Set sail to new lands of riches in this Age of Discovery slot machine by Microgaming. With 5 reels and 25 paylines, you must navigate the way through a series of new delicacies and potential dangers of the sea in order to find line bet multipliers that will award riches for the journey home. Helping you in your spinning travels is a wild coin symbol and a compass icon that will trigger a special treasure bonus game. Keep on reading our full review below to learn everything about this reeled machine.
Age of Discovery Slot Machine (with Bonus Games) Reviewed
The Age of Discovery was a pivotal period of world history from the 15th century to the 18th century, a time in which great European nations set sail to explore distant lands across the globe. Perhaps the most famous and documented of these expeditions was the “discovery” of the Americas by Christopher Columbus in 1492. Although, the extent to how great this exploration and settlement of the Americas was probably depended on which side of the Atlantic you were from!
One thing is for sure, this global expansion meant new and exotic foods such as avocados, mangoes, pomegranates, bananas, and papayas, all of which can be found represented on the reels of this slot machine. Other symbols include a sextant navigational device, a coat of arms, and Christopher Columbus' sailing vessel, the Santa Maria ship which bore the Holy Red Cross upon its sails. There are also a couple of special icons which appear on the game's reels such as a hand-drawn serpent which acts as the games scatter. The golden coin is the wild symbol. A compass is a symbol that will trigger a bonus game whenever three or more appear on the reels in any position.
Visually, the Age of Discovery is a very pleasant game to behold. Even though the reel symbols are depicted as two-dimensional cartoon-like illustrations, the overall aspect of the slot machine is bright and colorful, emulating the sense of optimism that goes hand in hand with any adventure of exploration. What's more, you will be able to hear the lapping of waves and creaking of wood, transporting back in time while you spin.
Paytable Explained
As with most Microgaming slot machines, spinners can expect to find a wide scope of betting permutations to play around with before they find the best wager to match their strategy. That is because there are three variable factors in play, allowing you to choose anywhere between 1 and 25 paylines with 1 to 10 coins of the following sizes: 0.01, 0.02, 0.05, 0.10, 0.20, 0.25, and 0.50.
So it is just as easy to play super low risk spins with 1 payline and 1 coin worth 0.01 credits as it is to go all out with 25 paylines and 10 coins worth 0.50 (which would make a total bet of 125 credits). The Return to Player ratio or RTP is 96.62%.
Special Icons
- The Scatter symbols include the Sea Monster and Compass. The Sea Monsters will pay out a multiplier of your original bet amount. Three symbols offer you a 5x multiplier, four symbols provide a 20x multiplier, and five symbols pay out a massive 80x multiplier.
- The Wild symbol is the Golden Coin. Get an impressive 6,000 coins for five Golden Coins on one payline. This payout is multiplied by the bet per line selection. So, if you have chosen the max bet, it is possible to win 60,000 coins!
Regular Symbols
This slot machine has great themed symbols that include:
- You will receive between 1,000 and 30 coins for collecting Ship images.
- The Crest comes next, offering you between 800 and 15 coins, while a Sextant character is worth between 600 and 10 coins.
- The lowest paying icons are represented by various exotic fruits. Thus, if you collect five Papayas you will receive up to 200 coins. The pomegranate will pay between 175 and 6 coins, while Mango is worth between 150 and 5 coins. Finally, the Avocado and Banana deliver between 100 and 50 coins for five of a kind combination respectively.
Bonuses and Additional Winning Possibilities
If the bonus symbols were not enough for the discerning treasure seeker, the Age of Discovery offers a pirate's dream through its treasure hunting bonus game. Three or more compass symbols on the reels will activate the Treasure Bonus game, which brings up a large treasure map with many X symbols. You choose symbols, each revealing the value of its hidden treasure.
You can keep digging up the buried treasure until the skull and crossbones are unearthed. This ends the game and an extra bonus amount is awarded. The entire bonus game winnings are tallied up and paid out. On a max bet, the highest amount possible to win during the bonus round is 32,250 coins.
We Recommend
- Dragon Island by Net Entertainment is based on the mystical world of dragons. It's the first NetEnt game to pay both ways and has a Golden Wild which multiplies wins up to 8x as well as a Free Spins feature where you can get up to 50 free spins and an expanding wild on every single free spin.
- Wild Seas by ELK has a Free Spins feature. The pirate ship on reel 5 fires a cannon at any ship and holds it back for 1 free spin – if you hit a ship 3 times, you sink the ship and reveal the captain’s loot chest. If you don’t sink a ship, the feature ends – if you do, you move onto level 2. All captain’s loot chests become sticky wilds.
Caribbean Treasure by Red Rake Gaming is played on a 5x4 matrix with 50 paylines in total and a maximum RTP of 96.04%. The compass symbol appears on all reels except for reel 5. You will need at least 3 of them in any position to win 10, 15 or even 20 free spins.
