Alien Invaders

Pragmatic Play sends players into a cosmic skirmish with Alien Invaders, a science-fiction slot built around a 5x3 grid where every reel can hold between three and five symbols and only the bottommost row acts as the trigger line. A cluster of three or more matching icons landing along that highlighted row sets off a payout, after which the reels involved light up and every copy of the winning symbol anywhere on those reels contributes to the total. The visitors themselves lean cute rather than menacing, closer to cartoon mascots than classic movie monsters, giving the game a lighter tone than its invasion premise suggests.

Card values from 10 through Ace form the low-paying end of the symbol set, each worth between 0.05x and 0.1x the stake per winning line, while four alien characters serve as the premium symbols, paying 0.25x to 1x apiece. A tumble mechanic clears winning icons after every hit and drops fresh symbols into their place, repeating until the board settles with no further matches.

Wild symbols land on the centre reel during ordinary play and spread across the middle three reels in the bonus round; they stand in for everything but the scatter and are worth 0.05x on their own, only becoming active once they slide down to the bottom row, where they can also carry a random multiplier as high as x25 (rising to x100 in free spins). A separate win multiplier begins each spin at x1 and climbs by one point for every ten symbols cleared through tumbles or scatter explosions, with wild multipliers folding into the same total whenever a wild reaches the bottom row. Scatters detonate everything touching them — vertically, horizontally and diagonally — the instant one settles on the bottom row, and those destroyed symbols pay out as if they were a normal win.

Landing three or more scatters across a single base-game spin unlocks seven free spins, with three additional spins granted for each extra scatter beyond the third. During the round the number of symbols per reel can grow randomly from three up to five, locking in place once expanded, and the win multiplier carries over between spins rather than resetting. Extra scatters reaching the bottom row during free spins each add another spin to the tally.

Players who would rather skip the wait can buy into the bonus directly, paying 65x the stake for a standard round or 400x for a super version that starts the win multiplier at x50. Betting spans 20p to £240 a spin, with an optional ante bet raising the stake by a quarter to improve the odds of triggering free spins naturally. Alien Invaders carries high volatility, a maximum win of 5,000x the stake, and a top RTP of 96.5%, with two lower configurations of 95.48% and 94.51% also in circulation.