Launch to Riches

Launch to Riches: Slot Overview

Space is a big, old place that contains a lot of stuff in it. Thanks to software provider Pragmatic Play, wannabe gambling explorers get the chance to tap into it, or at least pretend to tap into the universe's bounty and bring some of it back to Earth. The occasion is Launch to Riches, which lives up to its name by launching rockets at asteroids to reveal monetary prizes. While designing rockets, landers, and calculating trajectories might be tricky, complex work, Launch to Riches is a far simpler affair by comparison, letting virtual astronauts cruise about the cosmos on autopilot in a galactic-themed money-collecting slot.

Players find themselves a long, long way from home in the base game of Launch to Riches. To date, the furthest thing humans have sent from Earth is Voyager 1, which is collecting data in interstellar space more than 25 billion kilometres away. Launch to Riches could be even further away than that, a lot more, in a part of the universe swirling in gaseous nebulae, stars, and planets. It's the sort of place corporations and rogue space miners of the future scoop up resources from the frontiers of space, and untold fortunes are made. With luck on their side, gamblers may also be able to scoop some resources of their own, should Launch to Riches give up some of its asteroid bounty, literally, via its features.

A blue, lined zone is Launch to Riches' play area, consisting of 5 reels where 1,024 ways to win evaluate symbol combinations. Pragmatic Play has classified the math model as medium volatile, while giving it a 4 out of 5 rating on the lightning bolt meter. It is possible to choose a stake from as low as $/€0.20 to as high as $/€240, and the return to player comes in at 96.52% on the highest model.

Launch to Riches has nine regular paying symbols. They are playing card ranks J-A, a gadget, a power cell, and three galactic gems. When 5 OAK winning combinations hit, players collect 2x to 5x their stake if made of gems, or 0.5x to 1.5x is paid for the rest of the paying symbols. Wilds help complete winning combinations by substituting all symbols except Collect and scatter symbols.

Launch to Riches: Slot Features

Blasting a way to riches is made potentially possible with a prize-collecting Rocket feature and more prize-collecting in free spins. Accompanying the game is an optional ante bet and two feature buys.

Rocket Feature

Each time a Collect symbol hits, a 5x4 grid of asteroids appears. The asteroids can contain money values, while the top row can randomly contain bonus values. Three types of Collect symbols may land:

• Regular Collect: It fires a rocket in a straight line at an asteroid above it, revealing a money value or Bonus value.
• Triple Collect: It fires 3 rockets at random asteroids to reveal money or Bonus values.
• Super Collect: It fires in a straight line on the column above it to reveal a random number of money or Bonus values.

Collect symbols can also reveal bombs, which award all adjacent prizes and trigger nearby bombs. Possible money values are 0.5x-12.5x the bet, while bonus values are 12.5x-5,000x, or 3 scatters.

Free Spins

Hitting 3 scatters triggers 10 free spins plus 2 additional free spins for each scatter beyond the third. Free spins are played on a 5x1 grid of symbols with a 5x7 grid of asteroids. Possible money values range from 0.5x to 50x. At the start of the round, the prizes on the top row reveal values of 50x to 5,000x the bet. If all asteroids are cleared, a random multiplier of up to x10 is applied to the total win. The round ends when all free spins have been used or when all asteroids have been cleared. Free spins cannot be retriggered.

Ante Bet and Feature Buy

A single ante bet may be activated, increasing the stake by 1.5x to double the chance of triggering free spins. Two feature buys are available. Free spins can be triggered for 100x or super free spins for 300x, where at the end of each spin, collected prize values are removed after being awarded, so new prize values can be added at the top, and rockets are guaranteed on each spin.

Launch to Riches: Slot Verdict

Collect slots are hot stuff in the gambling scene, and Pragmatic Play's Launch to Riches deviates from the norm to provide fans with an alternative way to potentially collect a bit of dough. The space theme has been dealt with well enough, but maybe don't pick Launch to Riches if you're looking to be thematically whisked away to a new, unidentified sector of the solar system to see something mind-blowing. Pragmatic Play has painted a nice-looking scene, but it feels like space was simply chosen as the vehicle for the gameplay because it gave the studio a chance to use rocket ships as collectors. Fireworks might have worked with the mechanics as well, but rockets blowing up Earth-bound targets might have been a tad too bad taste.

Launch to Riches isn't a traditional money symbol collect game in the way something like Big Bass Bonanza is. There is no collector symbol landing at the same time as cash symbols in order to award their values as such. Instead, a collector hits in the base game or scatters trigger free spins, and play shifts to an asteroid field destruction sequence. It's all quite simple. Rockets shoot asteroids, revealing prize values, and boom, they're yours. Bombs inject a dose of explosive variety as they ignite sections of the grid, including other bombs, but basically, the features are very straightforward to follow. Potentially quite exciting, and much of the excitement depends on the values revealed by popped asteroids, and at best, the 5,000x individual prize is equal to the game's win cap.

Like launching a rocket strike, Launch to Riches is a little hit or miss. Admittedly, the main idea is quite interesting, and it makes a welcome break from collecting fish money symbols. The action is a little narrow, though, so after seeing the gameplay loop around a few times, the novelty may quickly wear off. As such, Launch to Riches probably won't be an ideal choice for gamblers who prefer diverse bonus rounds and complex structures, but for some quick and easy-to-follow asteroid destruction to cash gaming, it might be worth hitting the launch button.