Yesterday publisher DeNA and developer Kung Fu Factory released their latest game called Pirate Bash (Free), and I’m honestly blown away by how much I’m enjoying it. You play as a crew of pirates on a ship, going port to port and waging battle against enemy pirates who are on land. The basic setup should look familiar: Your crew stands on your pirate ship, the enemies are placed on destructible structures built out of things like wooden crates. You pull back and launch your pirates’ weapons towards the enemies in slingshot fashion not totally dissimilar to Angry Birds. The kicker is that your enemies will fire back, and the whole battle is turn-based.

Unlike Angry Birds, you and your opponents have life bars, so you’ll actually know how much damage you do to them and how much is left to go before they kick the bucket. The other really cool thing about Pirate Bash is how you can customize your crew. As you play you can unlock different types of pirates that each have unique attacks or abilities. You can mix and match up to three of them to take into a battle, and as you play each crew member will also level up and become stronger. Related to that, you can also unlock different pirate ships to use that can also level up and have different abilities.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: DeNA, free to play, similar to Angry Birds… on the surface, Pirate Bash has “pass" written all over it. I felt the same way. But then I actually tried it out, and was really blown away. It’s colorful, has tons of variety, and most importantly it’s a lot of fun. Like the title says, it’s Angry Birds meets Worms, and it’s a winning formula. Now it could be that as the game progresses, the free to play aspects butt their head in more, and I’ll cross that bridge when it comes. But for now, I’m having a blast with Pirate Bash, as are everyone in our forums, so seeing as it’s a free download you should definitely check it out.