Book of Atem Wowpot vs Atlantean Treasures Mega Moolah

This week's release of the Book of Atem Wowpot slot has been interesting for many reasons. Of course, progressive jackpot fans are always going to welcome the addition of a new game to the fold, especially one that offers a shot at the two million guaranteed Wowpot jackpot.

However, when the game was first revealed, it turned out that the slot was a 10 pay line progressive jackpot game. Now that is pretty unusual for a Microgaming progressive jackpot slot as most games tend to be at least 20 pay lines, if not 25 and in some cases some games offer 243 Ways to Win.

Now those of you that play progressives will know that the release of the Book of Atem slot puts it in direct competition with another relatively new progressive jackpot slot game that also offers 10 pay lines. The Atlantean Treasures Mega Moolah slot, which was released back in February 2020.

In addition to having just 10 pay lines, both slots also offer the chance of a shot at winning a massive progressive jackpot prize and they also can be played for roughly the same amount of money per spin, starting with a minimum bet amount of 0.10 per game. However, one key difference is that the Atlantean Treasures Mega Moolah slot can be played for 200.00 per spin, whereas the maximum bet on the Book of Atem Wowpot slot is 25.00.

So other than the amount you can bet on the slot, what are the other similarities and perhaps more importantly, the key differences between the two slots and which of the two, do we feel offers slot players the best option for a little progressive jackpot action?

With that in mind we decided to compare the two games to come up with our decision of who wins the battle of Microgaming's famous 10 pay line progressives.

Let's begin first by comparing how the two games are set up, before we then compare some of the different facets of each game.

Book of Atem Wowpot vs Atlantean Treasures Mega Moolah

• Game set up

We know that both of these slots can be played from 0.10 per spin and that each game has 10 pay lines in play. We also know that for higher rollers, Atlantean Treasures is the better option as you can get up to 200.00 per spin, whereas on Book of Atem Wowpot the maximum bet is 25.00.

However, there are other key differences in how each game is set up that affect how each plays.

In Book of Atem, the 10 pay lines pay just one way across the reels, in the standard fashion from left to right. However, on Atlantean Treasures, you can land winning lines both ways across the reels, which means right to left in addition to left to right.

This is a massive positive for Atlantean Treasures as it means players have two chances to win on any spin and that if you don't hit a win after the first two reels have resolved, then you can still land a win depending on how reels, 3, 4 and 5 finish up. That is not the case with the Book of Atem slot.

However, in terms of the RTP to players, the Book of Atem slot still comes out slightly on top with a RTP percentage of around 93.5%, whereas the Atlantean Treasures RTP is slightly less at 92.08%.

In terms of the value of wins in each game, Atlantean Treasures offers wins in the base game that range from 0.5x your bet up to 25x your bet, although thanks to symbols being stacked, it is possible to win that across all ten pay lines, which means a maximum pay out of 250x your bet. There are a total of seven different standard symbols on the reels, plus the main bonus feature of the slot, the Expanding Wild.

In Book of Atem there are two more standard symbols, nine in total, five lower value and four higher. Wins range from 0.5x your bet up to 500x your bet in the base game, which is a larger jackpot prize than you find on Atlantean Treasures. In addition, on the Book of Atem slot, the four higher value symbols all offer small payout wins of 0.5x or 1x your bet for just two symbols landed on the reels, In Atlantean Treasures, there are no two symbol wins available. The other symbol on the reel is the Wild Scatter symbol which is the key to the main features of the game.

Bonus games and features

When it comes to bonus features, this is where the two games are very different in their approach and in truth, depending on what is your preferred choice of bonus feature, this will likely influence which of the two games is most appealing to you.

On Atlantean Treasures, there is no Free Spins bonus game available, instead you have Expanding Wilds on the reels in the form of Mermaids. Each time you land one of these on the second, third or fourth reels, they expand to cover the reel and then offer you a free respin of all the other reels. If you can land another Expanding Wild, this is also held in place and a further respin granted. Land all three Expanding Wilds and you get a third respin and you are guaranteed to land a decent sized win.

On the Book of Atem Wowpot slot, there is a Free Spins bonus in play, and this is triggered when you land three or more of the Wild Scatter symbols anywhere across the five reels. When you do this, you receive 10 Free Spins (which can be re-triggered from within the bonus) and in addition to this, one of the symbols in the game is selected at random to be an Expanding Symbol. This means that when it lands on the reels, it will expand to cover the reel in full. Obviously, if you can land these symbols across the reels in succession from left to right, then you stand a chance of a bigger value win.

If you can land the Pharoah as the Expanding Symbol and land all five across the reels, fully covering the reel with the symbol, then you can win the 5,000x maximum base game jackpot prize on the Book of Atem Wowpot slot.

Jackpot Bonus Game and triggering system

Where the Book of Atem WowPot and Atlantean Treasures Mega Moolah slot share a very similar feature comes in how they trigger the Jackpot Bonus Game, which is the key to winning one of the four progressive jackpots on offer in each of the games.

Both games operate a system by where 'tokens' are collected and added to a receptacle and each token collected offers you a chance of triggering the Jackpot Bonus Game and the more tokens you collect, the more chance you have of triggering the bonus wheel.

In the Book of Atem slot, the Tokens are the jewels on the front cover of the Book of Atem Wild Scatter symbol but on the Atlantean Treasure slot they are golden pearls, which are overlaid across random symbols on the reels on spins and which when landed anywhere on the reels, regardless of a win or not, are added to your giant clam receptacle underneath the progressive jackpot prizes.

In both games the more you bet and the higher the number of tokens you can collect, then the greater your chances of triggering the Jackpot Bonus Wheel. Both games also save your progress, so when you log in at a later date, you can continue collecting the tokens in the game in a new session.

The X-Factor - enjoyment

The final thing to consider is just how much fun each game is to play and it is here that both slots score relatively well. The Book of Atem Slot uses the metrics of the original release and adds to that a progressive jackpot element which elevates the game still further. There is still all the playability of the original Book of Atem slot game, but now with a progressive jackpot element that adds even more excitement to the game-play.

However, the system used on the Atlantean Treasures slot of being able to win both ways across the 10 pay lines and the Expanding Wilds, has been used a number of times in other games before and it is a massively popular form of slot. It is also notable that you tend to win a bit more frequently on the Atlantean Treasures slot than you do the Book of Atem slot and that the wins on Atlantean Treasures tend to be slightly better value compared to your bet size, than the wins you land on Book of Atem.

However, the flip side of that is that the Book of Atem offers the chance to win much larger prizes in the base game than is on offer in Atlantean Treasures. Also it comes with a guaranteed 2 million British Pound jackpot, but often growing much more than that. At the time of writing the Wowpot Jackpot is nearing 6 million!

So in terms of enjoyment, I would say that Atlantean Treasures is the more fun to play more often, especially for players that like low to medium variance gaming, while higher variance fans would probably find Book of Atem Wowpot more enticing.

Conclusion

The great thing about these two games is that you can't go wrong regardless of which one you pick to play. Both are excellent progressive jackpot slots that offer something different to the other games in their respective networks

There are some key differences between the two as we have outlined above and that makes me believe that low to medium variance fans will enjoy Atlantean Treasures more, while higher variance slots gamers may find Book of Atem Wowpot more to their liking.

Either way, with a massive progressive jackpot prize available on both games, you are sure to be wholly entertained whatever of the two games you choose to play. But just keep in mind that Atlantean Treasures has already awarded a massive NZ$13.6 million jackpot. That says a lot about the game.

But in terms of which one wins the battle, I'd say that Atlantean Treasures is more enjoyable for the longer term for the majority of players, but that Book of Atem Wowpot offers the greater chance of a more valuable base game or bonus win.