Sahara Nights (Yggdrasil Gaming): Overview

By now, we’ve seen plenty of spins on the Aladdin-style tale, and it’s clear that studios don’t always feel the need to reinvent the wheel. That’s understandable—there’s a reason classics endure. Put simply, if something works, why change it? So it’s no shock that Yggdrasil Gaming’s trip into a world of flying carpets and mystical beings mostly sticks to familiar territory. What you do get, though, is a stunning visual production and an engaging journey that perhaps could have benefited from a bit more attention to the maths.

Open Sesame! In this first-ever Arabian-themed offering from Yggdrasil Gaming you’ll be chasing your wishes across a 5×3, 20-payline reel set. Medium variance, it comes with magical lamps in the base game that expand into mystical genie wilds and a free spins round where up to three fully stacked sticky wild reels can turn gild to gold. Use any device, including iOS and Android, to transport yourself to the Saharan desert and start spinning from 0.20 to €/$100 per spin.

We mention this in almost every Yggdrasil Gaming review, but it deserves repeating. The studio consistently produces some of the best-looking titles around, and Sahara Nights is no different. It’s so atmospheric and easy on the eyes that we ended up spending longer testing it than we usually would. The artwork is intricate, the colours are vibrant, and the sweeping orchestral soundtrack suits the theme perfectly. Set within the sultan’s palace with the Arabian night sky glowing in the background, the reels show 4 low-value gemstones plus 4 higher-paying picture symbols: goblets, daggers, Aladdin and a princess. The sultan is easily the most valuable, awarding 175 times your stake for five of a kind—you only need two of him to score a win, while the other symbols require three. The genie lamp acts as the wild, substituting for all standard symbols, and it plays a key role as you’ll soon see.

Sahara Nights (Yggdrasil Gaming): Features

Sahara Nights isn’t the most feature-heavy slot Yggdrasil has released, but what’s included is enjoyable enough. First up is the Genie Wild, which can only land on the three middle reels. When it helps form a winning combination, the genie wild changes from a normal wild into a fully stacked wild.

The Genie Wild feature also carries over into the Free Spins round, which triggers when 3, 4 or 5 storybook scatters land anywhere on the reels—awarding 8, 12 or 16 free spins respectively, plus a 1000x reward for landing all 5. During the bonus, when a Genie Wild appears it not only expands like it does in the base game, it also remains sticky for the duration of the feature. If you manage to land all three, 2 extra free spins are added to your total. You can also retrigger the bonus for 2 extra spins by landing 2 storybook scatters anywhere on the screen.

Sahara Nights (Yggdrasil Gaming): Verdict

If you want to drift off to a magical setting for a while and enjoy a slot with top-tier visuals, a superb soundtrack, and volatility that isn’t overly punishing, Sahara Nights is a solid fit. Players chasing huge hits and rapid-fire excitement should look elsewhere, however, as the win potential is far from thrilling.

The absence of stacked regular symbols, combined with the fact that sticky wilds can only appear on the three central reels, limits the game’s strength compared to what it could have been. With medium variance, the modest potential isn’t entirely unexpected, but it still feels lower than it needs to be—at least in our view. The biggest payout won’t come from standard symbols or even the sticky wild reels (which can only return around 250x per spin), but instead from landing 5 storybook scatters, as noted earlier.

Sahara Nights is undeniably gorgeous. It’s also fun to play, though for some the experience will inevitably be held back by the underwhelming potential. All that’s left is to hope your session doesn’t end up as dry as the Sahara desert—huh huh.