It’s history class time, guys. Think back in time a couple of millennia to the 3rd century BCE, when a guy named Ashoka, sometimes known as Ashoka the Great, dominated a large chunk of Asia and is credited with helping to promote Buddhism at the time. Whoever stated that luck only comes in threes and sevens clearly hasn’t tried online gambling. This leads us to Ashoka, a scatter-paying online slot game created by ELK Studios that combines a number of mechanical techniques into a single, far-flung location.
Ashoka may be too strange for the label “exotic” to do him justice. Ashoka has a mysterious air because to its many-armed figure, chanting background music, and cloaked setting. Its dense, weighty natural world background is reminiscent of Gold slots like “Voodoo Gold,” “Ecuador Gold,” and “Pacific Gold.” It’s like one of those places that people either don’t go to very often or haven’t been to in a long time, so plants have taken over, and the natural world’s spirit is almost palpable there, as if being there at a specific time on a specific day would allow communication between the noumenal world and the one that resides unseen behind the veil. In the same vein.
Ashoka’s game grid consists of 6 columns, each with 8 spaces, and is flanked by a skull and a statue. During each round, part of the available symbol slots on the reels will be occupied by inert blocker symbols that have no effect on the outcome of the game. A win is produced and the corresponding symbols are removed from the grid if 8 or more identical pay symbols appear anywhere on the board. The same goes for any blocking symbols that are vertically contiguous. When a symbol is deleted, replacement symbols cascade in to fill the void. The X-iter menu allows players to pick a base stake anywhere from 20 p/c to £/€100 per spin and activate extra options, making this a very risky game. Ashoka has a potential return to player value of 94% regardless of how the game is played.
Ashoka’s lowest emblems are the letters J through A carved into stone blocks, followed by a green gem, orange gem, red gem, and finally a white tiger. Winning with 8 matching scatters awards 0.1 to 5 times the wager, and winning with 15 or more matching scatters awards 3 to 100 times the wager. Wild symbols are used in Ashoka, and there are numerous different sorts that might take the place of conventional pay symbols. We have standard wilds, Big Wilds that can be as big as 3×3, and charged wilds. Wilds that have been charged remain on the reels for up to three wins, and any empty spaces that arise beneath a large wild are filled with more wilds of the same size.
Play Ashoka Slots for Real Money and Enjoy These Bonus Rounds
Ashoka has a wild symbol, an Avalanche feature, multiplier symbols, a super multiplier symbol, a bonus game, and an X-iter, among other things.
Increase & Increaser
When a winning scatter appears on the reels, the multiplier symbols add their values to the win multiplier. When activated, the win multiplier increases the value of any victories. Avalanches wipe out both the winning symbol and the multiplier. When a winning scatter is in view, the super multiplier increases its value to the win multiplier. The super multiplier, however, remains in place and is activated once again after each Avalanche. When no more successes occur, it is deleted.
Extra Round
Among the obstructing symbols, a skull bonus icon can appear. Once they are vertically adjacent to a winning symbol, these dormant bonus symbols become active, and obtaining three of them in the basic game unlocks 10 free drops in the bonus round. Super multiplier symbols survive between free spins and into the bonus round. Having 2 or 3 active bonus symbols grants +5 or +10 more free drops, accordingly.
X-iter
A variety of add-ons to the game may be purchased via the X-iter feature purchasing menu. This includes:
You may increase your chances of winning a bonus by threefold by placing a wager on the Bonus Hunt feature.
All wild symbols in a given game round can be charged wilds at an additional cost of 10 times the wager.
You may purchase a gaming round with a guaranteed Super Multiplier symbol for 25 times your wager.
The cost to “Buy Bonus” is 100 times the initial wager.
You may purchase the Super Bonus game with a guaranteed 500x multiplier for a stake of just 2 coins.
Judgment of Ashoka’s Slot
While Ashoka is by no means a simplistic game, unlike some other reviews of ELK Studios’ games, I didn’t feel like I was drowning in a sea of rules and features. These days, simply getting everything down on paper might feel like a typing equivalent of a 10-kilometer run. Okay, so now that we’re here, how did Ashoka do? On the whole, it’s been received rather favorably; nonetheless, scatter paying systems are somewhat less common than other types of slots, despite the fact that we’re used to seeing slots from ELK Studios claiming mind-bending amounts of ways to win, such as the Nitropolis series with its millions upon millions upon millions of chances to win. Ashoka may very possibly be the first film produced by the company. Being the innovative group that they are, ELK Studios has not only imitated the popularity of other pay-anywhere slots like Pragmatic Play’s Gates games or IGT’s Sweet Bonanza. The end effect seemed like a synthesis of the aforementioned Kane slots, Dropz, Cluster Tumble, and a healthy dose of its own special charm.
Similar to Cluster Tumble, the main objective of the base game is to destroy blocking symbols in order to unlock the bonus round. Flipping on the Bonus Hunt made this task a lot more fun, as drops became a thrilling hunt for skulls. However, the price is triple the standard wager. Not many multiplier or super multiplier symbols appeared, but wilds did sometimes, so props to the ELK Studios math department for include them in a scatter-paying slot, which isn’t how it usually works.
As expected, the super bonus round was the most thrilling. The game’s intensity may be ramped up thanks to the persistent win multiplier and persistent super multiplier. Once again, expensive, especially if purchased from the X-iter. Ashoka’s maximum potential yields winnings of up to 25,000 times the wager. No need to harp on the sub-95% RTP, which is basically ELk Studios’ MO at this point, and Ashoka may be challenging, both of which players may find distasteful. If the RTP had been increased by a notch, it would have been a top performer. Having said that, Ashoka is undeniably another high-quality product from ELK Studios, and it does some interesting things with the scatter-paying online slot type.