How to play Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook (Updated January 2010)

Updated January 27, 2010: There's another new version of Bejewelled Blitz - the major difference is that you can now earn points while playing to get some 'Boost'gems after the game has finished.

I've played Bejewelled in some format or other for years, and have always loved the challenge and addictiveness of the game. Recently I joined Facebook and was delighted to see a 'blitz' version of the game in which you essentially had to score as many points as you could in sixty seconds. The game is highly addictive and became the central 'challenge' between myself, my brother and his wife.

Over the last couple of months I have been getting better and better at the game, and then lo and behold they go and change the game and make the strategy elements totally different. So what's new:

• Flame, Star and Hypercube - you now have three special 'pieces' rather than two.
• Last Hurrah - now when you end the minute, all the special pieces left on the board will explode - potentially add a lot of additional points to your score.
• Hint - the hint is now clearer - making it easier to see.
• Graphics - the front page graphics, and some of the animations seem a little better.

One element that was lacking in Bejewelled Blitz was the ability to 'carry forward' prizes. Now, with the addition of boosts you can earn 'points' every game and by some boosts that add special gems to the game. Every so often you'll get a gem with '100' in it - when this is included in a 'chain' you get bonus points, plus 100 points towards boosts - you can spend these points on special gems.

The boosts are (You get three of these every time you buy one - they automatically appear on the game board).):

• Mystery Gem (5500): places a random special Gem on the board at the beginning of the game.
• Detonator(2500): detonates all special Gems on the board - one use per game.  This is similar to the 'Last Hoorah' mode at the end of the game.
• Scrambler: scrambles all gems on the board - two uses per game. This seems to shuffle horizontally.
• +5 Seconds: adds five seconds to the end of the game. Umm...well this adds five seconds at the end of the game to make the game five seconds longer...DOH!
• Free Multiplier: puts a multiplier on the board at the beginning of the game. Useful to start scoring high quickly!

The basics of the game have remained unchanged.

• The idea is to line up three (or four or five jewels) of the same color in a line; once lined up, they will 'disappear' from the board, and other jewles will drop down.
• Chain reactions can occur when dropping pieces also form lines of three (or more), giving you bonuses etc as you go. The more cascading you do, the more chance a multiplier will appear.
• The time limit remains at one minute.

If you manage to line up four jewels in a row, you get a special piece that is called The Flame. If you then manage to get a line of three (or more) jewels that include The Flame, then The Flaqme explodes, giving you bonus points as well as clearing a small area of all jewels around it. Thius leads to cascading jewles and potential high scores.

HINT: The flame is one of the most powerful pieces on the board, especially if you can group them together. I find that if I can cluster two or three of these pieces closely together and then explode them, the resulting cascade creates far more additional lines of three and leads to greater multipliers quicker.

Multiplier bonuses occur potentially every ten seconds (up to a x6 multiplier) and occur usually after you've achieved a multiple cascade - either by deleting a trio that leads to cascades that delete further trios, or by exploding a special piece that causes a good cascade.

You have to 'catch' the multiplier bonuses by including them in a trio of jewels. Each trio (or bonus etc) you score with after this, will get multiplied by the multiplier (DOH) - thus these are pretty important pieces if you want to make a high score.

Speed Bonuses: as you progress through the game, if you keep finding trios you will begin to gain a speed bonus - this quickly adds up and adds to the points scored for every trio. This can really add up. I note that as you increase your speed bonus, the speed that you can click and the speed in which things explode seems to get quicker - I tend to panic at this point and lose my speed bonuses, but if you don't panic then you can get some pretty good bonuses here.

HINTS:

• As the late and great Douglas Adams wrote in the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, "Don't Panic" - they key to this game is to be relaxed and just keep your eyes moving to find the next move. If you panic, you'll miss some obvious moves and the Speed Bonuses will reset.
• Don't worry if you don't get multipliers or can't find a way to use them - you can still score pretty highly without them, and also sometimes by creating a cascade you'll end up 'using' them anyways.

The Star is a brand new bonus piece in Bejeweled Blitz; it is very difficult to get. You gain a Star when you match five jewels of the same color in the format of a T or an L. Then, if you match the Star with two other same colored jewels, the Star will explode and destroy all jewels in the same row and column as the Star - this of course is very powerful, and can cause multiple cascades.

Hint: I find this very difficult to do, and it is the one part of the new game that still illudes me - over time I will come up with a strategy, but for now I concentrate on other parts of the game and hope that I am lucky enough to create some of these as I go.

The Hypercube is created when you match five jewels of the same color in a row. All you have to do then is to move the Hypercube into an adjacent jewel, and all the jewels of the same color on the baord will disappear (with a bonus) - this can create a lot of cascades.

Hint: I find this the most ineffectual of all the bonus pieces - for some reason it seems to create the least amount of cascades - I therefore do not go out of my way to create them.

The Last Hurrah is new to Bejewelled Blitz; essentially, once your time is up, any special pieces on the board will explode.

• For the bonus pieces, the same effect happens as if you were playing as normal.
• For any unused multipliers you get a score bonus.

In the normal way, you will get cascades that can lead to additional points.,

HInt: I try and leave one 'Flame' if I can - while it may not help to create a larger score, it is pretty fun to watch!

This screen shows a summary of when you scored your points, and when you gained bonuses such as:

• Speed Bonus
• Multiplier Bonus

It also counts the special piece bonuses you have, as well as giving you the opportunity to boast about your high scores etc.

Additionally, not shown on the screen shot, is a list of your friends, and their high scores (to the right), and your progress towards a weekly competition (draw for prizes).

I'm still learning this new version of the game, but a lot of hints an tips from the prior version still work:

• Don't panic - keep looking ahead to your next move, but try not to panic if you can't see a move.
• Use the "hint' button if you get stuck - you may lose a second or two, but at times when you simply can't see the next move, this is handy.
• Special pieces - I tend to concentrate on the flame, as they seem to give the greatest chance of creating cascades, especially when you explode several togeher; I don't go out of my way to gain the other special pieces.

Feel free to leave comments with your hints or tips.

Proud of your high score? Send me a screen shot of your highest score and let me know your facebook details (if you want me to post them!). I'll post the highest scores periodically.

 Note - please be honest with the scores - no going into Photoshop and amending the graph!

My highest recorded score is over 312,000  - my sister in law has a score of 205,650. I note that these scores were made with the newer version of Bejewelled Blitz - I had a lower high score on the old version - I would suspect that with a little practice my high score will be in the 200,000 range every week.

I note in one day I have scored 140,000 twice - it took me three months to get to this level in the previous version - I'm sure some of the 'skills' have been carried through, but with the extra 'Hurrah' at the end I'm sure my scores will be on average higher.

I also note that the game does seem to have got tougher recently as I am finding difficulty on being consistant - or perhaps my eyes are just getting old?!