Updated
Lisa Michaels
Head out onto the open medium to high volatility seas with Boom Pirates online slot, initially a 5x4 slot with 1024 paylines, from Microgaming and Foxium. Captain Mary hoists the Jolly Roger to attack a small island with her band of pirates in this dynamic slot packed with a shipload of treasures and many, many ways to win. The slot begins with five reels, four rows and 1024 paylines, but as the game progresses, the pirate ship will fire cannonballs at random times, uncovering more symbols and ways to win, resulting in a 6x9 grid with a whopping 10,077,696 ways to win!
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Set sail with the pirate crew, and you'll come across an island in the ocean with a top-down view. Overlayed on the island is a set of reels that initially has five reels and four rows but can expand to up to a massive 9x6 playing surface.
Below the reels is the control panel, featuring all the buttons you need to control the ship. The spin button is right in the centre, with a quick spin option you can toggle to the left and an autoplay option to activate on the right.
Also on the right-hand side of the control panel is the bet setting. You can tap your current bet to open a menu or use the plus and minus buttons to increase or decrease your bet within the limits. The Foxify button is found next to the bet settings, and you can toggle this to boost your chances of a bonus feature.
Over in the very far left of the screen, above the control panel but below the pirate ship, you can find the menu, which opens to show you the settings options and paytable.
Open the paytable to discover all the symbols and their payouts, as well as details on bonus features and how tosecure the biggest wins. In total, there are ten regular symbols and one bonus symbol.
The slot's low-paying symbols are the card suit symbols, which pay 1x your bet for five of a kind and 5x for nine of a kind.
The higher-value symbols are a barrel, a canon, a parrot, and Ben, a pirate with a bomb. The barrel pays 1.2x your bet for five of a kind and 7.5x for nine of a kind. The cannon pays 1.5x for five and 10x for nine, and the parrot pays 2x for five and 15x for nine. Ben pays 3x your bet for five on a payline and 20x for nine. The highest paying symbol is Captain Mary, who pays 5x for five and 25x for nine on a payline.
The slot has no wild but features Yo Ho Ho Scatter symbols that appear on reels 1, 3 and 5.
This slot uses Wonderways, a new type of way to win over the traditional paylines. A standard win is formed whenever you land matching symbols along adjacent reels from left to right. However, wins are increased when these wins form clusters too. There are 1,024 ways to win normally, but this can increase as you play. Your payout is determined by symbol value and your total stake.
As you hunt for buried treasure, there are a few special features that help make things more exciting. Read on to learn what's in store when you spin the reels.
The Boom Pirate Feature is triggered randomly and can happen on any spin. The pirate screams, "boooom pirates," and the pirate ship fires cannonballs at the reels, destroying the blocker spaces and potentially expanding to a 9x6 grid with over 10 million ways to win. The size of the reels returns to normal after the spin is complete.
This feature can be triggered on a non-winning spin and results in Captain Mary swinging herself from the ropes with a chance of leaving you five matching symbols on a payline.
Land 3 scatter symbols which spell out Yo-Ho-Ho on the reels to trigger the free spins. This activates ten free spins. Landing three scatters during the free spins feature results in an extra five free spins. If Boom Pirates is triggered during Free Spins, the full 9x6 grid remains open for the duration of the free spins.
The Foxify Feature is a manual one that you can choose to activate or not. The feature costs you 50 % more per spin and makes it more likely that you will trigger the free spins feature and Boom Pirate feature on any spin. You may also buy the Free Spins Feature at a cost of 100x your stake.
Max payout is capped at 3,800x. Playing at the maximum stake of $75 per spin would mean a potential win of $285,000.
The game's RTP rate is measured at 96.19%, though this can change if the feature buy or Foxify feature is activated. The volatility is medium to high, implying a slightly higher-than-average payout size, although the win frequency is a bit lower than average.
When playing the slot, it's important to bet responsibly and remember that these ratings are calculated over a huge number of spins. Your playing sessions can yield very different results, with much higher or lower returns, due to the random nature of each spin.
The game's style and design really help it stand out. While the graphics themselves aren't mind-blowing, the characters all have unique designs, and the cartoonish style means it will still look great to play many years from now. Animations each time you spin the reels, land wins, and discover scatters help add to the suspense and excitement.
The background music is a little disjointed, and I had to mute it, though I did enjoy the sound effects that play when the Boom Pirates feature activates and the cannon explodes the reels. A pirate's voice also calls out each scatter that lands, adding to the fun whenever they appear.
Don't just take our word for how the game works and what it's like to play. You can try it out for yourself with the free demo on this page. You don't need to sign in or spend any money. Simply load the demo and play as much as you like.
You'll get to experience the features such as Boom Pirates and free spins without any risk. Once you've got to grips with the game, you can then play at a real money casino if you're interested.
Pirate slots are among my favourites, just because of how much I love pirate movies and music. There's something appealing about sailing around, drinking rum and digging up buried treasure on deserted islands, even if the dangers of cannon fire might be a bit extreme. Here are a few of my favourite pirate slots and how they compare to Boom Pirates:
Out on the open sea there is water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink and with medium to high volatility, some dry spells can be expected in this slot too. However, the Wonderways empowered Boom Pirates Feature adds a new level of excitementwhen it opens up tiles and expands the grid. It makes for a brilliant slot with decent winning potential, although with more than 10 million ways to win possible, some might feel the max win could be larger.
Lisa started off as a croupier at her local casino. However she found her niche in writing and has subsequently used her real-world gambling experiences to help produce and review the many online slots that are released monthly. Lisa also contributes to keeping you up to date with Canadian newsworthy stories.
