John Hunter and the Book of Tut Respin

John Hunter and the Book of Tut Respin Overview

John Hunter and the Book of Tut Respin is a book-style slot from Pragmatic Play, released on 22 September 2022. It is a reworked version of the studio’s 2020 hit John Hunter and the Book of Tut: the same explorer, the same Egyptian tomb and the same 5x3 grid with 10 paylines, but with an expanding-symbol respin feature added to the base game. The game’s own rules give a theoretical RTP of 96.50% (96.48% when you buy the free spins), the volatility meter shows the full five bolts, and the maximum win is 4,000x the bet. Stakes run from 0.10 to 100.

The Book: Scatter and Wild in One

As in every “book of” slot, the golden book does two jobs. The rules say it plainly: “This symbol is both SCATTER and WILD and substitutes for all symbols.” As a scatter it pays anywhere on the reels, calculated on the total bet:

• 5 books: 200x the total bet
• 4 books: 20x
• 3 books: 2x

Three or more books anywhere trigger the free spins.

The Paytable

At a $100 bet the rules screen shows the following values for five, four and three of a kind, paid left to right on adjacent reels:

• John Hunter: $10,000 / $3,000 / $1,000 – 100x, 30x and 10x the bet
• Tutankhamun mask: $5,000 / $1,500 / $400 – 50x, 15x, 4x
• Golden cat and scarab: $3,000 / $1,000 / $300 – 30x, 10x, 3x
• A and K: $1,000 / $300 / $100 – 10x, 3x, 1x
• Q, J and 10: $500 / $150 / $50 – 5x, 1.5x, 0.5x

Only the highest win is paid per line, wins on several lines are added together, and the free spins win is added to the payline win.

What the Respin Adds

The original game had a plain base game: you spun and waited for three books. The Respin version changes that. From time to time the game picks a mystery symbol in the base game, and when three or more of it land anywhere on the reels, they expand to cover their whole reels and the game respins. Our screenshots caught the moment it starts: the side panel switches to FEATURE ACTIVE, and open books fly out across the top of the reels to reveal the chosen symbol. It is the same expanding-symbol mechanic as in the bonus round, brought forward so the base game has something to do.

What Our Spins Showed

We played the demo at a $100 stake, and the win messages under the reels let us check the paytable line by line.

A V-shaped line of three Js paid $50 – the 0.5x from the table. Line 6 later paid $400 for three Tutankhamun masks, with the book standing in on the third position as a wild: exactly the mask’s 4x. Other spins combined two or three lines, for totals of $150 and $250, with John Hunter and the book appearing together on the reels.

Free Spins With a Mystery Symbol

Three books start the bonus with the message “You have won 10 free spins with mystery symbol”. The book opens and reveals the symbol for the round – in our round it was the Tutankhamun mask, the second-best symbol in the game. During the free spins that symbol expands to fill whole reels whenever it lands in enough places to pay. SlotCatalog’s review also describes retriggers during the round, each adding another ten free spins.

The trigger also paid on its own: the win meter read $200 when the free spins began, which is the 2x scatter payout for three books at the $100 stake.

Buying the Free Spins

The green panel on the left offers Buy Free Spins. At a $100 bet the price is $10,000 – 100x the bet, and the confirmation dialog shows the same figure. The balance proves the purchase: $96,350 before, $86,350 after. The rules give a slightly lower RTP for the bought feature, 96.48% against 96.50% for normal play.

Where the 4,000x Comes From

The paytable lets us put the ceiling in perspective. If John Hunter is the mystery symbol and expands over all five reels, each of the ten lines carries five Hunters – 100x per line, 1,000x from a single spin. The 4,000x maximum therefore needs several strong spins inside one bonus, which is why the retriggers matter.

The book itself has its own top prize: five scatters pay 200x the total bet, $20,000 at our $100 stake, before the free spins even start. With the mask as the mystery symbol, as in our round, a full expansion is worth half as much – 50x per line, 500x across the ten lines.

The Rules in Brief

The rules pages are short and worth reading once. The volatility meter shows all five bolts, with the standard note that “high volatility games pay out less often on average but the chance to hit big wins in a short time span is higher”. All values are shown as actual wins in coins, wins on several lines are added together, and only the highest win is paid per line. The ten paylines are drawn as small diagrams: the three rows, two V shapes and five zig-zags. The minimum bet is $0.10, the maximum $100, and the space bar or Enter key can be used to spin.

Graphics and Setting

The reels stand between two carved pillars in front of a desert at sunset, with pyramids on the horizon. The symbols are rendered in rich gold and lapis: a golden cat, a turquoise scarab, the death mask of Tutankhamun and the red, jewelled book. The bonus moves inside the tomb, onto a wall of hieroglyphs lit by fire.

Respin vs the Original

The two games share the 5x3 grid, the ten lines, the book mechanic and the same symbol set. The Respin edition adds the base-game expanding respins and a buy option, and its rules list a 96.50% RTP. The original was a pure “wait for three books” slot; the remake keeps the high volatility but gives the base game more moments of tension.

Who It Is For

John Hunter and the Book of Tut Respin is for players who like the classic book formula and want a little more in the base game. The paytable is familiar, the 100x buy lets you skip straight to the bonus, and the respins keep things moving between free-spin triggers. It is still a high-volatility game: long quiet stretches are part of the deal, and the big wins come from one symbol expanding across the reels.

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