Theme & Design

Slick, 3-D Cartoon Animation Style For This Pirate Slot

Peter and Son’s games are notable for their distinctive 3-d cartoon design style and that’s just what you get in Gunpowder. We’re looking down on the port of a tropical island with little boats floating on the waves, a lighthouse, palm trees and a few shipwrecks for good measure. The story is about pirate ships and gun battles and the paytable is filled with cannon-toting vessels, whilst an epic orchestral score completes the pirate-movie atmosphere. Every time you land a win the guns above the reels go off and the whole grid shakes. And there is a great battle feature where ghost ships battle others on the reels. Its an excellent production, quirky as you would expect, and very different to most pirate slots which is no bad thing.

RTP and Variance

Gunpowder comes with four RTP rates for your slot site to choose from. They are 96.2%, 94.2%, 90.5% and 86%. Some casinos in the UK will run the game at the lower rates to improve their house edge. So watch out for that. You can check the RTP wherever you play by hitting the hamburger button in the bottom left of the game area then clicking on Game Rules. Scroll down until you see Return to Player.

I recommend trying Casumo (Independent) or Barz Casino (White Hat Gaming) both of which regularly run Peter and Sons slots at high RTP rates.

This is also a high variance slot so it will potentially be a tough play with uneven win distribution and all the frustrations that come with that. But of course it can go off in a big way too when those wilds and multipliers work their magic.

Maximum Win

The top payout is a solid 10,000x which means you can win up to £10,000 with a £1 bet. Not bad, but if you are looking for better potential you could check out our list of the highest max win slots with much higher prizes of 10,000x or more.

Symbols and Paytable

The game plays on a straight forward 5 reel, 3 row grid with 10 paylines. You’ll need to land 3 or more identical symbols on a line from left to right, starting at the left most reel, to trigger a win.

There are 10 pay symbols in the table. The low value ones are the cards, 10, Jack, Queen, King and Ace. These are valued at from 0.6x for 3 10s up to 5x for 5 Aces. Premium symbols are the 5 ships in pink, purple, blue, green and yellow. These are valued at from 1.5x for 3 pink ships up to 20x for 5 yellow ones.

There are wilds too, represented by the Phantom Power yellow ship. These will substitute for any pay symbol to complete a payline.

Features and Gameplay

This really is a simple game where re-spins, multipliers and free spins are your only extra features. Here is how it works.

Phantom Power Re-Spins With Sticky Wilds 

Keep your eyes out for that elusive Phantom Power wild which is the ghost-ship in yellow. Not only is it wild, but when it lands it also trigger a re-spin where it is sticky on the reels. At the same time, this ghost ship will battle those in adjacent positions. And if it wins, it turns them wild too, triggering a further re-spin.

Free Spins With Multiplier Wilds

The scatter symbol here is represented by the buried treasure chest. Landing 3, 4 or 5 will earn you 10, 12 or 15 free spins. During the round all your wilds are sticky, and IF you can reach a point where every reel has a wild on it, then you’ll earn yourself 5 extra spins.

Also, the Phantom Power feature is active during free spins too, so wilds may turn other ships into wilds if they win their battles. And … wilds may have 2x or 3x multipliers with them during free spins too!

The Final Verdict

What makes this game worth playing is the creative work that has gone into it. If you’re going to make a game with very few features then you have to have a fun production style to keep your punters interested, and that’s how it is with Gunpowder. It’s great work from Peter and Sons. As our test session showed, the variance is most definitely high, so prepare yourself for that. But whatever the outcome of your spins, enjoy the show, because its worth it!