Which symbols survive an Exploding Wild in Tutan Kha-boom, and what does the blast do to the Multiplier?
Two kinds: the Scatter and the pharaoh, the game's High Pay symbol. Everything else in the wild's row and column is removed, the gaps fill from above, and that drop counts as an Avalanche, so the Multiplier under the urns moves up a step whether or not anything pays. It doubles each time, x1 to x32 in the base game; in the Bonus Game x64 waits behind 15 collected Wilds. In our 750 paid spins 185 base-game blasts went off on 136 spins, and 44 of those spins paid nothing.
Pay ways that start at the urns and climb five rows
The help screens describe "a video slot with 3 reels and 5 rows and 99 connecting pay ways". The game page's 5×3 puts the rows first, and its Game details list Reels 3: a tall, narrow grid either way. Each reel stands on a dark blue urn, and that is where every win begins.
A way starts on the bottom row and rises one row at a time, each step landing on the same reel or the one beside it, never jumping from the left reel to the right. Three symbols fill the lowest three rows; five reach the top. Count every such path on three reels and five rows and you get exactly 99. The pharaoh in the purple and gold headdress is the High Pay symbol: on a €1.00 bet, three of them pay €1.00, four €2.00 and five €5.00. The pink mummy pays €0.50, €0.90 and €2.50; our frames of the pay table stop before the other mummies.
Bottoms Up™, an Ankh Explosive Wild and a Redrop Multiplier are named on the game page as well. None of those names appears on the parts of the six help screens we captured, which describe the mechanics as Exploding Avalanche, Exploding Wild and Multiplier.
Five Avalanches to reach x32, and x1 again on the next spin
Winning symbols explode and new ones drop from above. The rules call each drop an Avalanche and let it raise the Multiplier shown under the reels: x1, x2, x4, x8, x16 and x32 in the base game. The sequence runs until no new win or Wild is left, and the next paid spin starts again at x1.
Behind that frame the server recorded 0.40 at x1, nothing at x2 and 4.40 at x4. Over our 750 paid spins, 268 set off at least one Avalanche and 158 stopped after the first. Only 12 lit x16 or higher, 5 of them x32. The longest chain, 6 Avalanches on spin 484, was also the only base spin with a win paid at x32: €6.40.
Multiplied wins carried the base game. Of the €559.90 it returned, €353.00 came from wins paid at x2 or more, €144.60 of that at x2 alone. Our best base spin, number 613, climbed through five Avalanches and collected €28.80 of its 41.5x on the x16 step.
The bomb clears a cross on the grid but spares two symbols
The Exploding Wild can replace any symbol apart from the Scatter. When it goes off, it removes all symbols in its row and its column, except Scatters and High Pay symbols. In the server's answers the survivors were always the same two: pharaohs and the gold Scatter skulls with glowing blue eyes.
Tutan Kha-boom himself plays the wild, says Thunderkick's game page, which calls it the Ankh Explosive Wild; the help screens show this same pharaoh as the Exploding Wild, and its blast needs no win of its own.
Three wilds exploded one after another on spin 316 without a single win, pushing the Multiplier to x8, and when the last gap filled, three Scatters were on the reels.
Three Wilds collected, one rung gone for the rest of the round
Three Scatters open the Bonus Game, worth 10 free spins. Two more during the round add 3 spins and three add 7. Every third Wild collected removes the lowest Multiplier and adds a spin, and 15 Wilds unlock x64. In practice the ladder shrinks from the bottom: after three Wilds each free spin starts at x2, after six at x4, and so on up to x16.
Our two natural rounds went different ways. Spin 38 brought 15 free spins, two of them from 6 collected Wilds and three from a pair of Scatters, yet its free spins paid only €21.80. Spin 316 gave 11 and just 4 Wilds, but free spin 6 started at x2 and climbed to x32, paying €3.40, €20.00, €4.80, €32.00 and €19.20: €79.40 in one free spin.
Two control purchases of that card, at 80x the stake, returned €243.00 from 14 free spins and €152.40 from 17, collecting 13 and 14 Wilds. A third purchase, filmed in the media session at the same stake, went less well.
The 12 free spins returned €50.70 for €80.00, and two spins provided more than three quarters of it.
Rated at 94.50% by the demo server, the buy sits slightly above the 94.17% of ordinary spins. The BET+ switch, off on every frame we took, has four modes there costing 2x, 3x, 5x and 9x per spin, rated 94.28% to 94.50%; no official source says what they change. This demo runs the 94.17% build that the game page, the rules and the server all name. Casinos may run a different one, and some markets disable the buy.
| Option | Price | At €1.00 | RTP of the buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bonus Game | 80x | €80.00 | 94.50% |
750 spins in which the low point came one spin before the best round
Stakes of €750.00 across our 750 paid spins brought back €673.10, or 89.7%. A win came on 29.9% of spins, half of all wins were 1x or smaller, and no losing streak ran past 20 spins.
- 750paid spins at €1.00 in the demo
- 89.7%of the stakes paid back
- 91.4xbest round, free spins included
- 2free spins rounds triggered
The balance hit its low, €4,922.10, on spin 315, and the Bonus Game on the very next spin lifted it straight back above the start. The high of €5,069.90 followed on spin 358, a five-Avalanche chain in the base game, and the rest of the run gave it back.
Read side by side, the rules of Esqueleto Explosivo 2 and of Tutan Kha-boom share a great deal: 99 ways, a doubling Multiplier from x1 to x32, x64 kept back until Wilds are collected, 10 free spins for three Scatters and 3 or 7 more inside the round. Even the two pay table rows we can read match. The differences are the direction, left to right there and bottom to top here, the wild's blast, its neighbours there and a whole row and column here, and the return: 96.13% against 94.17%. No official source links the two games.
It suits anyone who likes watching a chain build: short ones come often, and in the Bonus Game every third Wild collected early raises the starting Multiplier of the free spins that follow. Bonus rounds are scarce, though: two natural ones in 750 spins, and three purchases that ranged from €50.70 to €243.00.
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Short replies, each checked against the help screens or the demo server's answers.
Do wins have to start on the bottom row?
Yes. The rules say symbols connect from bottom to top, and all 589 ways the demo server paid us began on the lowest row, then rose one row at a time onto the same reel or the one next to it.
Where does the Multiplier start on each free spin?
At x1 until three Wilds have been collected, then at the lowest step left on the ladder: x2, x4, x8 and finally x16. In our first control purchase every free spin from the eleventh on began at x16, and five pharaohs on one of them paid €80.00 at €1.00.
Is the pharaoh safe when an Exploding Wild goes off?
It is. The pharaoh is the High Pay symbol, and the rules spare High Pay symbols and Scatters from the blast. In the server's answers no pharaoh standing in a blast's row or column was ever removed.
How close did our rounds come to the x64 Multiplier?
One Wild short. Our second control purchase collected 14 of the 15 Wilds needed, so x64 stayed locked and x16 was its lowest step; the first collected 13. The two natural rounds managed 6 and 4, and the filmed purchase 6.
What does BOTTOMS UP on the intro screen refer to?
Thunderkick's game page names a Bottoms Up™ feature and its launch press release places it in the base game, but neither says what it does, and the parts of the six help screens we captured never use the name. The one bottom-up rule they contain is the direction of the pay ways.