Ecuador Gold Slot Review

Released in February 2019, you can play this game at online casinos such as PlayOjo, Mr Green or LeoVegas.

Theme and basic information

Once more we get an adventure theme that takes us into the jungle. There’s the Indiana Jones-type adventurer, a temple and Aztec or Inca-style symbols on the reels (we are in South America, where the Incas ruled). The background sounds are suitable to the theme, giving us plenty of drums and other wooden instruments and a sense of excitement and adventure.

Playing this slot on the right screen (wide, not narrow), you’ll find it beautifully rendered in its detail. The temple columns look great in their plasticity and the details in the symbols is lovely and outstanding especially in the big blocks. ELK Studios has an excellent graphics department and it definitely shows here.

This slot comes with 6 reels and starts you on 4 rows, which gives you 4,096 ways to win. Every win will increase the rows and you can get as many as 8 rows with a total of 262,144 ways to win.

Our intrepid adventurer is worth the most for a 6-of-a-kind win, paying out 3x our bet. The three golden masks each pay out 2x our stake. There are eight low value symbols: the animals all pay out 0.8x our stake for 6 on a payline and the more abstract symbols only pay out 0.3x our stake.

You can play this game from 0.20 to €100.00.

Expanding paylines and ghost wilds in the base game

When you start spinning in the base game, you’ll start off with 6 reels, 4 rows and 4,096 ways to win. Each consecutive win, however, will expand your rows by 1 row and consequently add more paylines.

This is what that will look like:

• 5 rows = 15,625 ways to win
• 6 rows = 46,656 ways to win
• 7 rows = 117,649 ways to win
• 8 rows = 262,144 ways to win

A non-winning spin, however, will collapse the rows once again, bringing you back to the initial 4 rows. Helping with consecutive wins is the beloved Avalanche feature. Each time winning combinations have paid out, they’ll explode to make room for more symbols dropping in from above and hopefully leaving you with more wins.

In the base game you also have Ghosting Wilds. These wild symbols show up on reels 3, 4, 5 or 6 and can then wander along the reels any which way, expanding as they move along. Sometimes it moves 2 steps, sometimes 5, leaving behind wilds in its wake.

Finally, look out for Mega symbols on the reels. They vary in size from 2×2, 3×3 and 4×4 symbols. When they drop down, they’ll actually destroy all the symbols below. One of our biggest wins during the game happened with a 4×4 symbol on the reels, which ended up giving us over 100x our stake during the base game.

Free drops with a safety level

It’s a good thing that so much is going on in the base game, because it takes just about forever to trigger the free spins, or free drops as they are called here. Every once in a while, you’ll get 2 bonus symbols on the reels, but the third one will keep you waiting.

• 3 scatters will give you 10 drops
• 4 scatters will give you 15 drops
• 5 scatters will give you 20 drops
• 6 scatters will give you 25 drops

You can re-trigger the drops once, giving you a total of 50 drops maximum. We have honestly no idea how lucky you need to be or how long you need to play for that to happen, though.

During the free drops, you benefit from safety levels. When activated on winning spins, the current number of rows and therefore paylines will be locked, regardless of whether you lose on the next spin. It gives you a light advantage, at least.

Conclusion: Big play and small pay – Still a fun slot

The theoretical RTP (Return to Player) for Ecuador Gold is 96.14%, which is just above average. The slot looks great and the gameplay is definitely engaging. Features are a regular part of almost every spin and that’s a good thing, because the gameplay might be big, but the pays tend to be small. This is, after all, a game with at least 4,096 ways to win and it is also rather volatile.

When the big wins do come, and they will eventually, they are pretty awesome. If you continue to play beyond those few successes, you do so at your own peril. The slot is a lot of fun to play and we certainly recommend it. But do mind your budget.