Skull Duggery is a pirate themed slot machine unlike most that I’ve seen in this category. Coming from Microgaming, the game offers you caricature like pirates on its reels, the design looking like it was well thought out, yet coming with a fruit theme as well. There are both pirates, treasure maps and fruits on the reels, but the quality of the symbols is much better than what you would find in a classic title.
9 win lines are used in Skull Duggery, a 5 reel pirate themed game. Scatter symbols, the Booty Bonus game and a wild with multipliers make up the list of features. Top payouts reach values of $60,000.
Features of Skull Duggery
With wilds that pay very well and have multipliers, with a Booty Bonus Game and with a Scatter Skull, the game obviously is a lot of fun for the players, and it looks like it could be profitable as well.
You will discover that they’ve used the Skull Duggery Logo for the wild, a pretty typical choice for this particular feature. There are both pros and coins to this wild symbol, when it comes to its substitution power. It will triple the prizes it contributes to, which is a good thing, but it only works with food related symbols, which is not as good since it leaves out a couple of pirate symbols which pay well. Luckily, wilds can also create a combo by themselves, if they happen to land with 1 to 5 symbols on consecutive positions on the same line, from left to right. Payouts in that case vary between 2x and 12,000x.
The Scatter Skull, as the paytable calls it, is the game’s only symbol that can appear in any position, and be able to offer a prize even if it doesn’t form a regular combo. The scatter ability allows it to form its combos without occupying a payline. Having two scattered Skulls will bring you a prize worth 2x the bet, while five of them will give you 200x.
Booty Bonus
This is a bonus game, triggered with the help of the bonus symbol. It’s the one with the blue pirate sneaking away with a treasure chest. An active line needs to get between 3 and 5 of these symbols, in order for the feature to start up. The number of symbols which triggered this feature will influence the amount you can win in this game.
Three symbols will allow you to win between 40 and 750 coins. With four symbols, the payout is in the range of 100 to 1,500 coins. The maximum of five symbols improves the payouts further, the range becoming 200 to 3,000 coins.
Betting options and jackpots
The game allows you to use lines, multiple coins and their denominations to determine how much the bet is worth. 1 to 9 lines can be active in a round, with each one getting 1 to 5 coins. You also pick the denomination, from within the $0.01 to $1 range. The result, a line bet of up to $5, with the maximum per spin being $45.
As long as you get the top jackpot, you will be a happy player, since it gives away 12,000x the line wager, so up to $60,000. The rest of the slots don’t pay nearly as well, the next one on the list giving away 750x.
Design and symbols
The game was designed to make the pirates loveable and funny, and it managed to do that quite well. The pirate themed symbols are my favorites, but I have to admit that even the ones with foods and beer manage to look much better than in most slots where they are used. You don’t get to see as much of the background as you do in other slots, but you can still notice the wooden boards behind the reels.
Symbols: Booty Thief (bonus), Scatter Skull (scatter, 200x bet), Skull Duggery Logo (12,000x), Redhead Pirate (750x), Treasure Map (400x), Beer Tankard (240x), Orange (200x), Grape (150x), Apple (150x), Banana (80x) and Coconut (50x).
Is It Worth Playing?
It’s a fun pirate themed game, like all slot machines should be when they have this theme. It also pays well and has a great design, so I’d say it’s worth your time and money.
The Skull Duggery slot machine is offered through the Microgaming platform, so if you want to play it for real or just to practice, look out for casinos that use it.
