Leagues of Fortune Pokies
Clearly inspired by Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, this pokie from Microgaming is filled with symbols like a submarine, captain, diving suit and lost treasures. It’s got 5 reels and a format that does away with conventional paylines and instead replaces them with a system that pays whenever identical symbols land anywhere on adjacent reels.
Although the novel isn’t directly mentioned, it’s pretty obvious what the game is based on, as the submarine even has a giant squid attacking it, and the captain looks the spitting image of James Mason who played Nemo in the 1954 movie. (Not Nemo the fish, I mean the captain of the Nautilus.)
Diving Right in
A suitably bluish hue is everywhere in this deep sea adventure, with light reflecting on water gently moving in the background against the steel of the submarine. It’s very effective at setting the scene and marks this out as a high quality pokie that’s had a lot of thought put into the design.
Even the control buttons have been made to fit in with the design and appear to be part of the submarine. Players can use them to set a coin value from 0.10 to 1.00 and then bet 1 to 10 coins for a minimum of 0.50 and a maximum wager per spin of 50.00.
There’s no need to decide how many paylines are played, as there aren’t any. Instead, there’s 1024 ways to win, anytime 3 or more examples of the same symbol land across adjacent reels, running from the one on the left side. Payouts rise with 4 or 5 across the reels, and some symbols are worth more than others.
Leagues of Fortune
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Looking at the paytable, players will see that the card symbols 10, J, Q, K and A are the lower value ones, and anyone who has played Microgaming pokies before will recognise them as the same symbols that have appeared on multiple titles from this developer.
Higher up the pay scale we see symbols directly related to the theme, starting with a map and compass, then there’s the submarine, diver and finally the captain who is the highest value regular symbol.
Bonus features are triggered by the wild and scatter symbols. The wild is simply the League of Fortune logo and it will be stacked several high on a reel, substituting for other basic ones if that will lead to a winning combination being created.
It’s also a high value symbol when it lands on adjacent reels, but the main feature of Leagues of Fortune is triggered by the treasure chest which is a scatter symbol.
That means it can land anywhere on the reels, paying out prizes that are multiples of the total bet, not just the coin values when just 2 land at once. Any 3 or more also start off a free spins game, which starts with a fun animated sequence where the giant squid lashes out at the submarine as it sails around the screen. As the tentacles hit symbols, it reveals a number of free spins, and once the sequence is over, that’s how many will then commence, with the potential for 35 free games to play out.
Any wins collected during the free spins will be subject to a 5x multiplier, although they can’t be re-triggered until players have gone back to the base game and manage to land 3 or more scatters again.
Lots of pokies have gamble rounds where players can opt to double up their wins over and over, but the one here is quite special as it takes place inside the submarine where players can decide how much of the triggering win to gamble and how much to collect.
Clicking the + and – buttons of the gamble game will decrease or increase the risks and rewards of playing, and once the level is set, players just click to spin the dial and can either gamble again or collect the win if successful, or they will forfeit the triggering win if unsuccessful.
A Classic or a Damp Squid?
Leagues of Fortune has an excellent design, although some players may not like the ever-present high card symbols making an appearance. But if that’s not a problem, then there’s lots to like about how it looks and the bonus rounds are pretty good as well.
Stacked wilds can complete several winning lines at once, and the free spins prelude is something different, while a 5x multiplier is very nice indeed thank you. Add in the gamble round where players get to decide how much risk they take and you have a good all-rounder that should prove popular at online casinos that carry the Microgaming range.