IGT’s Mystery Express Slot Review

Mystery Express Theme/Symbols

Mystery Express has a travelling theme as you go on a train journey of intrigue throughout the capital cities of Europe. With a Victorian feel, you begin in London as you see Big Ben in the background. With the mysterious Christopher and Isabella characters perched alongside the reels, symbols include pistols, slices of chocolate cake, whiskey tumblers, diamond rings, pocket watches, pendants and characters Christopher and Isabella.

There’s also a green gemstone wild symbol which substitutes for all symbols excluding the bonus symbol – it’s also the most rewarding giving you 3, 10 or 33.33 times your stake for 3, 4 or 5 on a payline. Winning combinations are formed by getting 3 or more matching symbols from left to right (beginning from reel 1) on any of the 30 paylines.

Level Up Plus feature

The Mystery Express slot is a Level Up game – this can also be found in other IGT slots. You begin in the Traveler Level where you head to London. Every time a bonus symbol appears in the base game, Travel Experience points are earned – you can also earn points and level up by:

• Activating the Bon Voyage Bonus feature
• Landing on the Extra Ticket spot
• Land on the Mini Slot Bonus spot
• Land on the Wheel Bonus spot

You can see the Travel Experience points meter in the top left-hand corner of the screen. When you collect a certain number of points, a level up is awarded. Here’s what to expect from each level:

• Traveler Level: train starts in London with all Mini Slot machines and Wheels being copper.
• Voyager Level: train starts in Paris. Mini Slot machines and Wheels are bronze with richer awards. You need to 200 points to reach this level.
• Adventurer Level: train starts in Venice. Mini Slot machines and Wheels are silver which great awards. You need to earn 500 points to reach this level.
• Explorer Level: once you amass 1,000 points, the Mystery Box Bonus feature is unlocked.
• Globetrotter Level: the train starts in Istanbul. Mini Slot machines and Wheels are gold which greater awards. You need 2,000 points to play at this level.

Mystery Box Bonus feature

The Mystery Box Bonus feature is triggered automatically at Explorer Level (1,000 points required). The Diamond spot becomes a Mystery Box – you pick 1 of the 3 to win a cash prize up to 200 times your total stake.

Mystery Wild Bonus feature

Mystery Express comes with a randomly triggered Mystery Wild Bonus feature – the Mystery Express train appear and randomly turns between 1 and 5 reels fully wild. If you were to get 5 fully wild reels, you’d pocket 1,000 times your total stake.

Bon Voyage Bonus feature

The Bon Voyage Bonus feature is played when you get the bonus symbol simultaneously on reels 1, 3 and 5. You pick from 1 of them to reveal the number of initial rolls. If you get the bonus symbol on reels 1 and 3, there’s a 2nd chance to get that third bonus symbol – via a free respin.

Once in, you will begin with 2, 3 or 4 rolls of the dice – depending on your level, you will begin your journey in London, Paris, Venice or Istanbul. On the map, there are different bonus features to win:

• Extra Ticket feature – gives you 1 or 2 extra rolls. You can play with up to 50 rolls.
• Multiplier feature – landing on a Multiplier spot gives you a cash prize of between 2 and 10 x stake.
• Mini Slot Bonus feature – landing on Paris, Belgrade, Budapest or Brussels triggers this extra where you spin the mini slot machine with 2x wilds, 3x wilds and 4x wilds.
• Wheel Bonus feature – landing on London, Venice, Istanbul or Vienna gives you this feature. Here you can win cash prizes up to 30 times your stake (in Level 5).
• Mystery Box feature – landing on a Diamond spot in Explorer Level sees you pick a Mystery Box to win up to 200 x stake.

Mini Slot Bonus feature

The most significant of the feature is the Mini Slot Bonus feature – here you can win certain amounts depending on what level you’re at:

• Traveler Level: win up to 50 x stake
• Voyager Level: win up to 166.67 x stake
• Adventurer & Explorer Level: win up to 300 x stake
• Globetrotter Level: win up to 466.66 x stake

Mystery Express thoughts

The Mystery Express slot has a lot going on – it’s well designed and all about collect Travel Experience points to progress through the various levels. The higher up you reach, the bigger the prizes in the Bon Voyage Bonus feature basically. You can move around the board game and pick up quite a few wins with the Mini Slot Bonus feature and the Mystery Box feature in particular.

However, the biggest wins come from the wild symbol – a screen full of wilds will give you 1,000 x stake. This can be achieved randomly from the Mystery Wild Bonus feature. Medium variance, the RTP is high at 97.03%. Whilst the Level Up Plus feature has been seen before, it rewards you the more you play.

Overall, a decent slot with IGT which should provide plenty of entertainment for your bankroll. If you fancy travelling on a train journey, Wild Rails by Play ‘n GO is a good alternative – so to is Orient Express by Yggdrasil Gaming.