Paylines
Cluster collection (4 birds collect adjacent same-color gems)
Four feathered thieves hop across an Egyptian crypt, pecking gems off the floor while mummies, boulders and a ghost pirate try to stop them. That's Pirots 5 from ELK Studios in a sentence. The current release, Cursed Temple, runs at 96% RTP with a hit frequency just above 25%, and the ceiling sits at a familiar 10,000x your bet. High volatility, as you'd expect for the series.
The math here doesn't work like a normal slot. There are no paylines. Instead, Redfeather, Hank, Aaron and Skipper each chase their own gem colour, marching cell by cell across a 6×6 grid that can balloon out to 8×8 as the collection meter above the reels fills. When a bird lands next to matching gems, it eats every adjacent one in a chain. Drops refill the grid, and the round keeps going as long as at least one bird can still move. Payouts climb in seven tiers per colour, and Upgrade symbols push those tiers higher mid-spin.
The Temple variant is where things get nasty. Captain Blackfeather, a ghost pirate, can show up at any time, hijack one of your birds, and turn its gems cursed before sweeping them all at once. Arrow shooters fire from the rim when birds get stuck. Boulders 2×2 up to 4×4 roll across the board crushing whatever's in the way. And the corner catacombs hide coffins with a mummy fight inside, win and you grab a feature symbol, lose and that bird's gone for the round.
Bonus access goes through three scattered scrolls, awarding 5 drops with persistent grid size and gem levels. Land a Super Bonus among them and each drop adds a cursed treasure coin rain on top. For anyone who'd rather skip the wait, the X-iter menu offers five buy options from 3x bet up to 250x for guaranteed Super Bonus entry.
One honest gripe? With this many overlapping mechanics, traps, transforms, switcheroos, portals, level-ups, your first few sessions feel chaotic. Is it too much? Maybe. But once you stop trying to track everything and just watch the birds work, Pirots 5 settles into one of the most readable cluster-style slots out there. The pirate-meets-pharaoh aesthetic doesn't hurt either.