John Hunter and the Book of Tut Slot Review

Released in May 2020, this game can be played at online casinos such as LeoVegas, Casumo or ComeOn!.

Theme and general information

John Hunter is an adventurer of the Indiana Jones type that Pragmatic Play has sent to various destinations around the globe in previous slot adventures. Whatever type of ruin John Hunter investigates, treasure is usually found here.

This time he visits Egypt and the “Book of” in the title already gives us a pretty good idea at what to expect. Child pharaoh Tutankhamun is the titular “Tut” here and we are essentially looking at a clone of Novomatic’s iconic Book of Ra. Or, more recently, Play’n GO’s Book of Dead, who basically started out the slew of copies we’ve seen in recent year. None manage to match those two, however.

Still, Pragmatic Play gives it a try and visually they are certainly more convincing than the original. The scene is set in sunny and very dusty Egypt. The Nile is rushing through the scenery and a few ruins and pyramids are also visible. It’s actually quite lovely.

You may want to turn down the volume when playing this slot. When the reels are still, we get a gentle oriental soundtrack. But the reels spinning gives us these classic jingles from classic slot machines of old and it can be pretty annoying. Only in turbo play it sound rather amusing, for a little while anyway.

The reels are framed by golden columns and there are some nice details in the symbols as well. The low value playing card symbols from 10 to A all get some Egyptian decoration, which is lovely. The high value symbols are pretty classic for the theme, though, there’s the scarab, a cat statue, the golden mask of Tutankhamun and John Hunter as the highest value symbol, who pays out 500x our stake for 10 of a kind. That’s impressive, of course.

Also, all high value symbols pay out for 2 of a kind already.

The book that always shows up in these slots is, as usual, the scatter and the wild in one.

You can play this game from 0.10 to 100.00 per spin.

Expanding special symbols and scatter pays

Of course, nothing much is happening in the base game as it lacks any special features whatsoever. The action takes place in the free spins, which is always the case with these type of ‘Book’ slots. We need three scatters to trigger the free spins. The effects when the free spins are launched is nicely done.

The book opens up and selects one of the regular reel symbols randomly as a special expanding symbol for the duration of the feature.

Now all regular wins are paid out as usual, but whenever the special expanding symbols lands at least three times (for the low values) or two times (for the high values) anywhere on the reels, it will then expand and pay out.

Better still, the scatter continues to land on the reels and three further books will retrigger the feature and give us 10 more free spins.

Verdict: Another ‘Book’ slot without an original idea but still a well-executed version

The theoretical RTP (Return to Player) of John Hunter and the Book of Tut is 96.5%, which is better than all other ‘Book of’ clones out there, including Book of Dead and certainly a lot better than Book of Ra.

Naturally, the game has the highest possible volatility, so mind your budget, especially if you play turbo mode. Your funds will be gone in the blink of an eye.

Of course, when it comes to the mechanics and gameplay, Book of Tut has nothing new to offer. It’s tried and true and remains popular with slot players. Hence the many clones we’ve seen and continue to see. But visually, Book of Tut manages to stand out and it sure looks a lot nicer than the original.

So, whilst Book of Tut is unlikely to topple to classics from their throne, it can compete with them and it does have the better RTP to go for it as well.