Book of Shadows Demo & review

If you have played Book of Dead, you already know most of Book of Shadows: 10 lines, a Book that is wild and scatter, and free spins with one expanding symbol. Nolimit City's twist, released in August 2020, is the Shadow Rows, two extra rows you can pay to open, which take the game to 15 or 20 lines and make every expansion taller. It suits book-slot players who want to choose how wide their bonus plays.

The opening screen: three rows in play, with the two Shadow Rows dimmed above them. FluxPlays demo test, 1 November 2026.

How Book of Shadows works

Each spin plays on the bottom three rows of a five-row frame, with 10 win lines. Opening the fourth row makes it 15 lines and the fifth makes it 20, and each extra row adds to the price of a spin. Nolimit City puts the hit rate at one spin in three.

The Book of Shadows symbol is both wild and scatter. Five Books pay 500x the bet, as do five of the top picture symbol, and all five picture symbols also pay for two of a kind. The letters and the 10 sit at the bottom of the paytable.

Every win stops for a gamble offer before the next spin, covered below. One tap collects it.

Free spins: how they trigger and what expands

Three or more Books award 10 free spins on the rows you had open. Before the first spin you can change the rows, and the spin count moves the other way: a trigger on three rows offers ten spins on three rows, eight on four or six on five. A trigger on five rows offers 10 to 14, the most when you drop rows. The rules call keeping the rows you triggered with the highest-return choice.

The setup screen of our three-row buy: a Golden J, with one free shuffle on offer, which we did not use. FluxPlays demo test, 1 November 2026.

The Golden symbol and the reshuffle

A Golden symbol is drawn at random before the round, and you can reshuffle it once for free. During the spins it expands to cover its whole reel, across every open row, whenever that adds a win, and it pays anywhere on a win line. The help pages advise reshuffling whenever the draw is not one of the five picture symbols.

Our four-row buy shows the point. It drew the 10, the lowest symbol, and the reshuffle turned it into an A. Ten spins on four rows then paid $40.00.

Our four-row buy with two spins left, after the reshuffle turned a 10 into a Golden A. The round finished at 40.00. FluxPlays demo test, 1 November 2026.

Retriggers

Three or more Books during the free spins retrigger the round. Ours came in the five-row buy, with a Golden eye potion: ten more spins arrived, and the round, twenty spins long on five rows, paid $72.60.

The retrigger in our five-row buy: ten more spins with the Golden eye potion, at 26.10 so far. FluxPlays demo test, 1 November 2026.

The gamble

After any win you can collect, guess red or black to double it, or stake it on the Wheel of Bonus for a chance at free spins with your open rows. Some jurisdictions switch the gamble off. We collected every time.

Bonus buy and Shadow Rows: prices and what you get

The Nolimit Bonus panel sells free spins at three row counts, and the Nolimit Booster sells the two Shadow Rows as a price per spin.

The intro gives one volatility label, Extreme, for the whole game, so it repeats in each row. Buying a round cancels any Shadow Rows you had open.

Every extra row raises the RTP, on the panel and on the reels. That makes the five-row buy the one we would take: it has the best return on paper and the widest expansions.

The buy panel at a 1.00 bet: three free spins buys above, the two Shadow Rows boosters below. FluxPlays demo test, 1 November 2026.

RTP versions, volatility and max win

With no extras the game returns 96.01%, the lowest figure on the panel, and every extra row or buy adds a little. That is the top version in the build we played, and casinos may run lower settings. The intro labels the volatility Extreme.

Nolimit City's simulated maximum is 30,338x the bet, at odds of one in ten billion rounds. The help pages do not set out a route to it.

Our Book of Shadows demo test

No buy paid back its price, yet the three rounds came back in the same order as the RTPs on the panel, three rows lowest and five highest. Three rounds cannot tell you what each buy returns over time. The three-row round also played a Golden J we chose to keep, the weaker option by the help pages.

The five-row buy ended at 72.60 after its retrigger, against a price of 120. FluxPlays demo test, 1 November 2026.

Base spins won 27 times, but 19 of those wins were under $1, and the best was $9.20. Neither booster brought free spins in its ten spins, and both returned less than they cost.

Natural free spins and a picture symbol expanding over full reels did not turn up, so both are described from the help pages.

Is Book of Shadows worth playing?

For a book-slot player, yes. For someone who wants a calm session, no. The Shadow Rows give you a lever the classic books lack: pay more per spin or per buy, and every expansion covers more lines at a slightly better RTP. The help pages even spell out the best way to play the round, which few games do.

Pick Book of Dead for the original form of this idea at High volatility, with a gamble and nothing to buy. Pick Book of Shadows if you want to choose your rows, buy the round and play toward a far higher ceiling at Extreme volatility.

In the demo, buy the three-row round once and the five-row round once, reshuffling any low symbol both times. Side by side, they show what two extra rows do to an expansion.