If you have played online slots for a few years, you may well have come across a slot called Luxor Valley, a title developed by “Viaden” who have since been sold to Playtech. In fact, Viaden developed two versions of Luxor Valley before the game disappeared from view completely. But now, it’s back in a slightly modified skin, a “Gamescale” branded badge and the same game-play as the original. Probably.
I say “probably” because on the surface, the Luxor Valley slot appears to be a clone of Novomatic’s popular “expanding scatter” games Book Of Ra Deluxe and Lord Of The Ocean. When you read the game rules, it corroborates that theory too. However, there is one major difference that players need to know about before they invest both time and funds into Luxor Valley: during the free spin feature, winning symbols can be removed!
Um. Really? That sounds weird right? Well yes, it is... very weird... but that’s exactly what happens with the Luxor Valley slot. Let me explain why.
When you get 3 scatters in view, you trigger 10 free spins with a randomly selected scatter symbol. When the symbol lands anywhere in view during the free spins, it expands to fill the entire reel and depending on the scatter and number thereof, you would usually receive a payout on all 10 pay-lines. The problem here is two-fold. Firstly, these symbols always expand, even if there is only one of them and it doesn’t constitute a winning spin. A bit frustrating perhaps but it gets worse.
The slot is designed to expand the symbols BEFORE calculating the wins! For example, if you get 3 more scatters that should give you a re-trigger, yet the symbol that was selected as an expanding symbol appears on the same reel as one of those scatters, it expands to remove the scatter from view, so now you only have 2 scatters. You not only lose the payout for 3 scatters but also the slot doesn’t award you the 10 extra spins. To add insult to injury, you may not even qualify for a win on the expanding scatters!
A fundamental flaw you’d have thought as this is not how the other aforementioned “expanding scatter” style slots behave – they award the wins first, then expand the symbols. But I have queried it with the original developer and this is how Luxor Valley was designed. It’s a shame as it is otherwise a good, if high variance, slot but this behaviour is frustrating and annoying beyond words to a seasoned player like me.
My advice is to give Luxor Valley a miss and stick with Book Of Ra or if there are no Novomatic slots available to you, look out for Playtech slots like Rome and Glory or Sultan’s Gold which are the same cloned game but which also behave the right way.
Luxor Valley Slot Rating
3.31 / 5
based on 16 player ratings
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