Demonstrating free and freemium games are the way publishers are currently looking to build audience on iPhone - we've already had Freeverse's Coin Push Frenzy and Jagex's Undercroft out this week - comes Big Fish Game's Plunder!.

Notably it's the social gaming publisher's first freemium game for iPhone and as such provides something a toe dip into the water, rather than an ambitious platform play.

Pay to play

The gameplay of the grid-based puzzler is akin to Bomberman with pirates, sea mines and the Royal Navy instead of cutesy superdeformed Japanese characters.

The business model, which includes in-game ads, albeit for other Big Fish games - is linked into ngmoco's Plus+ network, which provides the social framework.

You have to be registered and logged into the service to receive the daily coin token required for a free play of the game. You also get three coins when you first install the game.

Other than this, you can buy 20 coins for 99c, 100 for $2.99 and 600 for $4.99. The latter also turns off the in-game ads, although it doesn't appear that the IAP system is currently working.

That aside, it's not the most generous deal for a freemium game, and one that goes against the trend for effectively charging for the speed of in-game actions - as seen in FarmVille and We Rule - prefering a straight pay for play model.