Pirates Charm

Ah, pirates. In equal measures the scum and dregs of society, while at the same time, the fascination and dreams of many. Trading stable society and laws for freedom at sea, they ransacked valuable ships, terrorised coasts, and were the envy of many. But a life out at sea came with its own set of troubles, not to mention that not many lived on to see a ripe old age or leave behind an important trail on history. Everyone remembers Blackbeard – nobody remembers his underlings or rivals. So many of us are content to let dreams be dreams and stick to society’s shackles – the safety they provide is well worth the loss of freedom. Still, if you’re looking to live your pirate fantasy, Quickspin has you covered with their latest release. Pirate’s Charm offers gamblers a 5×3 playing field with 243 ways to win. A pirate’s life is a gamble, so you will find lots of Mystery Charm icons filling your reels, two features based around the mystery charm, and the good, old, and ever reliable free spins to push things along if you’re no good with dice.

We’re not quite sure how we got to the point where this title, released a month earlier before Dwarfs Gone Wild, ends up looking better, instead of graphics being something that constantly march forward. A cursory glance immediately shows a lot more attention went into this title. The light glow of the lanterns, the beautiful water animations, the occasional gust of wind that blows on top of the water. It’s visually stunning to watch, and worthy of competing with names far bigger than Quickspin in the visual department. It’s fair to say we were overall floored by the graphics presented here. Well done!
On the gameplay side of things, just about everything is based around the lucky charms, after which the Quickspin’s release has won its title. These mystery charms can become any symbol on the playing field excluding Scatters and they even have their own features present throughout it all. One of them is Mystery Spin, which is randomly activated and has a greater chance at making more mystery charms appear on the reels, which makes the second feature, the re-spins, more likely to occur. The mystery charm re-spins occur when you have those icons on the first, second and third reel. All mystery charms are locked in place and a re-spin is rewarded. If another mystery charm lands on the playing field during the re-spin, another one is rewarded and this keeps going until no more mystery charms are able to land, or you run out of them.

So, in effect, you’re dealing with a double luck challenge. It’s not only that you need to get good symbol combinations landing on the playing field, but you also need to account for which icons these mystery charms will turn out to be. The various features tied to the charms helps to off-set the randomness slightly, and their presence in the base game is certainly helpful to keep things from getting stale, but if you’re after the biggest wins in this medium-high volatility title, you want free spins. During free spins, you can win the biggest fixed jackpot in Pirate’s Charm – a whopping 3,861x your wager. The title boasts an RTP of 96.49%.

It’s fair to say you will be seeing a lot of the golden mystery charms on the playing field, but they will eventually give way to show two types of symbols. The lower paying playing card symbols – 10, J, Q, K and A, looking like they were hastily painted on wooden boards – or higher paying pirate symbols like a ship’s wheel, two crossed swords and a skull, and three different pirate captains gambling between each other with these mysterious charms.

Apart from the charms, however, there are regular free spins. You win them by collecting three Scatters at the same time on the playing field. This rewards ten free spins, and on top of that, it locks in place any mystery charms for the duration of the special feature. This is important beyond the eventual win it will lead up to – as every time a reel is completely covered with mystery charms, it will reward two extra free spins, giving you more time to potentially fill the entire reel with mystery charms – which would lead to a massive win.