Pirots 3

Pirots 3 is the third instalment in ELK Studios’ parrot-and-gem series, and this time the birds have swapped the high seas for a Wild West setting. If you’ve played either of the first two games, you’ll recognise the bones straight away. If you haven’t, there’s a fair bit to explain, so settle in.

• Provider: Elk Studios
• Reels: 6
• Hit Freq: 25.2%
• Paylines: CollectR™
• RTP: 94.00%
• Max Win: 10,000x bet
• Volatility: High (8/10)
• Min/Max Bet: 0.20/240
• Release Date: 25 June 2024

ELK Studios has built a habit out of turning one good idea into a whole series. Kane’s Gold, Nitropolis, Toro, and now Pirots have all had multiple outings, and each Pirots game has planted its four collector parrots in a completely different setting. The first was a pirate-ship affair (hence the name); the second dropped them into a prehistoric world with dinosaurs; and Pirots 3 sends them to Main Street, USA.

Western Theme & Settings

Except it’s not quite the real Old West. Look past the transparent reels, and you’ll spot a fairground in the background, and some of the buildings along the street look more like tourist gift shops than actual saloons. There’s a water tower, a bank, a sheriff’s station, a popcorn stand, and a caged vulture that ends up playing a fairly important role once the reels get going. It’s Western in the theme-park sense rather than the gritty sense, which suits the series’s tone fine. This was never going to be a grim slot.

How the Base Game Works

The base game runs on a 6-reel, 7-row grid, and it doesn’t use paylines, ways, clusters, or scatter pays. Instead, it uses ELK’s CollectR mechanic: four parrots (blue, green, purple, and red) drop onto the grid alongside the symbols and move around collecting gems that match their colour.

Gems start out paying between 0.05x and 0.1x your stake, but they can be upgraded up to seven levels, eventually paying between 7.5x and 30x. RTP sits at 94%, which is the standard ELK number, and volatility is rated high. Stakes range from around R0.20 to higher limits, depending on your operator, and there are five X-iter bonus buy options if you’d rather skip the wait for the good stuff.

Pirots 3 Slot Game Layout

How the Parrots Collect

Each parrot moves to adjacent grid positions, horizontally or vertically, and keeps collecting gems of its own colour until it runs out of moves. A parrot can move more than once before the grid refills. There’s also a bandit locked in a cage at the start. Once released (more on that below), the bandit can collect gems of any colour, along with any feature symbol.

The Collection Meter

A meter above the grid tracks gems and wilds collected by the parrots (the bandit doesn’t count towards it). Fill it up, and you earn a feature symbol release, which turns a batch of random gems into feature symbols. Up to three releases can stack and land at once.

Feature Symbols

There’s a fair spread of them, and each one does something different when collected:

Upgrade symbols raise the payout level of gems corresponding to the collecting parrot’s colour by one to three steps, up to level seven. Upgrade All applies the same upgrade to every gem on the grid at once.

Keys trigger the bandit’s escape once the parrots can’t collect any more. The bandit then starts collecting like a fifth parrot and duels any adjacent birds. Beat all four, and you’re into the coin game. Lose, and the escape just ends.

Transform symbols convert a cluster of gems next to the collecting parrot into that parrot’s colour, and sometimes turn a few gems into feature symbols along the way.

Peanuts fill empty grid spaces, letting parrots cross gaps they’d otherwise be stuck at.

Dynamite explodes when collected, clears the birds and most symbols off the grid, and expands it to 8 rows by 7 columns before redropping. There are two sizes: one that clears a local area and one that clears the whole grid.

Wilds substitute for any gem at its current level, and the black bandit wild always counts as the top-paying gem.

Coins pay their displayed value times your stake, and the Max Win coin, if it shows up, pays whatever’s left to hit the maximum win.

Showdown

When two parrots end up stuck next to each other, they can either swap places (Switcharoo) or draw pistols and duel (Showdown), which always triggers with three or more birds bunched together. During a duel, parrots step back and fire across the reels, removing gems, collecting scatters, keys, and coins, and setting off any dynamite in the line of fire.

Train Heist

Certain reel positions carry a train backdrop on the left and right edges. Collect a symbol on one side while a matching one waits on the far side, and the train shows up to carry the collecting parrot across the grid, dishing out one to three feature symbols along the way.

Coin Game

Clear the whole grid and the coin game kicks in. Coin bags and scorpions drop onto the grid, a train pulls up, and parrots or the bandit throw lassos to grab coins while steering clear of scorpions. Catch a scorpion, and you’re out. It ends once every bird is gone, and the base game resumes with a fresh drop.

Bonus Game

To trigger the bonus game, you need to collect three bonus scatters, and you’ll bank five free drops, with extra scatters adding more. It’s good to know that gem levels and collection meter progress carry over into the bonus round. Landing a super bonus scatter instead starts you on the full 8×7 grid.

X-iter

• Bonus Hunt: 3x stake, quadruples the chance of triggering the bonus on that drop.
• Bandit Jailbreak: 25x stake, triggers the bandit’s escape immediately
• Coin Game: 50x stake
• Bonus Game: 100x stake
• Super Bonus Game: 500x stake

Pros

• Deep feature set, with the bandit and train heist adding something new
• High volatility gives spins room to snowball
• Peanut symbol fixes a real frustration with the CollectR mechanic
• Same 10,000x max win as the rest of the series

Cons

• Core loop is close enough to Pirots 2 to feel like a reskin
• Grid activity doesn’t always translate into payout

Pirots 3 is stacked with mechanics, arguably more than either of the games before it, and that’s saying something given how feature-heavy Pirots 2 already was. Most of the core gameplay carries over unchanged, so this comes across as less like a new game and more like Pirots 2 with a new coat of paint and a handful of extra toys bolted on: the bandit, the train heist, the peanut symbol.

Whether that’s enough depends on how much you liked what came before. The peanut symbol in particular is a good fix, since it stops parrots getting stranded next to gems they can’t reach, and that alone smooths out one of the more annoying parts of the CollectR system.

Where it comes up a little short is in how much can happen on the reels without much to show for it. Long collection sequences and duels keep things visually busy, but the actual payout doesn’t always match the activity. It’s a similar problem ELK solved better in Dam Beavers, another four-character collector game that managed to feel more rewarding for the same sort of chaos. Pirots 3 is a solid, entertaining slot with the same 10,000x ceiling as its siblings, but it plays more like a confident sequel than a real leap forward.

What is the RTP of Pirots 3?

The RTP is 94%, and the volatility is high. That’s standard for ELK Studios and in line with the rest of the Pirots series.

How does the CollectR mechanic work?

Instead of paylines or clusters, four coloured parrots move around the grid collecting gems that match their colour. Gems can be upgraded up to level seven, and the more a parrot collects, the higher the payout potential on that spin.

What is the maximum win on Pirots 3?

The maximum win is 10,000x your stake, the same as Pirots and Pirots 2.

What triggers the bonus game?

Landing three bonus scatter symbols awards five free drops, with extra scatters adding more. A super bonus scatter starts the bonus on the full 8×7 grid instead.

Does Pirots 3 have bonus buy options?

Yes. The X-iter menu has five options, ranging from a 3x stake bet with a boosted bonus chance up to a 500x stake bet that buys straight into the super bonus game.

Play our free Pirots 3 demo slot game.