Theme & Design

Awesome Dark and Moody Pirate Slot Atmosphere

Dead Man’s Trail is a superb production. Relax are in the top tier of game developers and mostly they deliver games with top class narrative, visuals and audio. Certainly in this case they do. Whilst many pirate games offer a sea-shanty backdrop and Captain pugwash style graphics, Relax have identified the murkier parts of pirate mythology and their game is an eerie reflection of those tales of sea-faring crims. The setting here is a Caribbean port with huge, towering cliffs, a dark and brooding sky, and wooden ships and buildings lit only by the feint orange glow of lanterns.  Center stage are 4 suspicous-looking characters, ready to slice you with a cutlass, and a dark mist is rolling in to cover them all. There is a dramatic orchestral score to accompany your spins too. Altogether, top class.

RTP and Variance

The RTP in Dead Man’s Trail is standard for Relax Gaming slots and a comfortable 96.29%, well in range of most games these days. Meanwhile, you’ll know already that the variance is very high so the game is likely to deliver an uneven win distribution, and can be a frustrating play. You should expect the RTP to be weighted towards that tough-to-crack bonus round instead. With that in mind, the relatively low 10p min stake is a good call as it will be easy to burn though cash in no time on a game like this.

Maximum Win

Like many high-risk slots, Dead Man’s Trail does offer a super high top payout of 50,000x. This is one of Relax’s highest max win slots, coming in only under a few games like Money Train 3 (100,000x) for example.

Symbols and Paytable

The game plays on 5 reels, each displaying 4 rows of symbols. There are 40 paylines to win on with wins triggered by landing 3 or more identical symbols from left to right starting at the left most reel.

You have 8 pay symbols in the table. The low value ones are the cards, Jack, Queen, King and Ace, valued at from 0.1x for 3 Jacks up to 3x for 5 Aces. The premiums are the 4 main characters, One-Eye with his eye-patch, Scout the cigarette-smoking female pirate, the sneering Collector rubbing his gold coin and the bald-headed cutlass-wielding Commander. These character symbols pay from 5x to 30x your bet for 5 of a kind.

There is also a Wild, represented by a golden W which can substitute for all pay symbols to complete a pay line. It also pays out 2x, 10x or 60x for 3, 4 or 5 on a payline, which is double the best-paying character symbol.

Features and Gameplay

Limited to just one extra feature in the base game, Dead Man’s Tail is really all about getting to the trail-based bonus round. Here is how it all works.

Coin Multipliers In Base Game

In the base game landing 3 gold coins on the reels on the same spin will get you a multiplier prize. The 3 multipliers on the visible coins are added together. This basic event livens up the base game from time to time whilst you’re waiting for the Dead Man’s Trail Bonus feature to trigger.

Dead Man’s Trail Bonus

So, onto the main event, and when 3 of more Bonus symbols – represented by the Pirate Ship at full sail – land on the reels together so this will activate the Dead Man’s Trail Bonus. A new screen is revealed featuring a map with a trail. Your piece will move around the board by the number of places revealed each turn, from 1 to 9. Each time you land, a new action is triggered depending on the type of tile landed on.

Tiles come as Standard Tiles that reveal a prize value, all of which are added together and paid out at the end of the round, Skull and Crossbones Tiles that signal the game is over, Start Tiles that re-sets the board, or Chest Tiles that delivers one of the following:

A Scout – adds a 100 or 1,000 value to one of the standard tiles on the board.

One Eye – increases the value of a standard tile by multiplier of 2x to 5x

Commander – increases the value of ALL standard tiles by 3 or 5

Collector – adds sum of ALL standard tiles in play to the total win so far.

Collect and Command – adds the sum of ALL standard tiles to EACH standard tile AND the total win so far.

Reset – replace End tiles (Skull and Crossbone) with standard ones, extending gameplay

Super Reset – replaces the End tiles with Mystery Chests

Coin Win – at random a value of 25x to 50x is added to current win total

Persistent Scout – same as standard Scout but triggers after EVERY turn

Persistent One-Eye – like standard One Eye but triggers after EVERY turn

Persistent Commander – like standard Commander but triggers after EVERY turn

And that’s it. If you think there are similarities with the Money Train bonus rounds then you’d be right. But in this case, which modifiers come into play depends on your moves around the board, which adds a further jeopardy as you can see what might come up next.

The Final Verdict

What a game! Dead Man’s Trail is a gritty pirate adventure that touches on the darker side of fictional pirating! This slot is ideal for players looking for one with an edgy vibe and a super volatility. The drawback here is that things can get a bit boring if you don’t hit the Bonus Game for a long time. The gold coins do offer the chance to boost your rewards with random Multipliers but that is all you have to keep you happy in the slim pickings of the base game.

But let’s not judge on that front because when you load up a high variance slot, you know what you are getting into, and it’s going to be tough at times. They key is what follows, if you get that far, and that is a Trail Bonus that is both innovative and potentially hugely rewarding. It’s not often high variance games go down this route, so credit to Relax for tearing up the rule book. And just look at some of those Chest features – in particular the Collect and Command can add huge value to your overall win total, and the Super Reset is like a re-spin re-trigger giving you much more game time. And of course, those Persistent Scout, One Eyes and Commanders have potential to trigger big cumulative wins as they trigger on every turn. With a bit of luck, if you trigger these there is a real chance of getting wins in the 10,000s x.

So, in summary, what you have is some of the best aspects of high variance slots play transferred from free spins into a Trailblazing Trail round! It’s a superb idea and great execution – and we highly recommend having a crack at Dead Man’s Trail to find out for yourself.

Useful Resources

Relax Gaming’s Slot Profile Page