Dead Man’s Riches

Dead Man's Riches Slot

Death is apparently no excuse for abandoning a good old-fashioned treasure hunt. In PG Soft's Dead Man's Riches, two rival pirate crews have spent their afterlives fighting over a fortune at the bottom of the ocean, proving that greed is one human characteristic even the Grim Reaper can't get rid of. The Red Sails and Blue Tides are still going at it, despite having been reduced to skeletons, and their supernatural feud is the inspiration for a slot featuring travelling wilds, multiplier combinations and a choice of Free Spins bonuses. There's a 10,000x max payout up for grabs, too, although claiming it might prove almost as difficult as getting two dead pirates to settle their differences.

Pirate slots are ten a penny, but sending the whole operation underwater gives Dead Man's Riches a slightly different atmosphere. PG Soft has created a ghostly shipwreck environment, complete with sinister sea creatures, skeletal sailors and the remnants of a vessel that has clearly seen better days. Giant octopuses and electric eels occupy the reels alongside nautical equipment, while the overall presentation has the polished, animated appearance associated with the developer. It's a handsome production, albeit one that doesn't stray particularly far from established pirate fantasy. For a genre already overflowing with cursed treasure, undead captains and supernatural mischief, originality is becoming a scarce commodity.

Dead Man's Riches is a high volatility slot played on a 5x3 grid with 20 paylines, accepting bets from 0.20 to 100 per spin. The RTP is an attractive 96.75%, and five matching Electric Eels award 25x the bet, followed by Octopuses at 20x and Ship's Wheels at 15x. The relatively conventional payline setup leaves most of the entertainment to the game's special symbols, which is where PG Soft has invested its creative efforts.

Two different skull wilds roam the reels, with Red Skulls travelling downwards and Blue Skulls moving left. Their appearance triggers free respins, continuing for as long as the travelling wilds remain in view. When the two skulls collide, they merge into a Wild Captain, adding their multipliers together. On the following respin, the Captain separates into two wilds again, each retaining the combined multiplier. It's a rather clever arrangement, allowing multipliers to move around the grid instead of remaining anchored to a single position.

Three or more Scatters trigger Free Spins, presenting a choice between 15 regular spins or 8 spins with Persistent Wilds. In the latter mode, skulls that leave the grid reappear on the opposite side, allowing them to continue travelling and potentially merging throughout the feature. Landing 2, 4 or 6 wilds during Free Spins also awards 2, 3 or 5 additional spins, respectively.

There's something appealing about a slot that gives its main characters an actual job to do. The opposing skulls aren't simply decorative wild symbols, and their movement creates a small game within the game as they travel towards one another. It's also a refreshing departure from the endless parade of Hold and Win features and collection meters. PG Soft has explored multiplier wilds before, in games such as Mermaid Riches and Emoji Riches, but the travelling and merging behaviour gives Dead Man's Riches a somewhat different flavour.

The choice between Free Spins modes is another welcome touch, although the eight-spin option feels like the more interesting of the two. Keeping the wilds circulating allows the game's central mechanic to develop rather than watching promising multipliers disappear off the edge of the reels. The regular 15-spin alternative offers more initial spins, but doesn't have quite the same appeal on paper.

Unfortunately, the concept is more exciting than the overall package. There is a fair amount of waiting for the right wilds to appear, and even when they do, their movement doesn't necessarily translate into particularly impressive wins. A pair of skulls carrying a respectable multiplier might look promising, but unless they connect with something worthwhile, all that supernatural activity can amount to very little. The original source review also reports several disappointing bonus results, which is hardly encouraging, although individual sessions cannot establish how the game performs over the long term.

Then there's the competition. The pirate genre has moved well beyond traditional paylines and roaming wilds, with releases such as ELK Studios' Pirots 5 demonstrating just how creatively the subject can be interpreted. Dead Man's Riches is considerably more conservative, relying on one entertaining mechanical idea to distinguish itself from the crowd. That's not necessarily a problem, but it leaves the game looking a little undernourished once the novelty of the travelling skulls begins to fade.

Dead Man's Riches isn't a bad slot by any means. The underwater scenery is attractive, the 96.75% RTP is a welcome sight, and the interaction between the rival skulls is a genuinely enjoyable idea. However, the gameplay doesn't quite develop into something as captivating as its premise suggests. There are moments when the travelling wilds make things interesting, particularly when multipliers begin combining, but too much of the experience rests on waiting for those moments to materialise.

Perhaps that's the real curse of Dead Man's Riches. Two pirate crews have spent an eternity guarding their treasure, only for PG Soft to produce a game that occasionally makes the hunt feel longer than the reward justifies. A respectable effort, then, but hardly the sort of booty that will have rival captains fighting over it for another few hundred years.