at the same time the risk is increasing as well, so a balanced approach is recommended. Other than that, Desert Gem is an likeable game that can pay big on a sunny day.

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