Leviathan Gold: Shoot the Reef, Spin the Golden Wheel

No reels, just a reef full of targets

Forget paylines. In Leviathan Gold the screen is open water, and creatures drift across it in every direction while a little brass-helmeted diver waits at the bottom with his cannon. You tap or hold anywhere on the water to fire (the space bar does the same job on a computer). Catch a creature and you win its multiplier times your bet per shot. Shots bounce off the edges of the screen until they hit something, and a shot that hits nothing at all is handed back.

It belongs to the family of free fishing games, which means skill of aim matters for where your shots go, while the server decides each catch. The Leviathan Gold demo is the easiest way to feel that balance before deciding whether the format is for you.

What swims past and what it is worth

The small fry are frequent and cheap: a Silver Minnow carries ×2, and values climb through clownfish, tangs, the Imperial Koi at ×20 and the Great Shark at ×40, up to the Night Manta at ×50. The Treasure Chest drifts by with a variable value. Two armoured creatures, the Lantern Angler and the Crimson Octopus, can deliver a SUPER ×5 catch.

Then there are the specials:

• Thunder Jelly: chain lightning that also catches up to 5 nearby creatures.
• Blast Pearl: explodes and takes up to 8 creatures around it.
• Golden Dragon and Kraken: bosses announced by a warning. Catch one and the golden wheel decides its multiplier, up to ×300.

Neither special can drag a boss into its blast. Every few minutes a fish tide sweeps the reef and a whole school arrives in formation, which is the moment the screen gets crowded. The cap is 2,000 times the bet per shot.

Cannon, laser or bomb

Three weapons, three prices. The cannon costs one bet per shot. The laser costs five bets and fires a beam through every creature in its path, up to twenty of them. The bomb costs fifteen bets: you tap a creature and the blast reaches everything around it, up to thirty targets, and it is refunded if nothing is in range. A useful detail: if the creatures reached by a laser or bomb are worth less than the price of the shot, you pay less.

AUTO fires non-stop, and LOCK fixes on the most valuable creature on screen; tap another one to switch.

A plan for your first free session

When you play Leviathan Gold free, there is no sign-up and nothing to install, so experiment. Start with the cannon at a low bet such as the equivalent of 10p, and fire a hundred shots to see how often small fish fall. Then switch on LOCK during a boss warning and watch how long the Golden Dragon stays on screen. Try the bomb only when a tide brings a dense cluster through, since that is when its price makes sense. Raising the bet also gives you a bigger cannon on screen, which is purely visual but satisfying.

On a phone, turn the handset sideways: the game asks for landscape so the reef has room to breathe. If the format clicks, the same game runs for real money at the casinos below.