Paylines
25 paylines (player-selectable 1-25)
Pieces of Eight drops you onto a weathered parchment map flanked by palm trees, a wooden galleon drifting on the horizon, and a slightly cartoonish pirate captain mugging at you from reel three. It's a 5×3 grid with 25 paylines, and Genii's older Saucify-era engine powers the whole thing. Visually it leans goofy rather than menacing, which is fine if you're not expecting Black Sails atmosphere.
The symbol stack is fully themed, no playing-card filler. Skull-and-crossbones flag sits at the top, then the parrot first mate, the compass map, and the silver coin itself. What's genuinely interesting? The top four symbols pay from just two-of-a-kind, which keeps the base game ticking over more often than you'd expect from a high-volatility title. Land five flags and you're looking at 10,000 coins per line, one of the bigger single-line payouts you'll find in Genii's back catalogue.
The Captain Wild substitutes for everything except the two scatters, though he doesn't pay on his own, which feels a touch stingy. Three or more Cannon scatters anywhere on the reels trigger free spins. Three cannons get you 10, four bumps it to 20, and five lands a generous 30 spins. They retrigger too.
Then there's the Pick a Chest bonus. Three or more Treasure Chests have to land on any reels of an active payline, which is more relaxed than the strict reels-1-3-5 rule some Genii titles use. You pick chests, you win a multiplier of the triggering bet. Simple, no real twists. And here's the unusual bit: every bonus feature, including the Pick a Chest round and free spin retriggers, can fire during free spins. That stacking potential is where the volatility actually lives.
Bet range covers $0.01 to $25.00 with three chip sizes and ten coins per line, so the bet structure is flexible without being overwhelming. RTP is operator-configurable, which is the one thing I'd flag, you really should check it at whichever casino hosts the game before committing real money. Pieces of Eight won't blow anyone away with modern bells and whistles, but the 2-of-a-kind pays and the FS-stacking design give it more character than the dated graphics suggest.