I played a game this week with an interesting bonus feature, Mine Mine Mine from Aristocrat, a 25-line 10x max bet slot machine with a mining theme.
Along with the traditional A, K, Q, J 10 and 9 the game’s symbols include giant gold nuggets, a bucket of gold nuggets, a scale weighing nuggets and a jolly bearded miner juggling emeralds and rubies.
The game features two different bonuses. When three or more dynamite symbols appear anywhere on the screen the bonus feature is triggered. You get to choose either the Free Game bonus or the Mine Car bonus.
The Free Game bonus awards you with three to 10 free spins with up to three of the symbols wild.
The Mine Car bonus takes you to a mine, with the track forming a pyramid with a mine car perched at the top. The mine car is loaded with gold nuggets and colored gems (three gems for each line played). The car tips and the gold nuggets and gems fall down the tracks into a row of buckets at the bottom of the shaft.
Each bucket is labeled with a credit amount. When a nugget or gem goes into a bucket, the credits increase with each one collected. Two of the buckets are labeled free. The nuggets and gems falling into these buckets both increase your credits and drop in an additional bucket.
As long as nuggets and gems fall into the free buckets they continue to fall. When nothing falls into these buckets the bonus is over.
I played 2 per line, all 25 lines (50 cents). I triggered the bonus feature several times. The first time I tried the Mine Car bonus and won $15.88. The next time I decided to try the Free Game bonus and wound up getting five spins with one extra wild symbol to win $4.87.
The next two times I triggered the feature I went with the Mine Car bonus, winning $23.42 and $21.67. The third time I went back to the Free Game bonus. This time I got seven free spins and two extra wilds but only won $5.34. I’ll stick to the Mine Car bonus from now on.
I cashed out $42. I put in another $20 because the game was hitting and I wanted to see how the features continued to pay. The second time I cashed out at $37, almost doubling my money.