Play Treasure Bay for Free

In typical Merkur Gaming fashion, Treasure Bay is an adjustable slot in the loosest sense of the word. Though players are able to choose the number of paylines that they want to be active each spin, their options are confined to 1, 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50, meaning it’s actually a fairly restrictive selection.

Betting amounts in the game range from $0.01 at the lowest level up to $0.40 at the top end, so the slot can effectively be played from $0.50 to $20 per spin with the maximum number of paylines enabled. For their investment, players will get a shot at a 1,000x regular jackpot that is awarded whenever five black-sailed ships appear on a valid payline, with regular prizes starting at 5x your bet.

Beyond that, there’s really not much players need to know about Treasure Bay. Payouts are usually awarded for three-of-a-kind – with the exception of the aforementioned ships, which pay for any pair – and wilds can be substituted for any regular symbol other than the treasure chest scatter. This icon is used to trigger the game’s bonus feature and also awards a payout of 250x your line bet.

Given its pirate-based theme, it should come as no surprise that the setting for Treasure Bay is a deserted beach complete with starfish and lapping waves. The reels themselves are an off-white colour – giving the impression of a weathered parchment or treasure map – while the symbols that decorate them are comprised of stereotypical pirate iconography such as compasses and parrots.

The aforementioned ship is the game’s highest value icon, while a female captain is the wild symbol that can be used to complete additional winning paylines. Unfortunately, beyond these unique icons the game reverts to type by adopting the standard Ace-through-Ten playing card symbols and the largely yellow and white colour palette actually gives the game a bit of a washed-out appearance.

Winning combinations are greeted with a short animation for each unique symbol, while a jaunty pirate jingle is used to signify any big wins. The bonus round also features its own piece of background music, but overall there is nothing particularly ground-breaking about either the graphics or audio in Treasure Bay and the theme is nothing we haven’t seen before in other slots.

Where Treasure Bay does excel, however, is in its hugely generous bonus feature. Triggered whenever three or more treasure chest scatter symbols appears anywhere on the gameboard, players are first rewarded with a prize of 250x their line bet and then given 10 additional free spins.

While that all sounds pretty standard so far, during these free spins all wild symbols become stacked on each of the game’s five reels, meaning wins are both incredibly easy to come by and often highly rewarding. Indeed, the sheer number of wilds on the board during this feature combined with the large number of paylines results in wins virtually every spin and can seriously boost your winnings.

As is the case with most Merkur Gaming slots, all winnings in either the base game or the free spins can be gambled in a special pick feature, with players able to double their prize for each correct guess. While the first pick will halve your prize if you choose incorrectly, any subsequent wrong answers will result in you walking away empty-handed, making it a risky feature to use regularly.

While at first glance there’s nothing particularly mind-blowing about Treasure Bay, once you’ve activated the bonus feature a few times you’ll soon discover that there’s a tonne of hidden value in the slot and big wins are relatively easy to come by. In order to take advantage of this fact, however, players will want to always have all 50 paylines active, meaning it can be an expensive game to play.