Age of the Gods: Hercules Rules Slot by Playtech

The reels are stepped, and that shape is the whole point. The two left columns stand short at two symbols each, the three on the right run taller, and a compass scatter tucked into the lower-right corner of a symbol only lands on those three right-hand reels. Get one on reel three and another on reel four in the same spin and all three right reels grow a symbol taller, pushing the board from 40 lines up to 60 for that spin. The compass shows up in bronze, silver or gold, but only the gold ones matter for the bigger prize: land three gold compasses and you're into the nine Free Games, played on the full 60-line layout.

The Wild is an ornate round shield, bronze and red on the reels, standing in for anything except the compass. Free Games are where it changes. At random on entry, fire wraps the reel window and turns every shield gold, and those gold shields do two jobs. Fill all four positions on both left reels and you get three more spins. Fill a whole right reel with them and that's another three. A gold-shield symbol you only ever see inside the feature, so the retriggers can only come once you're already there.

Sitting above everything are four shared Age of the Gods progressives, Power, Extra Power, Super Power and Ultimate Power, fed across every casino running the network. They drop at random with nothing to line up. When one triggers you're dropped into a grid of face-down coins and pick until you match three of a kind, and whichever tier you match is the one you win. Bet higher and your odds of entering that pick game go up. In the free demo the four banners read as unavailable, so you see the ladder but not the numbers behind it.

Art is all golden-hour Greek temple: fluted Ionic columns either side of the reels, a hazy domed city glowing in the distance, and a cast of a sword-raising Hercules in his lion pelt, a laurel-crowned goddess, a winged purple Pegasus, a lion, and a red potion bottle above the jewelled royals. No buy button here, and no free-spins shortcut. The only way to the fire-shield round is three gold compasses landing on their own.