November 11, 2021
Slot of the Week: Hypernova Megaways
When the work week is over and you feel like leaving the planet, step aboard our Slot of the Week, Hypernova Megaways, for a shot at stellar wins!
This awesome 6-reel slot is currently the top 20th in the state of New Jersey and boasts the unique Megaways payout mechanism, giving you up to 117,649 ways to win on every spin. Boosting your win potential even further are the reactions that can create a cascade of wins from a single spin, and the special bonus respins round featuring four trophy bonuses of up to 2,000x your bet!
In Short:
- Hypernova Megaways is a 117,649 ways online slot by Reel Play.
- It is available to play at 14 New Jersey online casinos including Golden Nugget, SugarHouse, Pala Casino and Harrah’s Casino.
- Features of this slot include the unique Megaways mechanism, chain reactions, a horizontal reel, and a bonus respins round.
- The maximum payout of a single line in Hypernova Megaways is 100x bet.
The Basics
Hypernova Megaways is a 6-reel space themed slot by Reel Play that utilizes the unique Megaways mechanism developed by Big Time Gaming. As a result, you’ll have a mind-blowing 117,649 different ways to win instead of the usual set paylines, which is one of this slot’s most attractive features.
Launched in mid-2019, Hypernova Megaways is one of the earliest slots to be released with this impressive mechanism, but there are several additional features that make this game worth playing, including trophy multipliers, a special horizontal reel, and win cascade-triggering reactions.
First Impressions
When you first open the game you’ll be greeted by an electric blue to solar yellow cosmic background over which the reel set is laid. In the top left corner you’ll see the trophy bonus values, which serve to multiply your wins if you’re lucky enough to land these symbols.
In the top right corner is the game’s logo, but directly underneath that is a number which represents the number of ways to win the active spin offers. Since each of the reels in this game can vary in size, that results in each spin offering a different number of ways to win, all the way up to 117,649. We’ll look at why a bit later.
The main reel set itself consists of six rather than the usual five reels, but there’s something even more unusual about this setup: the 7th reel, which sits horizontally above the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th reels. Another unique aspect of this game, this 7th reel adds an additional symbol to reels above which it sits for even more chances to win. Keep an eye on it as you spin and you’ll see it fills, rather than rotates, from right to left!
In terms of background music, Hypernova Megaways’ inactive state is characterized by synthesizer tones played in an atmospheric way that’s reminiscent of the infinite dark vacuum of space. Spin the reels and the music will amplify, with an electronic beep indicating the start of the spin and laser clicks signifying each reel’s coming to rest.
A momentary bling sound draws attention to wins while accelerated rising whooshes announce each win symbol’s disappearance in the game’s special reactions effect.
Symbols
The symbols in this game consist of a mix of gems, card values, an atom, and a star (or hypernova). The highest value symbols in the game are the colorful gems, namely, the blue triangular gem, the green square-shaped gem, the red heart gem, and the purple-tinged diamond gem.
The low value symbols are the 9 to A card values, each of which sports a gold design with a different colored outline: yellow 9, orange 10, blue J, green Q, red K, and purple A.
Look out for the atom Wild symbol, which only appears in the horizontal reel along the top and stands in for all others except the scatter to help you make up those winning lines.
The slot’s feature-triggering scatter symbol is the highly volatile hypernova star. It can appear with win values or one of the four trophy bonuses inside it for added wins.
Bronze, silver, gold, and platinum trophies carrying 10x, 50x, 250x, and 2,000x multipliers also appear on the reels.
Hypernova Megaways Features
Hypernova Megaways’ main attraction is the Bonus Respins feature, but before diving into that, let’s take a closer look at this slot’s unique Megaways mechanism, the game’s reactions, and that intriguing 7th reel.
Megaways
While classic slots usually offer one to three paylines and some more advanced video slots sport 20, 30, or even 50 paylines, Hypernova Megaways has skipped the traditional paylines setup altogether, opting instead for what’s called Megaways.
In the game, you’ll notice that each reel can hold anything from two to seven symbols. The number of symbols that each reel can hold varies on every spin, resulting in a different number of ways to win each time, all the way up to an unbelievable 117,649 ways! You’ll see each spin’s number of winning ways displayed in the box underneath Hypernova Megaways to the right of the reels.
To trigger a win in a Megaways slot, all you have to do is land three (two for the diamond gem!) or more matching symbols in any position on consecutive reels from left to right.
Reactions
Further among up the excitement is the slot’s reactions effect. Each time you land a winning combination, all involved symbols disappear in a cosmic explosion, leaving gaps on the reels, which are quickly filled by the symbols above. This movement of symbols can result in new winning combinations being made, giving you even more wins from that single spin!
7th Reel
Directly above reels 2, 3, 4, and 5 is a row of four symbols. This is the 7th reel, which plays horizontally from right to left each time you spin the reels. What it does is it effectively adds an extra symbol to each of the reels above which it sits, increasing your chances of making up a winning combination.
This horizontal reel is also the only place you’ll find the wild symbol, so keep your eyes peeled for that!
Bonus Respins
Hypernova Megaways’ Bonus Respins feature is triggered by landing six or more of the hypernova star scatter symbols anywhere on the reels at once. You’ll then get three respins with the feature-triggering scatter symbols held in place.
Your goal in this feature is to land as many additional scatter symbols as you can, with each new one remaining in place and resetting your respins count, in the bottom left, back to three. The scatter symbols will each show a different win value from 1x to 100x your bet when it lands, and these can include the trophy bonus multipliers of up to 2,000x!
Once you’ve run out of respins, the feature ends and you’ll win the total of all visible scatter symbol prizes.
Hypernova Megaways Payouts
So how much can you expect to win playing Hypernova Megaways? The answer to that question depends on four factors: your bet per spin, how many matching symbols you’ve landed, the value of those symbols, and how many you’ve landed per reel.
This is slightly different to other slots due to the Megaways mechanism, but it’s easy to work out your winnings by following this simple process:
- Count how many of the winning symbols are on each reel
- Multiply those numbers together to find the number of ways
- Multiply the result by the winning symbol’s payout value on the paytable
- Multiply that by your bet per spin amount
Let’s try it with an example:
The winning symbols are the J symbols in the above image, which appear backwards as the screenshot was taken when they were rotating! As you can see, there’s one J in the first and second reels, four Js in the third reel, and one J in the fourth reel. Using the first step above, that gives us 1x1x4x1, which gives us an answer of 4 for the second step.
For the third step, we multiply by the payout value of the symbol, which is 0.25 for 4 in a row, giving us 1. That value is then multiplied by our bet per spin amount, which in this case was $1, giving us the total win of $1, as displayed at the bottom of the image above.
How about another example?
Here, our bet per spin value was $5 and we got a winning combination of 9s: 3x on reel 1, 1x on reel 2, and 1x on reel 3 (thanks to the horizontal reel!). That results in 3 ways (3x1x1). The payout value of 3x 9s on the paytable is 0.1, which we’ll multiply by 3 to give 0.3. Finally, we multiply by our bet, which was $5, to give the final payout of $1.50.
If you’re not following the math, don’t worry, it’s all worked out for you, but it’s interesting to see where it all comes from in any case!
To sum it up, here’s a breakdown of all the game’s symbols and how much each one pays out as a multiple of your bet per spin:
Symbol | 2x | 3x | 4x | 5x | 6x |
Diamond | 2x bet | 5x bet | 10x bet | 30x bet | 100x bet |
Heart | – | 0.5x bet | 1.5x bet | 2.5x bet | 5x bet |
Green gem | – | 0.25x bet | 0.75x bet | 1.5x bet | 2.5x bet |
Blue gem | – | 0.25x bet | 0.5x bet | 1x bet | 2x bet |
A | – | 0.2x bet | 0.3x bet | 0.6x bet | 1.2x bet |
K | – | 0.15x bet | 0.3x bet | 0.6x bet | 1x bet |
Q | – | 0.15x bet | 0.3x bet | 0.5x bet | 0.9x bet |
J | – | 0.15x bet | 0.25x bet | 0.5x bet | 0.7x bet |
10 | – | 0.1x bet | 0.25x bet | 0.4x bet | 0.6x bet |
9 | – | 0.1x bet | 0.2x bet | 0.4x bet | 0.5x bet |
As you can see, the maximum you can win in the base game is 100x your bet. However, bear in mind that the above payout values are only for one single way. If you land multiple symbols in any of the reels, that creates additional ways, which leads to bigger wins!
Also remember that the reactions effect can result in a chain reaction of wins from a single spin, further boosting your win potential. Don’t forget about the Bonus Respins feature too. Together with the trophy bonuses of up to 2,000x your bet, they could send your profits skyrocketing!
Hypernova Megaways RTP and Volatility
How do the payouts of Hypernova Megaways compare to those of other slots? In order to make such a comparison, we’ll use the industry standard measurements of Return to Player (RTP) and Volatility.
The Return to Player of a game is defined as the percentage of played funds that is paid out to players over the long term. Compared to the industry standard of 96%, Hypernova Megaways’ RTP of 96.1% makes it an attractive game to play in terms of payouts over time.
The volatility (often called variance) of a slot is the balance between small, frequent wins and larger, less frequent ones. Low volatility slot payouts tend to be quite stable, whereas high volatility slot payouts will vary wildly. Hypernova Megaways has a volatility rating of Medium to High, which means you can expect payouts to vary a fair amount between small and frequent and larger and less frequent. This results in a very exciting game!
Ace This Space Race!
Like many other Megaways slots, Hypernova Megaways offers a really unique payout mechanism that has turned the traditional paylines structure upside down and inside out. If you’re fed up of having to remember paylines and frustrated by blank spots on the reels, this is the game for you!
The game has a definite cosmic atmosphere (or lack thereof!) that will help you escape the stresses of everyday life, if only for a while, adding the opportunity to score some really big wins while you’re at it. You’ll definitely find yourself counting up those hypernova star scatter symbols to trigger the bonus feature, enjoying every chain reaction of wins along the way!
You’ll find Hypernova Megaways at many of the best New Jersey online casinos including Golden Nugget, SugarHouse, Pala Casino and Harrah’s Casino.
Ready to zip off into the unknown for a shot at cosmic cash? Simply check out our in-depth reviews of the NJ online casinos linked above and open an account at the one that suits you best. Claim the site’s welcome bonus then open Hypernova Megaways and shoot for stellar wins!