Spirit of the Inca Slot Machine

Spirit of the Inca is an evocative name for a slot, one that lifts your hopes of the game itself being rich in imagery. It’s the sort of slot you can imagine conjuring a rich tropical landscape replete with ancient temple treasures set in an exotic and idyllic hilltop location, surrounded by Incan ruins. And, give or take, that’s what this game gives you.

It’s just unfortunate that it’s all been delivered in such a mediocre manner. RTG, the game’s developer, have been on the go for years and they’ve built up quite a back catalogue. Their games tend to be hit and miss however and it would be fair to say that their Spirit of the Inca video slot is mostly miss.

A Spirited Start

For all its visual flaws, there’s one overriding reason why you might elect to play Spirit of the Inca and that comes down to jackpots. Spirit of the Inca is packing in them – in fact it’s got five. It starts with the mini, then minor, then major, then maxi and finally grand. The value of these progressive jackpots will naturally vary, but will typically start at around 50,000 coins before rising to 250,000 or more. The current values of these pots is displayed across the top of the board along with that lame flame effect that’s meant to depict chests full of burning treasure. Pro tip: never burn your treasure. It never ends well.

When you’re viewing the game on desktop, despite occupying the full screen, the game and its symbols and buttons look cramped, like the aspect ration has been distorted. That’s never a good sign. Spirit of the Inca comes with 25 fixed paylines and you can wager between 0.5 and 5 coins per line, making for a max bet of 125 coins per spin. Hit spin and the reels will set off at lightning speed before stopping abruptly. The effect isn’t remotely convincing, and makes the whole game feel jittery.

Ancient Treasure

When you win with certain symbols in this game, they’ll expand to fill an entire reel and an animated sequence will occur. This will occur with the Incan warrior for example who’s depicted sporting the most impressive set of 8-pack abs ever sculpted. Clearly aesthetic bodybuilding was a thing back in the time of the Incas. As the warrior steps forward with shield and spear raised, he unleashes a roar. This tinny sound effect is laughably bad, and is exacerbated by the fact that the animation and battle cry are repeated ad infinitum or until you decide to end your misery and spin again.

If you’re interested in setting autoplay, you’ll be presented with one of the most detailed submenus ever used in a video slot game. Spirit of the Inca might be a shoddy game, but don’t let it be said that this slot leaves you short of options. Set autoplay precisely how you like it and then enable turbo play if you are of the belief that those reels aren’t moving fast enough as it is. The Incan warrior is the game’s wild symbol and will substitute for all other symbols except for the priestess, who is a scatter. Land five scatters on a payline and you’ll be awarded 5x your total bet. 5x wilds on a line are worth 2,000 coins.

Magic Portals is Similar

Spirit of the Inca is a medium variance slot with an RTP that ranges between 91% and 97%. It plays very similarly to Triton’s Treasure by the same developer. In fact the two slots are essentially save for Spirit of the Inca awarding more free spins – up to 25 are available. Alternatively, gamblers might enjoy NetEnt’s Magic Portals. It’s also a slot with 25 paylines but this one has much better graphics and looks way slicker than Spirit of the Inca. You can win 10 free spins from Magic Portals whose RTP exceeds 96%.

RTG Can Do Better

On the one hand, it’s nice that the mobile-compatible Spirit of the Inca has five progressive jackpots to be won. On the other hand, pretty much everything else about this slot is bad. This is a game which looks poor whatever device you choose to play it on thanks to bad graphics and animations.

The sound effects aren’t the best either. RTG might not be the world’s greatest developer, but they’re capable of better than this. Go play a different Incan-themed slot that will reward you in many more ways than Spirit of the Inca can ever offer.