Introduction to Artifacts
Artifacts is a casino slot from Peter & Sons where the royal king has gathered the strongest, and strangest, mercenaries from all over the land. Peter & Sons delivers on yet another fantasy-themed game with its unique and easily recognizable graphics style. Here in Artifacts, you find yourself at a table where royalty and adventurers alike sit down, almost as if they were ready to play some board games, and this one is pretty simple. Built around Cascades and Reel Multipliers, you’ll be spinning to create as long paylines as possible to add as many Multipliers as possible to your wins. Of course, there’s a bit more to it, as we have the Feature Boxes underneath the playing grid to help boost the Multipliers, and Golden Symbols to help keep Cascades going strong. All in all, the game isn’t that complicated, leaning towards its Reel Multipliers to carry the wins, and the Free Spins just make that easier. If you want to experience another Fantasy-themed Peter & Sons release, then sit down and prepare to spin away at Artifacts, and maybe you’ll even hit the max win of 20,000X the bet.
Prop up a chair and join in at the table, as between all the cards shuffling, and strange items rolling through the reels, Reel Multipliers will continue stacking during Cascades for big wins. If you want to try the game for yourself, be sure to give the Artifacts demo a try.
Theme, Gameplay & Payouts
Artifacts is a video slot from Peter & Sons with 5 Reels, 3 Rows, and 243 Ways to Win. You can choose between making a Min.bet of 0.2 and a Max.bet of 50. Artifacts comes with a slightly higher-than-average RTP of 96.26%, a hit frequency of 23.49%, and is played with high volatility. While the max win is 20,000X the bet, you should note that the max win probability averages out at 1 in 50,000,000 spins.
Around the table sit the king and adventurers, sipping on beer, fiddling with coins, or just strumming on their mandolin. The game nails the vibrant fantasy theme, with an exciting, mystical soundtrack and magical effects when lining up wins. You can play the game on most mobiles, notepads, and desktops.
The lower-paying symbols are cards in various colors, ranging from grey, blue, orange, red, and yellow. Creating a win with 5 of the same symbols will pay out 0.25X to 0.3X the bet. The higher-paying symbols are different artifacts, from the strange die, the crystal key, the purple elixir, and the beast heart. Landing a win with 5 of the same symbols pays out 0.5X to 1X the bet. There are a handful of Special Symbols as well, ranging from the typical Wilds and Scatters to the Golden Symbol variants, and the Powerups found in the Feature Boxes, but more on those in the next section.
Special Features & Mechanics
What is the max win in the slot Artifacts?
You can win up to 20,000X the bet.
What features are available in the slot Artifacts?
The features are Wild Symbols, Cascades, Golden Symbols, Reel Multipliers, Feature Boxes, Free Spins, Ante Bet, and Feature Buy.
Wild Symbols
Wild Symbols help form winning combinations by being able to substitute for all symbols except Scatter Symbols.
Cascades
Whenever a winning combination is made, the winning symbols are removed from the playing grid, allowing new symbols to fall in from above and fill in the empty positions. This continues until no more wins are made, at which point the current spin ends.
Golden Symbols
Regular paying symbols have a chance to land as Golden Symbols, being highlighted with a golden outline. Whenever a Golden Symbol is part of a winning combination, it will transform into a Wild Symbol for the next Cascade.
Reel Multipliers
There are 3 Reel Multipliers above the playing grid, and whenever a win is made, the Multipliers will be added if there are any winning symbols on the corresponding reel. If more than one Reel Multiplier is part of the win, then they will be added together before being applied to the win. If more than one Reel Multiplier is added, theReel Multiplier resets after each spin in the base game.
Feature Boxes
Underneath the playing grid, you can find the Feature Boxes, which will spin at the same time as the reels and can come with four different powerups that will be applied to the Reel Multipliers.
Regular Adding Powerup = Increases one of the Reel Multipliers by a value up to +10.
Special Adding Powerup = Increases all Reel Multipliers by a value up to +10.
Regular Multiplier Powerup = Multiplies one of the Reel Multipliers by 2X.
Special Multiplier Powerup = Multiplies all Reel Multipliers by 2X.
Free Spins
Landing 3 Scatter Symbols will trigger the Free Spins feature with 6 spins, and +2 extra spins for any additional Scatter Symbols. During the bonus game, Reel Multipliers stay persistent between spins, and landing any Scatter Symbols will award +2 spins.
Ante Bet
By turning on the Ante Bet, you double your chances of triggering the Free Spins feature, but at the cost of increasing your bet by 1.5X.
Feature Buy
There are 2 Feature Buy options that allow you to instantly start the bonus game for a price based on the current bet.
90X = Triggers the Free Spins feature with 6 spins.
180X = Triggers the Random Free Spins feature with 6 to 10 spins.
270X = Triggers the Power Free Spins feature with 6 to 10 spins and higher chances of getting big Multiplier Powerups from the Feature Boxes.
Final Thoughts on Artifacts
Peter & Sons have a thing for fantasy-themed games, especially those featuring a wizard with a blue hat, as seen with games like Gnomes & Giants and Abrakabra, and to no one’s surprise, the same wizard is also present in Artifacts. However, this bearded fellow is not the main character this time around, as here the king has called in a range of visually interesting characters to fill in the background around the playing grid, even though they don’t actually do anything to the game except make it feel a bit more lively, which we do appreciate quite a bit, even if it’s such a miniscule thing. Visually, the game looks great, with beautiful details on characters and surroundings alike, and, as we mentioned earlier, it really nails that fantasy setting, as if it were straight out of Dungeons and Dragons. But, with the praise we can give the visuals, does the gameplay loop deserve the same acclaim?
Before talking about features and the gameplay loop, we want to mention the stats, as the game has a slightly higher-than-average RTP of 96.26%, a solid hit frequency of 23.49%, and a great max win of 20,000X the bet. Like many other Cascade-centric games, this game is all about chaining paylines, however, we noticed very early on that the paytable was actually a bit on the weaker side. This is, of course, supposed to be balanced out by the Reel Multipliers, but in the base game, Cascades usually can’t keep chaining long enough to feel like the Multipliers can amass too much before the spin ends. While the Free Spins bonus game is kinda boring, with not bringing anything that interesting to the table, the fact that it does keep the Multipliers persistent between spins is the key selling point, and does make it quite a bit easier to hit big wins boosted by the Reel Multipliers. This formula isn’t exactly new, as we’ve seen Cascades and Multipliers being used as a foundation for many games over the years. Peter & Sons seems to have wanted to make this a bit more interesting with the Feature Boxes and their four types of Powerups, and while they’re great for increasing Multipliers, they feel kinda like a spin and forget type of feature, as sometimes you hit Multipliers, sometimes you hit nothing, and there’s just not a lot of thought between those two scenarios. We did enjoy our time with Artifacts, but we can still see that, at its core, it is a rather simple game with most of the added-on features outside of its foundation, such as the Feature Boxes and Golden Symbols, being quite easy to just ignore. If you want to test the game for yourself, then we would recommend that you check out the Artifacts demo.
Artifacts is a slot with an amazing fantasy theme, a Cascading playing grid, and Reel Multipliers to boost your wins.
