Play Lucky 8 Ball for Free

Of course the first thing to make clear is that the game does not look like a pool table. It is in fact more in the shape of a jukebox. As such, it is broken up into 3 bits. The top part is where most of the information is. It tells you the credit hierarchy, what difference playing with higher coins makes and about the free spins and Wildcard. The small 10 diagrams show the different paylines.

The second part has the 5 reels and the Bet Line, Bet One, Bet Max and Spin buttons to play, as well as clearly displaying the Credits, Value and the big box for what you have won. The name of the game and logo is on the third part, taking up most of that display. Its blue lettering is matched by a similar shade for the background, a light blue shade that is also seen on the backgrounds of the two above screens. The many black 8 balls in the background are faint so as not to distract from the colour, or the orange flames that make up the rest of the display.

The problem is that everything is small and cramped. However, it is helped by there being a zoom in on option for the Paytable part, or the lower Reels part. Going to either can be found by hovering around the small diagrams, though it is a little trickier to get back to the Full View. You’ll be waving your cursor around until you realise it’s the far left. The problem with full view is that it feels a lot of the background is wasted. On either side you can see another machine which you can’t play.

To play the game you go old school by pulling down the lever. There are 10 betting line options, which light up the diagrams above when selected. These are 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 15, 19, 23, 27 and 30 and come about when pressing Bet Line. Pressing Bet One changes the bet from 1-5. The plus and minus buttons relate to the coin value. These are 0.01, 0.02, 0.05, 0.10, 0.20, 0.50 and 1.00.

There is a Max Button you can use if you’re feeling confident. You have to concentrate on what you’re doing as it would be easy to confuse yourself and place a bet different to what you wanted, especially if you use the on/off Autoplay.

One major plus is the fact that the spots and stripes are extremely distinctive. However, while the balls on the reels light up, the relevant symbol hierarchy doesn’t light up when you hit a winning line. This is especially disappointing as if you play on the Paytable view you can see the reels spin as well as the lines you are aiming for.

This angle won’t allow you to see what you are betting or even what you are winning. While there is no background sound, there are bland spinning sound effects that can’t be muted on screen.

Fittingly, the black 8 Ball is top with a maximum value of 4,000 for 5 of a kind. The next best ball is the highest number of 14, before going down in both number and value until the 2 ball of 120 credits.

Rather misleadingly, the white ball, though bottom of the pile, actually has a higher maximum value than several other symbols. Getting 5 means 180 credits, and it is also the only one to get 2 credits for 2 of a kind, although they must be connected. It is bottom because it has less value than others for 3 or 4 of them. It seems unnecessarily distracting.

There are no bonus games, but the lucky black ball does have added significance. It also doubles up as the game’s Wildcard, which replaces any other symbol except for Free Spins. If you get 3 Free Spins you get 5/10 bonus spins.

The cramped layout, lack of music, initially confusing gameplay and no bonus game mean this won’t be for everyone. For those that stay, it does reward the more adventurous gamer and there are big wins to be had.