The design here is neat, crisp and very reminiscent of a live casino game - with pyramids, palm trees and the Sahara Desert in the background, the reels include the usual assortment of lower value playing cards and higher value Egyptian hieroglyphs.
You’ll see the ankh cross, scarab beetle, eye of Horus, gold ring and the dog god Bastet which awards 250 coins if you land 5 in a single payline. By far the most rewarding symbol is the Tutankhamun-style burial mask which is the game’s wild - it replaces everything bar the scatter and offers awards of 5, 15, 100 or 1,000 coins if you land 2, 3, 4 or 5 in a row.
The mask also triggers the Surrounding Wild feature - all adjacent symbols turn into wilds if they would result in a win. This can turn up to 10 extra symbols wild.
The desert scene is the scatter - land 3, 4 or 5 of these on the same spin and you’ll win 3, 10 or 25 times your total stake. You’ll also trigger the Free Spins Bonus feature – here, you’ll be given the pick of a selection of free spin and multiplier combinations depending on how many scatters you get to trigger the feature.
Trigger the feature with 3 scatters and the choices are:
- 30 free spins with a 1x multiplier
- 15 free spins with a 2x multiplier
- 10 free spins with a 3x multiplier
- 7 free spins with a 5x multiplier
Trigger the feature with 4 scatters and the choices are:
- 40 free spins with a 1x multiplier
- 20 free spins with a 2x multiplier
- 15 free spins with a 3x multiplier
- 9 free spins with a 5x multiplier
Trigger the feature with 5 scatters and the choices are:
- 60 free spins with a 1x multiplier
- 30 free spins with a 2x multiplier
- 20 free spins with a 3x multiplier
- 14 free spins with a 5x multiplier
Furthermore, you can retrigger the Free Spins Bonus feature various times with up to 600 free spins to be won! I would personally opt for the lower free spins amount with the 5x multiplier as just 1 free spin can pay dividends up to 5,000 times your total stake.
Sphinx Wild is a pretty volatile slot game with the variance in the medium to high range. As usual, it’s the feature rounds that offer the best winning opportunities. The surrounding wilds are a nice addition and can really get the coins flowing, especially if you land more than 1 wild on the same spin. The multipliers certainly boost the free spins action too.
The supply of ancient Egyptian-themed slot games is seemingly endless - this offering from IGT is a good one. The design and gameplay are relatively simple but the potentially explosive bonus rounds make Sphinx Wild worth the effort. I would also suggest you try to iconic Book of Ra Deluxe by Novomatic and unusual Lady of Egypt by WMS.