Book of Fusion

Book of Fusion: Slot Overview

When you start reading about fusion technology, the benefits are astonishing. Unlike nuclear fission, which smashes atoms apart to release energy, fusion smashes atoms together to form heavier ones, thereby releasing energy. According to the UK Atomic Energy Authority, a kilogram of fusion fuel could supply roughly the same energy as that from 10 million kilograms of fossil fuel. There are no carbon emissions, and the fusion process produces zero radioactive material. Fusion is what happens in the heart of a star, and to replicate the process on earth, hydrogen gases are heated to over 100 million degrees to form a plasma where nuclei can combine.

Fascinating stuff, and until fusion reactors become mainstream and we're charging our smartphones the way stars light the universe, we've got online slots like Book of Fusion from Light & Wonder, formally SG Digital, to keep us occupied. As the name says, Book of Fusion joins the long line of 'book' slots which began back in the day with Book of Ra. Book of Fusion is a long way from the hot, sandy realm of Ancient Egypt and players find themselves in a scientist's workshop where the fusioning can take place instead. While it doesn't exactly look like the sort of place where the boundaries between reality and scientific fantasy blur, there's plenty of arcane gadgetry tossed about, making it intriguing enough to delve deeper.

To do so, users select a bet from 10 p/c to $/€35 per spin or hit the Buy Pass button to go straight to the bonus round, if available. Playing in the normal mode comes with a return to player value of 95.97%, rising a smidgen to 95.98% if buying free spins. Keep on the lookout for lower RTP models, though, depending on the market, while volatility is in the medium/high range.

Book of Fusion's mechanics follow the customary 5-reels, 3-rows, 10 paylines pattern these slots tend to adhere to. Normal wins start from the left side of the game grid when matching symbols land left to right across a payline. Paying 10-15x the bet for five of a kind is the game's 10-A card royals, increasing to 75-500x the stake for landing five magnets, switches, meters, a hard-to-identify device, and a scientist as the most valuable tile.

Book of Fusion: Slot Features

If you've played one of these sorts of games before, you'll know how important the book symbol is. This is because the book is wild, so it substitutes any normal pay symbols and also the scatter. When 3, 4, or 5 book symbols land in view, they award 2x, 20x, and 200x the bet, respectively, plus 10 free spins.

Before free spins begin, the book flips open to select 2 pay symbols. It doesn't specifically state this in the rules but it appears you get one low pay and one high pay. These become the special expanding symbols. If these symbols can make a win in free spins, they expand to cover all positions on their corresponding reels and pay all lines. They also pay from any position, so full reel symbols do not have to be adjacent to each other or start from the left-hand side. If at least 3 scatters land during the bonus round, +10 additional free spins are awarded, and 2 more pay symbols are randomly selected to also become expanding symbols. If all ten symbols become expanders, free spins cannot be retriggered again.

If you really can't wait to get to the more exciting part of the experiment, and the option is there, you can buy free spins for 70x the base bet.

Book of Fusion: Slot Verdict

Given the length of time Light & Wonder/SG Digital has been making online slots, it might be a surprise to find out that Book of Fusion is its first 'book' slot. The studio has dabbled in all manner of topics through the years while holding off from having a crack at this immensely popular style of play. Despite the huge number of these sorts of slots already in circulation, there is something about them that compels others to want to add their version to the bunch. To Light & Wonder's credit, they've done something relatively unorthodox in terms of both theme and features. Maybe not groundbreakingly so, yet the alterations do qualify as a twist.

Ancient Egypt is where these games started from, and there are solid options to be found there, but there are so many of them that it is nice to break away and visit somewhere else. Not only is the science angle different, but it also provides the opportunity to use a bunch of electric lightning effects and cool imagery. It brought to mind the spirit of Pragmatic Play's The Wild Machine or Skywind Group's Alive! Megaways, except in a 'book of' form, which you don't see every day. Another thing you don't see every day is being awarded two expanding symbols at a time compared to the usual one. Play'n GO's Legacy of Dead had the idea of adding additional expanding symbols on retriggers, though again, that was one at a time, not the two at a time you get here.

Maybe one day in the future, developers will run out of twists to inject into these games. Until then, it's a credit to studios that keep coming up with new ideas. Book of Fusion isn't as revolutionary as the widespread adoption of fusion power would be, and in some ways, it's missing the weight that thousands of years of Egyptian history pressing down can have. However, its differences should help make it a point of interest for 'book of' completists after something rarely seen elsewhere.