Pirates Party

Pirates Party: Slot Overview

Here's a little thought experiment, no Googling; if someone mentions the words 'pirate party', how do you visualise it going down? Maybe there'd be casks of rum being consumed at a prodigious rate, a lot of cussing, maybe a punch up or two, depending on how friendly the pirates are, before a late night to bed, and a powerful hangover the next morning. Then again, maybe other pirate get-togethers were no more boisterous than a couple of half-pint shandies by a crackling fire after months at sea. If you'd like to see developer NetEnt's interpretation of a buccaneering shindig, come take a look at the online slot Pirates Party.

The funny thing about Pirates Party is that at no time does it ever feel like an actual party. The base game takes place in some kind of wooden building or boat by the water, free spins occur beneath the water, and the Helms of Luck bonus round happens next to a ship at sea. Where's the booze and snacks? Guess it's not that sort of party, but Pirates Party is a lively event. NetEnt has used a light-hearted cartoonish method to present buccaneering in the sort of salty slot where the sun always shines, loot lies around just waiting to be picked up, and the governor's offspring throws themselves at you for your hand in marriage. If only it was so easy.

Pirates Party is played in the base game and in free spins on a 5x3 game grid utilizing a 243 ways to win pay system. Matching symbols landing on three or more adjacent reels beginning from the leftmost side of the grid make a win. Just below the reels, hitting the bet button is where gamblers may choose a stake of 10 c to $/€20 per spin and should know they are getting a medium volatile math model with a default RTP of 96.17%.

The pay symbols in Pirates Party come in two forms - the above-water base game version and the below-water version. Both have exactly the same values and look more or less the same as well. On the low side are 10 to A card ranks, worth 1 to 3 times the bet for a 5-of-a-kind winning way, then a rat, a parrot, a monkey, a man, and a lady as the high pays, worth 8x to 40x for 5 OAK. Skull 'n W wilds substitute for all pay symbols and are present on all reels. Wilds pay 40x the bet if they land a 5-of-a-kind winning way.

Pirates Party: Slot Features

Pirates Party isn't exactly short of features, sporting 3 different free spin rounds for players to choose once triggered and a progress bar which links to the Helms of Luck bonus where players pick the prize wheels they would like to spin.

Progress Bar

Scatter symbols appear only in the main game and are collected when they land to progress the bonus bar. Filling the progress bar triggers the Helms of Luck Bonus, which then resets the progress bar to 0.

Helms of Luck Bonus

When the progress bar is filled, thereby triggering the Helms of Luck bonus, players are awarded 8 tokens and presented with 3 prize wheel helms. Helms are split into segments, each segment possessing a prize. Helm wheels cost a certain amount of tokens to spin:

• Blue Helm – costs 1 token to spin where there are prizes of 2x to 15x the bet.
• Green Helm – costs 3 tokens to spin where there are prizes of 5x to 50x the bet, plus free spins.
• Purple Helm – costs 5 tokens to spin where there are prizes of 10x to 100x the bet, plus free spins.

The round ends when all tokens have been spent, and the wheels stop spinning. The total prize value and the total of any free spins are then awarded.

Free Spins

Landing 3 scatter symbols on reels 1, 3, and 5 in the base game triggers the free spins feature. Once activated, players choose the free spins round they would prefer from these options:

• 15 free spins with a win multiplier of x5 applied to all wins.
• 10 free spins with up to 5 wild symbols may be added to the reels for the current spin.
• 5 free spins with up to 2 wild symbols of 2x2 in size may be added to the reels for the current spin.

Pirates Party: Slot Verdict

Pirates Party might not be an outrageously debauched event at a seedy dockside tavern of all-night alcohol consumption and wall-to-wall regurgitation, but it is a rather spirited event. NetEnt has kept the colours bright, the weather warm, and the action relatively persistent. Pirates Party sits in stark contrast to Rage of the Seas, an earlier pirate slot from NetEnt, a heavier, more realistic buccaneering game which slunk through dark seas all broody and mad at the world.

Pirates Party is not like that, no sir. This is a game where free spins take place beneath the water, and the human character symbols (as well as the animals) pack snorkels so they can breathe down there. Unrealistic, sure, not that we are calling for historical accuracy, just pointing out the sort of hilarity angle the game's shooting for. The feel-good factor is one of Pirates Party's selling points, creating the impression it is aimed at a casual, general sort of gambler, one which isn't fussed by a 3,046x max win figure. This feeling is further reinforced by the features. Having tokens to spend on prize helms was kind of fun, kind of novel, even if the majority of the prizes were on the low side. The progress bar collection dynamic helps make the base game more interesting, though. Free spins are nothing special, even if having three to choose from provides variety. Dropping two 2x2 wilds onto a pay ways game board has promise, but getting more than one in view could be a challenge.

And so wraps up Pirates Party, which was not by many measures the wildest soirée ever witnessed by humankind. It's not hard to see it appealing to certain gamblers, though, what with the popular pirate theme, its bright, cheerful theme use, injections of humour, and fairly wide range of features, even if many of them are old hat.