Big Fish takes to the high seas with iPhone freemium puzzler Plunder!

Best described as a puzzle version of Bomberman meets pirates, Big Fish Game's first freemium release Plunder! is set up in a grid, which contains one pirate ship per row, and is filled with mines, merchant ships and Royal Navy frigates.

Your goal is to get your pirate ships across to the other side of the grid from left to right by tapping on the mines to clear their route, destroying as many enemies as possible for their loot in the process.

This you do by tapping on red mines, which will blow up firing shrapnel in the directions shown on their icon. Grey mines need to be hit by two loads of shrapnel to turn red and become available for firing.

Hence, you have to think carefully about the sequence of explosions, although luckily you can't destroy your pirate ships with the mines. However, if you run out of moves with a pirate ship still sailing on the high seas, it will be captured.

You keep going as far as you can, level to level, until you've run out of ships, with the collection of power ups such as the ability to move ships or mines, or exploding mines immediately, making your life a bit easier.

High scores are handled via Plus+ with the ability to output to Facebook Connect.

In terms of the game's freemium aspect, you need a gold coin to start each campaign. You receive a free single allocation daily, plus three when you first download the game.

You have to be registered and signed in with Plus+ to get these.

If you run out and just can't wait for the next drop however, you can - of course - buy additional coins, although at present, the in-app purchasing part of the game doesn't appear to be working.

Selecting it merely crashes the game, but in theory, you can get 20 coins for 99c, 100 for $2.99 and 600 for $4.99. The latter also turns off the in-game ads.

Plunder! is out now for iPhone and iPod touch and is free.

You can see how it plays in the following video.

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