Golden Glyph 2

Golden Glyph 2: Slot Overview

The original Golden Glyph game was the first by Quickspin to use a cluster pays mechanic, and to their credit, the team created a great looking slot offering novel gameplay to boot. Whey they cooked up revolved around cluster wins, leaving power wilds in gaps to trigger additional modifiers and eventually free spins. For the sequel, Quickspin has wisely left the core elements that made the first one popular while tinkering with the rest. By tinkering, we mean adding extra features, smoothing out the ride, as well as cranking up potential.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and for us, the original beats the sequel in the looks department. Golden Glyph 2 is no duff, however, where we find a light-filled 7x7 grid in a wadi next to an attractive view of pillars, cliffs, and an airy temple. There's also a chap on camelback with a rifle in the foreground presumably guarding the temple players are planning to ransack? It is exotic, though not as much as the first one's sunrise over the majestic pyramids scene was.

Certain stats have seesawed, while others have rocketed out of the stratosphere. The default RTP is one that has dropped a bit, coming in at 96.09% (compared to 96.19% of the original). However, Golden Glyph 2 now has three feature buy options, and each one has a higher theoretical payout than before of 96.3%-96.6%. Volatility, on the other hand, has been increased to 4 out 5. Not a huge change, on paper at least, but coupled with far greater potential can make Golden Glyph 2 a challenging beast to ride. Quickspin also claims the hit rate has increased, though they haven't provided figures to compare the two.

A similar set of pay symbols have been used this time as well. On the low-value portion of the paytable are water symbols, eyes, Ankhs, plus serpents, then come the higher value characters of the Pharaoh, Queen, and a Horus looking symbol. The biggest clusters are made up of 15 or more matching symbols, carrying payout values of 75 to 150 times the stake. This is a tad lower than in the original, which eagle-eyed viewers are bound to note, yet features have been expanded to compensate. One other symbol is the regular winged 'W' tile, which is wild. It basically substitutes for any regular pay symbol to help complete a cluster.

Golden Glyph 2: Slot Features

If you've played the original Golden Glyph, the core concepts presented here will be familiar, but Quickspin has revamped them to increase potency. It starts with the Power Glyph symbol, which appears in one of the winning locations when a cluster is removed from the grid. Power Glyphs function like a wild, and when they are removed, the next Power-Up on the tracker bar below the grid is activated.

Each spin displays 7 Power-Ups. In the base game, the 7th one is always a 2x3 sized Gigantic Wild, and in free spins, it is always a Golden Glyph. The first 6 power-ups are either Golden Scarabs, which add 4-11 wilds to the grid, or one of the 6 Patterns of Horus. When patterns are triggered, they remove certain symbols from the grid in pre-set patterns called Cross, Ankh, Bird, Eye, Hourglass, and Snake.

Should 3 scatters land in the base game, 7 free spins are coming your way. If 3 land during free spins mode, then +5 extra spins are awarded. A Golden Glyph symbol is awarded on the first free spin, which stays on the grid for the rest of the feature, moving to a new spot between free spins. The Golden Glyph is wild and has a multiplier starting at x1, rising by one when involved in a winning cluster, up to a maximum of x50. If more than one Golden Glyph is used in a win, their multipliers are added before being applied. It is possible to have up to 4 active Golden Glyphs on the reels at once.

The final extra is a bonus buy feature, of which there are 3 options. Forking out 50x, 150x, or 275x the bet buys you entry to free spins with 1, 2, or 3 starting Golden Glyphs, respectively.

Golden Glyph 2: Slot Verdict

The first Golden Glyph offered some fine clusters pays gaming, made even more impressive since it was Quickspin's first foray into the genre. Instead of copying another studio's success stories, the team came up with a Power Glyphs leading to modifiers and free spins system in its place. Quickspin has lived up to its word for the sequel by smoothing out the gameplay and giving players more of everything.

It's not all plain sailing to bigger piles of riches, though, as other areas have been nipped to provide balance. For one, symbol values have been reduced in certain areas, most noticeably in the case of the Horus premium, leading to considerable spin cycles that don't amount to a whole lot. There is a longer line of Power-Up features to work through on each spin too - 7 compared to 5, and swapping out some of the modifiers of the first Golden Glyph for symbol removal patterns is arguably less exciting.

Fortunately, you don't need to unlock free spins from the Power-Up panel this time. Using scatters to the bonus game will probably be a better set up for some players. Gone are those lengthy wins sequences of the first that almost got you there, only to be denied at the last hurdle. Now all you need is to land 3 scatters on a spin, and you're in, or just buy them if you are not in the mood to wait around. As before, the Golden Glyph symbol is the game-changer, and now you can have 4 of them bouncing around the mix at once Jammin' Jars style, rather than just one. In total, more than twice the Golden Glyph multiplying power is available now, leading to wins worth up to 29,500 times your stake.

Fans of the first should be very pleased with the upgrade, as will any grid slot buff after a solidly built game. It's got the recognisable Quickspin shine, the features are cleverly done, and the performance specs easily surpass the original. If you're looking for a slot that doesn't require you to collect winning symbols to trigger features, it's well worth a spin.