Play Ocean Trouble for Free

From the wavy edges to each reel, to the picture of corals and dolphins behind the main game, it’s very nicely designed, complete with bubbles rising up as the reels spin. Even some of the control buttons are made to look like seashells, but something worth noticing at the top of this slot game are the 4-stage progressive jackpot values that steadily rise as a percentage of all wagers is put aside until the jackpot round is triggered by a lucky player.

There are 8 standard symbols to this game, all of which consist of various well-designed, cartoon style aquatic creatures. The lower half of the paytable is taken up by a lobster and seahorse, either of which on a payline will be worth 5x, 25x or 125x the line bet, depending on how many reels they are across, while an angry-looking puffer fish and pink jellyfish are each valued at 15x, 125x, or 250x.

An octopus glares out from the reels, paying 25x, 225x and 750x when he appears, which is the same amount as a friendly green turtle, while the grinning shark, or the happy dolphin return the top wins of 75x, 350x and 2,000x the line stake when landing on 3, 4, or 5 reels.

Any of these symbols can be substituted by the wild bubble. If spinners land a line of matching symbols, but there’s a break in the sequence at any point, they wouldn’t normally win anything, but if the bubble is in the right place to bridge the gap, it will act as the missing piece and still return a prize.

A picture of the grinning shark on a gold coin takes players to a unique bonus feature whenever they see it landing on reels 1, 2 and 3 at once. There’s a 2-stage swimming contest which has different sea creatures competing against each other, and players just need to select their champion for each round. Picking the right animal twice is all that’s needed to win outright and clam (sorry, claim) a bonus win.

Some brightly-coloured coral is the scatter symbol that launches a free spins round when it’s seen in any 3 or more places at once, without having to be on a payline. If just 3 scatters landed, players are given 5 free games, while 4 scatters will see 8 bonus spins play out and there’s 10 spins for anyone who manages to land 5 or more corals on the reels.

Unlike the free spins in much of the GamingSoft online casino slots range, there’s no special mix of symbols available in the bonus round, so win-lines will on average, occur as frequently as they do in the base games, while the spins also can’t be retriggered.

If the picture of a castle beneath the waves turns up on reels 1, 2 and 3 at once, the progressive jackpot feature begins, and a win of wither the Mini, Minor, Major or Grand jackpots is guaranteed, although players at the minimum bet levels get just 10% of an overall prize and only those at the high limit win 100% of a jackpot.

To see which they have won, they simply click on the 12 lucky sea shells strewn about the ocean floor, revealing a jackpot level with each. Once 3 of the same type has been found, they win that jackpot.

The Ocean Trouble video slot is very typical of the GamingSoft range, as it shares the jackpot feature, has wild substitutions and a free spins round, but lacks some of the unique twists that many of their games have.

Other games, such as the similar Little Fantail video slot machine for example, treat players to high-paying wild symbols, or expanding wilds, or special symbols in play during the free spins bonuses, so it’s a bit of a shame that this one has none of these.

But it’s certainly a good-looking mobile-optimised slot machine that delivers plenty of reliable winning spins, and the careful design should go some way towards making up for any deficiencies in the bonus rounds.