Aztec Gold Mines

The online casino industry is a funny old thing, in that you see one casino games developer do something unique and then BAM…a series of releases follow suit, and suddenly we have a new trend on our hands. The latest of these seems to be the Minesweeper trend, and if you happened to have killed time back when Windows 95 was all the rage, then this casino game should come easy to you – pick enough windows and don't get blown up, and you could be walking away with a prize. As easy as it sounds, there is a little extra to Aztec Gold Mines than just picking blank spaces, so let's see how this new release compares to the others we've experienced.

As you might have gathered by now, this isn’t an online slots game. Rather, it’s a casino game that could be considered unique to what you’ve experienced before, as most online casino games tend to fall into the online slots or online table games categories. Aztec Gold Mines is a game that requires you to click on blank spaces to reveal paying symbols, but can also blow up your run if you pick a booby-trapped space. The casino software studio that created Aztec Gold Mines is iSoftBet, and although they definitely know this already, this isn't the first casino game of its kind. Mining Madness and Mines Dare2Win are both games that preceded this release and could be considered very similar. There are differences, however, but to draw conclusions from them will be clutching at straws.

When you open up Aztec Gold Mines, you'll probably think that you've chosen to play a slots title, as there's a grid consisting of 5 reels and 5 rows. Unlike a slot, though, the windows remain blank, instead of symbols populating the reels. In order to play for cash, you'll have the option of wagering between 1 – 300 per round, which is a huge wagering window and one that has a stake for players from all budgets. In some disappointing news, the most significant return on your stake will only be 288x. This is in comparison to Mines Dare2Win, which gives up to 10,000x your stake as the biggest win.

Most of us will have played Minesweeper, and if you have, then the concept in Aztec Gold Mines is the same. But before you get into the actual gameplay, you'll need to go through a few selections first. The first of these is how much you'd like to bet, with the amounts, as mentioned above, being anything between 1 – 300. Once you've done this, you need to decide on the risk factor, as the higher the risk, the higher the reward. To explain the risk, we need to fast forward a little to how Aztec Gold Mines is played. The 5x5 grid hosts 25 blank spaces. To play a round, you need to click on these empty spaces in the hope of unveiling a gold icon. Each gold icon adds to a progressive cash pile, with players able to stop and cash out at any time, or continue clicking blank spaces to grow the cash pile. The hiccup is that hidden in the empty spaces are also mines, which, if clicked on, end your game, meaning you lose all the cash you build.

The risk vs reward is determined by how many mines you choose to have hidden in the grid before the round starts. The more mines hidden the higher the returns will be for revealing gold icons. 

As a casino game that is quite one-dimensional, there aren't any special features that can be taken advantage of. It'll all depend on you getting the calls right.

Aztec Gold Mines is different from its competitors in that it tells you how much you’ll win for successfully revealing another gold icon. However, it doesn't let you choose how large you want the grid to be, only allowing you to pick the number of mines hidden in the grid. It's obviously a bit of fun, but doesn't have anywhere near the paying potential of Mines Dare2Win, so while this release has a place at our casino site, we don't expect it to outperform expectations.