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Blueprint Gaming is taking us back to the Arabian desert with Shimmering Sands, a 243-ways release that completely abandons traditional line wins in favor of multipliers, coin collections, and jackpot chases.
I recently sat down for a few sessions with this game. While it offers plenty of features and a multi-tiered bonus round, its underlying math model might frustrate players who prefer steady base game hits. Here is my honest breakdown of what to expect when you spin the reels.
The Base Game: Brace Yourself for a Flat Paytable
Let’s get this out of the way early: the paytable in Shimmering Sands is incredibly flat. The top premium symbols, a palace, a tiger, and a camel, pay out just over your stake for a five-of-a-kind. The royal symbols? They won’t even cover the cost of your spin.
Because the symbols carry so little weight, you are entirely reliant on the 243-ways mechanic and multipliers to turn a profit. The saving grace here is the Wild Lamp on the middle reels, which can carry multipliers that apply to every winning way. When the stars align, it works. Early in my session, a block of stacked camels on the first four reels, combined with a Wild on reel two, netted a respectable 16x my bet.
However, without those stacks and multipliers, the base game runs dry very quickly. During one stretch, I hit eight dead spins in a row, a stark reminder of how volatile this math model really is.
Coin Collects and “Fake” Progression
A huge chunk of the base game revolves around silver and gold coins carrying values up to 20x your bet. But they are dead symbols unless a Blitz Collect Wild lands on the middle reels at the exact same time.
If you’ve played Playtech’s King of the Barrels, you’ll know this feeling. I had a pair of 6x coins drop into view, only to watch them pay nothing because the collector was nowhere to be found. It turns the base game into a waiting game for two specific symbols to align.
You’ll also notice Ruby and Emerald gems flying up into treasure chests above the reels. Collecting these offers a chance to trigger the Combo Frenzy free spins. Fair warning to players: the chests filling up is purely visual. The rules say so themselves: a fatter chest doesn’t mean the bonus is any closer to triggering.
The Cash Lock Bonus: Where the Game Shines
The main event triggers when you land six or more coins on a single spin. This brings up the Wheel Feature, which spins to award one of four Hold & Win variants: Standard, Ruby, Emerald, or Double Jewel.
This is a standard 3-respin “Cash Lock” feature where triggering coins lock in place, but the chests add some much-needed variety:
- Emerald: Drops a chest that multiplies two or more coins by 2x or 3x before vanishing.
- Ruby: Drops a chest that collects the values of the coins on the board and stays locked in place.
- Double Jewel: The holy grail, combining both modifiers.
One minor gripe: the pacing of the bonus round is surprisingly slow. The game requires you to manually press the button for every single respin, playing out a result the RNG has already decided.
Max Win and The Jackpot Chase
Shimmering Sands caps its max win at 5,000x your bet. To put into perspective how reliant this game is on modifiers: a full screen of the top premium symbol pays less than 300x, and a full board of the highest 20x coins during the Cash Lock pays exactly 300x.
You simply aren’t going to get near that 5,000x cap without the heavy multiplication found in the Double Jewel bonus, or by tapping into the Rapid Fire Jackpots network. Landing five jackpot symbols anywhere on the reels triggers a separate wheel containing multipliers up to 1,000x, alongside five progressive pots.
