Valley of the Gods 2

This is a slot with no free spins round, no bonus buy and no separate feature screen, and it is still one of the more mechanically ambitious titles on the shelf. Yggdrasil released Valley of the Gods 2 on 24 September 2020, into a market already thick with Egyptian slots, and solved the problem of standing out by making the board itself the feature. Everything happens in one continuous sequence, and understanding that sequence is understanding the game.

What the game is

Six reels, each with its own number of visible symbols. At rest the shape is 1-2-3-4-5-2 — a single symbol on the first reel, two on the second and so on — which comes to 240 ways to win. That is where every paid spin starts. As the sequence progresses the board can open out to 3-4-5-6-7-8, and at full extension it offers 20,160 ways. The headline number is therefore not a permanent state; it is the far end of a process you have to earn your way into.

The return is 96.3% and the volatility is rated medium to high, which places this below the extremes elsewhere in the catalogue. The hit frequency tells the story better than either figure: 20% in the base game, rising to 45.5% once the respin feature is running. Almost half the spins inside a sequence pay, which is why a good run feels so different from an ordinary one. The maximum win is 5,481x the stake — a precise and comparatively modest number that fits the design.

How the sequence builds

Any win at all starts a respin. The winning symbols clear, replacements drop in, and the scarabs from the combination fly off across the board to destroy blocker tiles. Those blockers are what keep the reels short: each one removed unlocks more of a reel, which adds rows, which adds ways. A sequence that keeps producing wins therefore keeps widening the board it is being played on, and each subsequent respin is evaluated across more combinations than the one before it.

Extra lives are what stop the sequence from ending the moment a respin fails to pay. Hold one and a barren respin costs a life instead of the round, buying another attempt on the enlarged grid. This is the resource that decides how long a promising run survives, and running out of them is how most sequences actually finish rather than the spin that fails.

Three collection meters run underneath, each filling with scarabs of one colour and paying out every fifth. Red scarabs award an extra life, extending the sequence. Blue scarabs add 1 to the win multiplier, raising the value of everything that follows. Golden scarabs turn a random reel entirely wild, which on a board that has grown to seven or eight rows deep is a considerable event. When the wins finally stop and no lives remain, the sequence closes and the grid collapses back to its default shape — nothing carries into the next paid spin.

Stakes and limits

The published range is 0.25 to 125 a spin. Because the game concentrates its value in sequences rather than in single lucky spins, the useful measure of a bankroll here is how many opportunities it buys to start one: with a base hit frequency of 20%, roughly one spin in five opens a sequence, and a couple of hundred spins therefore represents a genuine sample of the mechanic rather than a taste of it. Deposits at Casina start from EUR 10 and withdrawals from EUR 20, with routes and timings on the payments page.

Demo play and bonus balance

The demo build runs from the lobby tile with play credits and no deposit. It is worth an unhurried half hour here, because the interaction between blockers, lives and the three meters is difficult to follow from a written description and obvious after watching two or three sequences play out. It has no predictive value whatsoever — the same random number generator serves demo and real play — but as a way of learning the machine it is unusually effective.

For anyone playing with bonus funds, the good news is that this title has no bonus buy to be excluded. The standard clauses still apply: slots normally count 100% toward wagering, and a maximum stake per spin is enforced while a bonus balance is active, which matters given a range that reaches 125. The general terms are summarised on our bonus page.

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