Starmania Slot
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Starmania is a game that boldly goes where few online slots have been before. The reels have been transported away, replaced with multi-coloured, bejewelled, stars. It looks different, it sounds different, and comes with a Return To Player (RTP) that is out of this world.Launched by Nextgen Gaming in 2015, Starmania has an RTP of 97.867%. It frequently features in lists of the top ten online slots with the highest RTP. Only Mega Joker and Blood Suckers, both from NetEnt, rank higher with 99% and 98%.
- Win Both Ways.
- Lush visuals.
- Simple gameplay.
- No jackpot.
- Simple gameplay.
- Only one Bonus feature.
Starmania is now a part of the mighty Light and Wonder portfolio. There are nearly 3,000 games on offer. Starmania sits near the top of the slots, with its generous RTP. On the whole, game designers still try to emulate the traditional analogue slots; both mechanical and electrical. They create fake reels, with simulated movement and ‘clunking’ sound effects. Starmania tosses all that in the bin, with its out of this world design. When is an online slot not a slot? When it looks and plays like Starmania. Familiar enough, that you don’t get lost, but quirky and different. It’s a refreshing take on a classic format. Grab your spacesuit, check your oxygen levels, and head for the airlock to the casino.
Starmania Look & Feel
From the second the splash screen appears, Starmania looks nothing like any other online slot you have played. The reels are gone, replaced with a simple five by three grid of floating stars. In the background, space gently moves by. We’re on a hyperspace trip to the galaxy of gaming with this slot. The colour palette is like the space trip ride at the old funfair: dark neon that looks like it has had the blacklight treatment. The stars look more like Christmas baubles and multi-coloured snowflakes; glittering metallic shapes.
The game font looks like the kind of artwork that was kicking about when Saturday Night Fever was strutting its stuff at the cinema. The wild icon even comes with its own disco floor. It’s all very mid-1980s. The audio is either super retro or totally on point, depending on just how cool your musical taste is. It’s old school ambient synths and pads, aka super trendy contemporary synthwave, with the odd laser gun ‘pew pew’, with some keyboard stabs that Duran Duran would be proud of.
The bottom line: the look and feel of the Starmania online slot is both refreshingly different and dated at the same time. We love how it pops little lines of star-related trivia onto the screen in between each spin.
How to Play Starmania Slot
Starmania is a pretty basic game to play. There are only 10 paylines but, unusually, they play in both directions: from left to right and vice versa. You have to play all ten paylines with every spin. You can adjust the total stake on the main page, from £0.10 to £100. Click the settings option and you can mute the audio and get more information about the game. There is also an autoplay option that enables up to 100 unattended spins. This feature may not be available everywhere, due to new gambling restrictions.
Starmania also comes with both a wild and a scatter. The wild substitutes for all symbols except the scatter, but appears only on reels 2, 3, and 4. It also comes stacked in both the regular game and the bonus round.
The scatter is the key to the bonus round. It features on every reel. Three or more are needed to get the bonus round out the starting gate. If you get lucky and your ‘wish upon a star’ comes true, you start off with ten free spins and increasing wilds. It’s all good – more details to follow. Starmania looks different but plays like any other online slot. Spin the reels and watch out for the stacked wilds and the scatters. That’s the Milky Way to go.
Starmania Slot Symbols
It’s fair to say that, with this online slot, the clue is in the name. There are no base game, back up, icons; no generic card rankings or random fruit. In the words of Dave Bowman ‘My God, it’s full of stars’.
There are, in fact, seven different star designs, ranging from your basic blue five-pointer to a top of the Christmas tree, 16-point, multi-colour, spectacular. Basically, the more complex the design, the higher the pay-out. The top star is worth ten times more than its lowly, mono-dimensional, cousin.
The two other symbols that count are the scatter and the wild. The scatter is an illuminated version of BONUS. Three or more unlocks the scatter. The wild symbol is a diagonal, 3-D, WILD dancing on a multi-coloured stage.
Our Verdict
Starmania is an online slot that has warped itself around the galactic block a few times. As a regular attendee, in top ten lists for slots with the highest RTP, its mission: to explore strange new gaming worlds, and seek out new players and online casino civilisations, and boldly go where no slot has been before, looks set to continue.
It’s a chilled-out slot, with a bonus round that can land you a hefty kick in the balance. Set your phasers to stun, slip the headphones on, and take a journey into the Starmania Galaxy. It’s worth the trip.
Starmania Slot Bonuses
Starmania might be an online slot from outer space, but it comes with a very ubiquitous bonus: come and get those free games.