Pirots (ELK Studios) Slot Review

Pirots: Slot Overview

One of the most famous and popular themes for an online slot game are the sailing pirates of the Seven Seas. Together with their trustworthy colorful companions, the parrots, they look for trade ships to enter for their valuable booty. But ELK Studios went a bit further: What if we take two things and make them one? So for the first time ever, ELK Studios is presenting a pirate themed online slot games called Pirots.

Pirots is played on a 5×5 grid that can be expanded up to 8×8, meaning a maximum of 64 symbols can be present at a time. The game does not use paylines nor winning ways, but uses Collecting Birds. What exactly that means we will cover later on in this online slot review. Bet sizes range from 0.20€ to 100€ (or equivalent), but may vary depending on where you play.

One thing that left us really surprised when we first took a look at Pirots, is the fact that it only features 4 different winning symbols. That was not a typo, there are 4 (four) different winning symbols. Although some might argue that there are actually 20 winning symbols because the symbols can be upgraded. Each winning symbol has 5 tiers. The highest tier will always look the fanciest, with a golden jewel crown and something like a golden belt with a jewel in it. And the more valuable the symbol, the fancier it looks. So, our winning symbols are: the Blue Gem for 3-times your bet size, the Green Gem for 5-times, the Purple Gem for 7.5-times and the Red Gem for 15-times your bet size. All gems actually come with a single payout. This may sound confusing now, but it will all make sense once we’re at the end of this online slot review.

Let’s take a look at the parrots. These will be dropped on the screen on any spin, meaning you will always have 4 different parrots on the screen. If the parrots now land anywhere orthogonally adjacent to a gem of their color, they will begin to collect any same-colored gem that is connected to the ones already collected. For every gem collected you will be paid according to their tier. Whenever two parrots land orthogonally adjacent to each other, they will swap places, as long as no win is possible anymore.

Pirots: Special Symbols and Stats

As per usual, ELK Studios games come with a barrage of Special symbols to look out for. As always, we will try our best to describe the symbols and their features to you.

On their path the parrots can cross Bonus symbols. These symbols are displayed by a golden anchor with the label „BONUS“. Collecting three of these in the same spin with any parrot will grant you the Bonus Game.

Another symbol the parrots can come across is the Symbol Upgrade. This one is portrayed in two ways, either white/translucent or colourful/opaque. The translucent one will upgrade the gems corresponding to the parrots color that picked up the symbol. The opaque will upgrade every symbol. Upgrades stay until the end of a spin.

The next symbol that parrots can cross is the Barrel o’ Rum. When a parrot picks this one up, it will either transform a cluster of gems around it into the same color as the parrot that collected it, or into a random number of feature symbols.

Still a few to go, next up is the Coin symbol. When a parrot comes across a coin, it will pay out the value that is shown on the coin multiplied with your base bet size. We can’t exactly tell you the range of possible values, but according to the game itself, there is something like a „Max Win“ Coin. We will cover the exact Max Win later on in this online slot review.

Second-to-last is the Bomb. If a parrot collects this one, and there is no more win in view, the Bomb will explode. What this means is that it will destroy any symbol in sight, except for Special symbols in close proximity, and force a redrop. Additionally, the grid will expand by 1 reel and 1 row. This can happen a maximum of 3 times, up to a grid size of 8×8.

And finally, the last Special symbol, is the Wild symbol. The Wild symbol is simply portrayed by the letter W and substitutes for any winning symbol except Bonus symbols.

Alright, now that we finished all of the Special symbols, let’s take a look at the stats. And as always, ELK Studios is very shallow when it comes to stats. Pirots comes with a base RTP of 94,00%, which is pretty far below average. It has a max win potential of 10,000-times your bet size, pretty solid, nothing wrong here. On average you will get a win round about every fourth spin. And that’s pretty much everything we can tell you about the Pirots stats.

Pirots: Feature Overview

As if all of the Special symbols weren’t enough, Pirots also comes with some interesting features.

Bounty Chest

You may have already noticed a bar at the top of the screen with a bounty chest besides it. This bounty chest is filled with goods to help you on your journey for the Big Win. To fill up the bar you need to collect enough gems. Once the bar is filled, the bounty chest will open and reveal 3 Special symbols anywhere on the grid. Unfortunately we cannot tell you how many gems are needed in order to fill up the bar.

Bonus Game

If your parrots managed to pick up 3 Bonus symbols, you will be awarded 5 Free Spins. Since your parrots can’t pick up more than 3 Bonus symbols, this is all you get for now. The Bonus Game pretty much works the same like the base game with one vital difference. Any of your progress, whether it be your Bounty Chest or your grid size, is kept between spins. This also counts for the trigger, by the way. So if you triggered with a grid size of 7×7, you will take that with you into the feature. Retriggering is also possible, if your parrots manage to collect 3 Bonus symbols. These will not get reset either. The feature ends once every spin has been used or the max win potential of 10,000-times has been reached.

Super Bonus Game

Pirots, like many other ELK Studios games, also features a Super Bonus Game. In the Super Bonus Game you will start the Free Spins with the maximum grid size. Additionally, all Upgrade symbols will always upgrade every gem color. Unfortunately, the Super Bonus Game cannot be triggered in the base game and has to be purchased via the X-iter function.

X-iter

Talking about X-iter, this is a sort of Bonus Buy Feature developed by ELK Studios. You usually get 4 to 5 different options to choose from, with different bet ranges and features. Pirots lets you select from 5 different features, namely.

• Bonus Hunt for 3-times your bet size – More than quadruple the chance to trigger the bonus game.
• Feature Bonanza for 10-times your bet size – One drop with a guaranteed full Bounty Chest.
• Maximum Grid Size for 25-times your bet size – One drop that is played with the maximum grid size.
• Bonus Game for 100-times your bet size – Guaranteed entry to the Bonus Game.
• Super Bonus Game for 500-times your bet size – Guaranteed entry to the Super Bonus Game.

Pirots: Conclusion

It is stunning, almost frightening, how ELK Studios, after all these years, still find ways to innovate their games and bring them to the next level. It’s almost like they said for themselves „You know what? If others don’t do it, then we will.“ And in terms of design, humor and innovation ELK Studios have once again outdone themselves with Pirots.

Unfortunately, the much lower than average RTP of 94% is a downer. As some of you might know, the average RTP of online slot games is around 96%. And while a difference of 2% doesn’t look like much, in the long term, it is a big difference. Many will probably not notice it, but if you plan to play Pirots for longer, you will definitely notice it.

In the end, Pirots is a really lovely game with lots of exciting moments. We had a blast testing the game and all of its features. Like we mentioned, the RTP difference is a bit of a mood killer, but if you don’t mind it, you will probably have lots of fun Pirots. This concludes our online slot review. Hopefully we answered all of your questions without leaving any open.