Books of Tao

Dreamtech Gaming, working with distribution partner Relax Gaming, built Books of Tao around Taoist iconography rather than the Egyptian settings most 'Book of' style slots default to. The reels stand inside a pagoda perched on a mist-covered mountainside, accompanied by a flute-and-drum soundtrack that leans into the Chinese theme.

The game runs on a fixed 5x3 grid with 10 paylines, and bets range from 0.20 up to 200 per spin, a wider top end than most titles in this category, aimed at higher-stakes players as much as casual spinners. Nine regular symbols pay: five lower-value icons standing in for the five Taoist elements — earth, metal, fire, water and wood — and four premiums, a quill, a piece of jade, a gourd, and a wise-man figure representing Lao Tzu. The Lao Tzu symbol pays from just two matching icons on a line rather than the usual three, and a run of five is worth 250x the stake, making him the most valuable regular symbol in the set.

A single Yin & Yang icon covers both the wild and scatter roles. As a wild it substitutes for any of the nine pay symbols, and landing three or more anywhere on the reels awards 10 free spins, with the round able to retrigger.

The feature built around the theme is a set of three rotating positions above the reels. At the start of any base spin, up to three different symbols can be assigned to these positions, turning them into expanding symbols for that spin. Where a resulting combination would pay, the assigned symbol expands to fill its entire reel and pays out regardless of whether the covered positions sit next to each other, with those wins added on top of any standard line payouts. The same assignment happens at the start of the free spins round, so bonus spins carry the same chance of multiple reels expanding at once.

RTP is set at 96.51%, and volatility is rated high, with much of that swing concentrated in how often the expanding symbols line up. The best possible outcome is a full screen of Lao Tzu icons, expanded across every reel, which pays 2,500x the triggering bet; the cash win on any spin is capped at €250,000 regardless of stake. Because the expanding mechanic can fire during ordinary base spins as well as in the bonus round, large results are not confined to the free spins feature the way they are in many similar titles.