Sinbad's Golden Voyage Slot by Playtech

The reels don't sit in a neat rectangle here. They step up in height from left to right, each column taller than the one before, so the right side towers over the opening reel like a wall. The symbols come stacked to match, thin blocks two high on reel one growing into six-high slabs by the last column. The wild is built for exactly that shape. Sinbad, the muscular hero braced on a rock, expands to fill a whole reel top to bottom, and dropping him on one of the tall right-hand columns completes a big share of the 164 lines in one go, since every stacked position on that reel turns wild at once.

The gold medallion is the scatter, a jewelled sunburst with a 7 at its centre, and it only counts on reels two, four and six. Land one on each of those three and the free spins begin: 7 spins on the same stepped reels, with the expanded Sinbad still filling columns. No bonus buy, no jackpot hanging over the grid. Those seven spins are the only gear above the base game, so everything rides on how many wild reels land where the stacks are tallest.

It all plays out on open water. A calm turquoise sea runs to the horizon under a blue sky full of soft clouds, and the gold-scrolled reel window sits right on top of it. The premiums are painted in a storybook Arabian Nights style: Scheherazade with her lute beside a domed white palace, a roc bird with fiery orange-and-gold wings, and a striped-sail wooden ship crewed and heading out to sea. Cut gems in ruby red, emerald green, sapphire blue and diamond white fill the low end. It's a bright, old-fashioned Playtech look from the ASH Gaming years, closer to a painted book cover than the flashier fantasy slots that came after.