Book Of Ra from Novomatic might easily be one of the most popular slots of all time.

Having charmed patrons of brick-and-mortar casinos around the world, it went online to win the hearts of players all over the world.

Read on to learn all about the original game as well as subsequent sequels launched by the same developer.

The Novomatic Group is one of the largest gaming companies founded in 1980 by professor Johann F. Graf. Having started off with the production of land-based gaming products, the Group nowadays boasts more than 250,000 gaming terminals in 70+ countries.

The acquisition of Greentube in 2010 facilitated the company’s entry into the online market and a number of popular Novomatic slot machines consequently became accessible to every player with a desktop computer or a smartphone.

Book of Ra is one of the titles that became a big hit on casino floors before we got to play it via the internet. Its online version was an immediate success and prompted the developer to produce as many as 8 other games inspired by the original slot.

Competitors didn’t want to miss out on what looked like a winning formula either, which is why one can nowadays find more than a few replicas with very similar themes and gameplay.

So what is it that made this particular title an instant hit and why does Book Of Ra still seem to be just as popular as when it was first launched?

The secret is the winning trio – a theme that appeals to a wide audience, straightforward gameplay with lucrative free spins bonus round, and last but not least, high win potential.

Inspired by Ancient Egypt, Novomatic has created a virtual journey resembling one of Indiana Jones’ quests.

There are no villains looking to steal long-lost treasures from under your nose, though; fortunes are within reach as long as you manage to line up inquisitive explorers, sarcophaguses, magical books, golden statues or scarabs.

Oh yes, you’ll also find the familiar royals but that’s hardly surprising for an older slot originating from a casino floor. Simple visuals come together with sounds typically associated with classic fruities.

The original Book Of Ra features 5 reels and 9 flexible pay lines. By choosing to bet $0.01-$5 per line, one can spin the reels for a minimum of 9p and a maximum of $45.

Scattered Book also acts as Wild able to stand in for any of the other icons. It pays up to 200x your total stake and in groups of 3 launches 10 free games with an expanding symbol randomly selected before reels start spinning for free.

This special symbol may stretch to cover 3 positions instead of one and thus facilitate a win. What’s more, it will pay even for multiple occurrences on non-adjacent positions.

Players can retrigger free games by landing at least 3 Scatters and use the Gamble feature to double the amount won up to 5 times.

The original Book Of Ra is a highly volatile slot so get ready for multiple non-winning rounds and take comfort in knowing that, when the game does pay, wins are likely to be quite dramatic.

The RTP of 92.13% is quite low but the maximum payout of 50,000 coins partially makes up for it.

Book Of Ra Deluxe was the first to follow the hugely successful original.

The theme remains the same, visual appearance is only slightly upgraded, and instead of 9 flexible lines, the deluxe version uses 10.

The Book still has a double role; it can substitute for any other game symbol and launches free games when 3 or more land at the same time.

While mechanics and win potential remain identical and volatility high, RTP increases to a much more acceptable 95.1%.

The explorer who first took us to Egypt is back with the same collection of symbols which can now land on 6 reels instead of 5.

However, a fee has to be paid in order to activate the additional reel and benefit from six-of-a-kind wins.

Activating Extra Bet doubles your total stake. Wild Scatters once again trigger 10 Free Spins with a randomly chosen expanding symbol.

RTP is now only 95.03%, but when playing with 6 reels, the top reward increases to 75,000 coins.

Jackpot Of Legends installment boosts the successful mechanism consisting of free games and the familiar expanding icon with the opportunity to win one of four jackpots.

Golden coins collected during the play fill the Jackpot Treasure Chest and any of them can trigger the Jackpot Game.

The latter is a pick& click exercise with the goal of finding three matching symbols which in turn award Mini, Minor, Major or Grand Jackpot. The last two are initially seeded at $2,500 and $187,500 respectively.

This is also a highly volatile title offering a lower-than-average return of 95%.

Temple Of Gold is another high variance sequel with 10 bet lines, but to keep things interesting, this time action takes place in South America.

The change of scenery requires a new set of symbols including an attractive adventuress that has taken the place of our bellowed Indiana Jones lookalike.

Reels will spin for $0.10-$50 to the sound of a themed tune. Scatter and Wild remain one and the same but there’s a significant change to the bonus round triggered by 3+ Books.

Depending on the number of Scatters (3, 4 or 5), Free Spins will play with 1, 2 or 3 expanding symbols. The theoretical return continues to grow (95.28%) but the top reward remains the same.

The next title in line takes the original explorer back to Egypt and presents a game area with 5 reels and 10 pay lines. The Book is still both Wild and Scatter.

It takes at least 3 to trigger 10 free games with an expanding symbol randomly chosen before reels start spinning.

One major difference is that players can benefit from up to 9 expanding icons since an additional one is chosen with each retrigger.

However, the change in gameplay doesn’t affect the top payout nor volatility and RTP remains low at 95.03%.

Mystic Fortunes sequel doesn’t deliver anything new in terms of symbols or set-up, except that the 10 pay lines are now permanently enabled.

The minimum bet per spin of $0.50 may be out of reach for some players while the max stake of only $5 per round is likely too low to attract high-rollers.

The multifunctional Book once again activates 10 free games with an expanding symbol but it can also randomly trigger the Jackpot Feature.

Should that happen, you’ll be presented with 12 coins and tasked with finding 3 of the same color. Each color represents one of 4 jackpots.

Mini and Minor are fixed and their value depends on the size of your bet while Major and Grand jackpots progressively increase.

Their seed value is $400/$5,000. Mystic Fortunes is a high variance slot with an RTP of 95%.

Book Of Ra 10 breaks the mold. Although it uses the same symbols as the original title, the games pay over 100 lines with the help of a second reel set positioned to the right of the primary one. The two will spin simultaneously for a minimum of €0.20 and a maximum of €40.

Getting a full reel Wild on the first reel set populates the entire corresponding reel on the second set with a stacked Wild.

While Wild depicted as a golden coin does the substitution, Scattered Books which appear only on reels 1, 3 and 5 of both reel sets launch the bonus round. The number of triggering symbols determines the number of free spins as well as the size of the win multiplier.

You’ll get 8 spins and a multiplier of x2 for 3 Scatters, 12 spins with wins boosted by x5 for 4 Scatters, and 20 free games with payouts multiplied x20 for 5 Scatters. There’s only one special expanding icon but it’s transferred to the corresponding reel on the right where it becomes stacked.

Game variance is low to medium and RTP, unfortunately, drops to 95.02%.

A highly successful franchise has prompted the developer to go beyond the slots category and create an interesting two-in-one package. Book Of Ra Bingo offers you to play 1, 2, 3, or 4 cards and bet $0.02-$12.50 per card.

Each card contains 15 unique numbers. There are 90 balls in total and 30 are drawn in each round.

Winning patterns and the respective payouts are displayed on top along with the jackpot value which is directly dependent on the size of your bet. Jackpot is won if one gets Bingo with the maximum number of 30 balls.

A near win activates the option to purchase up to 11 extra balls. This benefit will cost you 2x the current bet per card to start with but the price increases along with the number of balls bought. Two special patterns activate the Book Of Ra Bonus game.

A portal opens to let the player enter the pyramid which stores reels borrowed from the Book Of Ra Deluxe slot. Depending on the pattern, there’ll be 5 or 10 pay lines.

Reels will spin 10 times free of charge and randomly selected expanding symbols will help you win more before returning to the original Bingo game.

The Book Of Ra franchise was clearly inspirational for many other developers. Some of them were happy to produce clones while others invested a bit more effort to make their titles at least different if not better than Novomatic’s big hit.

Book Of Dead by Play ‘n GO replicates the mechanism but upgrades the model by providing far more attractive visuals, higher RTP, and the top reward of 250,000 coins.

Ramses Book by Bally Wulff also offers a somewhat bigger return but is in every other way nearly identical to Book Of Ra.

Valley of Pharaohs from Booming Games plays pretty much the same but looks much better and has a max win potential of 300,000 coins.

Evoplay (Egypt Gods) and Playson (Treasures Of Tombs) are two other developers that have decided to stick to the proven formula.

Big Time Gaming kept all successful ingredients while boosting the package with up to 15,625 ways to win. BTG’s Legacy Of Ra Megaways is pretty much guaranteed to appeal to fans of Novomatic’s Book Of Ra as it combines the familiar gameplay with a massive top win potential of 50,000x the stake.