Play Spacemen for Free

If there has been one achievement by humankind to end all other achievements, then it would be putting a man in space. We mean, whoever came up with that idea must have had a screw or two loose! Nonetheless, the twentieth-century ushered in a new age of human exploration, beyond the confines of our terrestrial home and into the dark depths of outer space. It began with Yuri Gagarin, a soviet cosmonaut who became the first human to leave the earth's stratosphere and it culminated in 1969 when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the surface of the moon (where they jumped around for a bit, realised that there was nothing there, got bored, and came home).

This slot machine doesn't exactly pay homage to the bravery of those astronauts, it is far too novelty in design and style for that. Instead, the game celebrates the wonders of space through a series of cartoon-like symbols which depict all sorts of space fodder and cosmic stuff like satellites, rocket-ships, and landing modules as well as a few moons and planets dotted around. All of these symbols are brightly coloured and will perform some simple two-dimensional animations whenever they line up into winning rows on the reels. Plus, each spin of this cosmic game comes with its very own sci-fi style sound effect, effectively transporting players into a galaxy far, far away.

With only 5 paylines available, players will need all the help they can get when it comes to lining up those winning sequences of matching symbols. Luckily, this Spacemen slot machine does feature a wild symbol – as depicted by an illuminating galaxy icon. This symbol is not only useful for the fact that it will substitute for other icons to complete line wins, but it will also double the value of any wins when it comes into play.

Also giving players a helping hand to boost their spinning engines is a scatter symbol. This icon is represented by a cartoon astronaut floating about in the intergalactic ether and it will offer players the chance to play 15 free spins whenever three or more appear in any reel position. This round of wager-less spins is slightly different from usual because it will turn every game symbol into a scatter symbol, meaning that they don't have to align on any of the 5 paylines in order to payout their normal prize values.

The biggest wins on offer in this slot machine are capped at 5,000 credits – and there are two ways for spinners to get their hands on this jackpot. First of all, punters must place a maximum total bet of 10.00 credits per spin and hope to find five scattered spacemen on the screen for a total bet multiplier of 500x (four scatters will pay 20x, three scatters will pay 5x and two scatters will pay 2x). Alternatively, players can try to line up five wild galaxy icons on one of the slot machine's 5 paylines for a line bet multiplier of 2,500x. The line bet options are as follows: 0.01, 0.02, 0.05, 0.10, 0.20, 0.50, 1.00 and 2.00 credits.

All line wins must run on an active line from left to right, with at least two or more identical symbols. You can see all of the valid winning sequenced below with their respective line bet multiplier values:

As far as novelty slot machines go, this effort by Merkur Gaming offers a pleasantly surprising and thoroughly enjoyable experience. Of course, there are going to be space-themed games out there with much more spectacular graphics and fancy bonus features, but this video slot does have a certain charm with its cartoon design and special round of free spins with scatter wins.