Age of Discovery Slot – Free Demo

Chart makers, sea serpents and 25 fixed lines

Games Global send you off on yet another expedition, in search of gold and glory. I played it at a total bet of 2.50, and every cash figure below is quoted at that bet. The exploration inspired game is titled Age of Discovery.

I'm not carried to a fantasy place this time, unlike the studio's Avalon and Munchkins, and instead I voyage out with the ancient chart makers and treasure seekers. The symbols run to ships, coats of arms and sextants, with fruit filling out the lower end of the paytable. Age of Discovery is a payline slot played on a 5 by 3 layout. The lines are fixed, so there is no line count to adjust. Winning combinations are created by landing identical symbols from left to right on any of the 25 fixed paylines, and the greatest win per line is paid. Five ships pay 100.00, five coats of arms 80.00 and five sextants 60.00. The chief attraction here is the Treasure Bonus feature. It is the only feature in the game, and it deals picks rather than spins.

What the gold coin will not stand in for

Symbols on the reels include the sea serpent. Three of them anywhere in view pay 12.50, four pay 50.00 and five pay 200.00. It is the scatter and pays in any position, with its win multiplied by the total bet and added to your payline wins; keep an eye out for the compass as well, since that is the symbol that unlocks the bonus. The frame captured for this review shows exactly that kind of hit: three sea serpents scattered across the reels for 12.50, five times the total bet, with no payline involved.

There is 1 wild on offer here to aid you on your way, and the gold coin serves as the standard wild symbol, standing in for everything except the sea serpent scatter and the Treasure Bonus compass. Its five of a kind is also the biggest line pay on the table, at 600.00. It pays in its own right from 2 of a kind. Two of them return 0.30, and the banana is the only other symbol that pays from a pair, at 0.20.

The compass opens the only feature there is

Land 3 or more Treasure Bonus compass symbols anywhere in view. The compass is the one symbol besides the scatter that the wild will not replace. The Treasure Bonus is triggered.

The Treasure Bonus is an "X marks the spot" pick round, and you keep picking until a pick pops. Whatever the picks show is multiplied by the total bet and added to the payline win on the triggering spin. What you have collected is paid out as a cash prize. The two I hit came 80 spins apart, on spin 25 and spin 105. The feature can award up to 16,125.00 at my 2.50 stake. Mine paid 82.50 and 125.00 at that stake.

A familiar ladder with one pick round bolted on

Trying to describe them in writing is far more confusing than actually playing them hands on, as is the case with most of these older payline slots. Age of Discovery is mostly built on the classic five reel template, as you can probably tell. The paytable is a familiar ladder too, from the ship at 100.00 for five down to the banana at 5.00. A lone pick bonus is thrown in as well, and essentially the idea is the same - land the compasses to set off the bonus. Nothing else on the reels opens a feature.

Two Treasure Bonuses in 360 spins

My own 360 spins showed as much, and I wagered 900.00 and won 519.00 back, a return of 57.7%. That is 381.00 down over the run. The balance slipped from 2,000.00 to 1,619.00, with the peak arriving as early as spin 25 at 2,051.25. From that high it never got back up, and the closing 1,619.00 was also the session low. Only 107 spins paid anything, and 61 of those paid less than the stake. That is a hit rate of 30%, and the longest run without a win was 10 spins, ending on spin 291. Both Treasure Bonuses carried the run. The first took the balance from 1,971.25 to 2,051.25, the second from 1,907.75 to 2,030.25. That was 82.50 on spin 25 and 125.00 on spin 105, together 40% of everything I won. Outside them the best spins were 18.00 on spin 152 and 17.00 on spin 127.

Final Minty Score: The developers have decided to go with a max win of 32,500.00 at my 2.50 stake, in spite of the game sitting at a middling 3 out of 5 for volatility. That is 13,000 times the bet I was playing. I find that a bit strange. It's not the studio's finest effort in the category mind you.