Hot Air is a very cool game, mostly because it’s so unusual and it has a subject that was not covered by other slot machines in the past. It’s about hot air balloons, and these beautiful contraptions are used everywhere, including in the background picture and among the symbols. Going up in a hot air balloon can be a wonderful experience, especially when there are gorgeous views to be seen from up in the air. The creator of this game is Microgaming.
The game’s 5 reels contain a total of 30 paylines, which when activated will give you a chance to win up to $1,000 from the regular combinations, while encountering along the way wild and scatter symbols, with free spins and multipliers that are triggered by them.
Features of Hot Air
The features that you will discover while playing this slot are basic ones, common for a lot of slot machines, but still able to make the game fun. A wild symbol is one of them, the scatter being the second symbol. The latter will be responsible for triggering free spins and their multiplier.
The Pilot is the game’s wild symbol. Whenever you have it a couple of times on the same line, going from left to right, it will form a combo of its own, which will pay between 20x and 2,000x the line bet. However, it is useful even if only one symbol shows up, as long as the location it landed on is part of a payline that is missing a symbol. If that’s the case, the wild takes the place of that missing symbol, and the new combo forms with its help. It gets even better though, as a 3x multiplier is applied by the wild to these new combinations, tripling their value.
The Hot Air Balloon is the scatter symbol. Capable of paying from any position on the reels, without creating combinations on paylines, the scatter only requires for a certain number of symbols to appear, nothing else. You get paid 1x to 100x the total bet, for 2 to 5 Balloons present.
Free Games Feature
Another advantage of the scatter is that besides cash prizes it will also trigger free spins. You need a minimum of 3 Balloons on the reels, and when that happens you receive 10 free spins and 2x multipliers.
As the free spins are progressing, you can collect extra multipliers and free spins, so you eventually are able to create Hot Spins. The Hot Spins are rounds that begin once the initial free spins are over. You get one spin for free with a 1x multiplier, and with each additional Pilot wild you win one extra spin, while each Balloon that appears increases the multiplier.
The fact that you get both free spins and hot spins in this game is something I haven’t seen before, a way to make the feature more attractive, and I’m all for that.
Betting options and jackpots
The game’s betting system uses a lot of coins, up to 300 of them for the 30 lines, but their value is low, so you only spend up to $15 per spin. Each line has a maximum bet of $0.50, with up to 10 coins of $0.05 used.
As for the game’s rewards, the Pilot wild will award 2,000 times the line bet, or $1,000, to the player that has a combo of five of these icons. The scatter symbol does a bit better, since its 100x the bet prize is worth $1,500.
Design and symbols
The cartoon style in which the balloons and the characters are made is a good looking one, and you will enjoy watching the game’s action and the many hot air balloons that are going up in the sky in the background image. The use of playing cards takes away some of the pleasure of looking at the reels, but the rest of the symbols look great.
Symbols: Pilot (2,000x, wild), Hot Air Balloon (100x total bet, scatter), Passenger (500x), Plane (500x), Food Basket (300x), Bird (300x), Ace (150x), King (150x), Queen (125x), Jack (125x), Ten (100x) and Nine (100x).
Is It Worth Playing?
The hot air balloon theme should be a nice surprise for most players, and the features aren’t that bad, but the prizes are disappointing even for the small wagers that are placed to get them.
Hot Air can be found at any Microgaming casino, where you get a chance to play it for real money or in free mode.
