I was just playing the new beta version of the Bejeweled Blitz game on Facebook - with Boost and Coins. They have some new improvements coming out, so I thought I would review them and provide some more tips and tricks.
How it works is, you collect points to earn boosts. Boosts are like power ups. Here are the boosts:
Detonate - 2500 coins: Detonates all special gems on the board. You can use it once per game for 3 games. If you don't use it, it gets wasted, so use it.
Scramble - 3500 coins: Scrambles all gems on the board. You can use it twice per game.
+5 Seconds - 5000 coins: Adds 5 seconds to the end of the game.
Mystery Gem - 6000 coins: Puts a random gem on the board at the beginning of the game.
Free Multiplier - 7500 coins: Puts a multiplier gem on the board at the beginning of the game.
When coins appear, it seems that they're each worth 100 points. If you match gems to get them off the board or if they remain at the end of the game, they are each worth 100 points. All the coins are yellow gems - not all yellow gems are coins though.
I'm not exactly sure how you gain points. I can't find documentation about it yet and I've tried playing to figure it out but I'm not sure. It seems to be based on how many gems you clear with one gem swap. I'm not sure how many though.
The Bejeweled Blitz boost I like the most, so far, is Detonate. The Free Multiplier is nice and sometimes the Mystery Gem is a power gem but not all the time. The added 5 seconds is nice, too. Scramble seems kind of useless to me. Scramble is something you almost want to avoid but if you do get one of those games where you're stuck playing at the top, then it could be nice but that doesn't happen enough where you'd want to spend coins on it. I think spending coins on Detonate is the best Bejeweled Boost because you can always use it and it's the lowest cost.
First, decide which boost you want to use. The boosts that are available to you will be lit up:
Second, purchase the boost(s) you want with your available balance of coins:
Third, with some boosts, there will be a small button on the bottom left of the game board:
How to Use the Scrambler Boost
First, purchase the boost:
Second, just like the Detonate Boost, there is an icon for the Scrambler boost but it's on the lower right hand side of the game board:
-Tony
03-02-10 - The Price of Boosts
I see the tough economic times are hitting the Bejeweled Blitz world as well. The Detonate boost is now 3,000 coins (was 2,500). Scrambler is now 4,000 coins (was 3,500). The +5 Seconds boost came down and is now 4,500 coins (was 5,000).
The design of the coin gems have also changed this week.
I know that to earn coins at the end of the game, you get one per each multiplier that you've earned.
Ok, they're maybe a little goofy looking when you first see one but they're actually very cool. I first saw one at a restaurant that a friend of mine owns. He explained that they were a unique design that Samuel Adams worked on which was supposed to bring out the full flavor of the beer. I ended up doing some website work for him and instead of getting paid, I did a trade for some of these pint glasses. I'm glad I did.
I used them the other night and a friend of mine also liked them. I decided I'd hop online and try to find out the real story behind these Sam Adams pint glasses and here's what I found:
"It’s been a personal passion of mine to develop a beer glass that elevates the craft beer drinking experience" said Jim Koch, founder and brewer of Samuel Adams. “We wanted to create a glass that offers beer lovers a full sensory drinking experience by fully showcasing Samuel Adams Boston Lager’s complex balance of malt and hop flavors. This glass achieves that mission."
Tiax, the world-renowned sensory experts, worked closely with Jim to identify and evaluate the functional design features needed in a glass to showcase the key attributes of Samuel Adams Boston Lager®. The key requirements for the perfect glass for Samuel Adams Boston Lager included: delivering sweetness from the malt; maximizing the hops aroma and flavor; maintaining the ideal temperature; supporting a rich and creamy head; and sustaining the right amount of carbonation.
That was from the Sam Adams website. Here's another:
He points out that the top of the glass is a tulip shape, much like a traditional Belgian beer glass, which concentrates the aroma for the drinker. The rim of the glass turns outward which creates turbulence as the beer passes over it.
In addition, the bottom of the glass is scored, which creates a nucleation point. The beer sloshing over the depressions etched by a laser releases bubbles of carbonation which rise to the top of the glass, delivering more aroma to the drinker. If you look at the glass from the bottom, you can see a ring of bubbles flowing upward from the scoring, he said.
I looked; it’s true.
Oh yes, the lower half of the glass is narrow, which makes it easy for the beer drinker to hold. Most of the beer is in the tulip-shaped bowl at the top, so your hands won’t warm the beer too much.
“It a glass designed specially for Sam Adams Boston Lager,” Wood said.
According to the company, the new Samuel Adams Boston Lager Pint Glass is the first glass specifically designed to showcase beer as brewers intended.
One feature of the new glass is a neck-and-lip design that "helps sustain the head of the beer, which enhances the release of signature Noble hop aromas found in Samuel Adams Boston Lager," the company said.
Pretty cool... I didn't know how a glass was shaped could change the flavor or something.
And I found you can also order custom pint glasses. This would be cool if you brewed your own beer at home.
You know what really grinds my gears? Logins on websites. There are a lot of websites that I login to and want to use. The sites that my browser remembers, I use a lot. When a site is set up with fancy login popup windows or something, then my browser (Firefox) doesn't somehow remember them, so I don't use those sites as often as I'd like. It's a hassle to login.
Two sites that come to mind right now are Digg.com and Technorati.
And if your site is set up to be work like the norm, then at least name your login fields correctly. If it's really a username, then say username but if my username is my email address, then say "Email Address" instead of "Username". This will help me search my email and wherever else so that I can take my precious time and track down what I need to so that I can login and contribute to your website.
As a web developer myself, this irks the heck out of me. Most tech savy people are going to use FireFox over Internet Explorer, but you do want to make sure your sites work with both. Make it easy for people to use your website and you'll get more interaction... which is something you want (cough... Kevin Rose).
Ok, it's 10/06/09 and I just tried the New Bejeweled Blitz game on Facebook. Um... wow!
It's a lot more fun and there's a lot more going on. That's for sure. All the rules from the old Bejeweled Blitz still apply but one thing I learned quickly was, if you're only doing one gem swap at a time, you're going way too slow! You can get multiple swaps going on at once now and you want to take advantage of it so that you get to "crazy speed" mode, where it seems that every move you make has a huge explosion. You can hear the fire building up as you get closer and closer to crazy speed mode.
The look reminds me of the Bejeweled Twist game that they have out now - which is completely different, if you ask me. I have to get my brain to think in a whole new way when I play that one, so I don't play it that often. The announcer sounds like Megatron.
There are some new features in addition to being able to make more than one gem swap at once. I'll add them here soon. One is this ice gem which, when exploded, knocks out all gems in the horizontal and vertical rows. Pretty cool.
There's no going slow with the new Bejeweled Blitz. You need to move and move fast. Once you make one move, check out another part of the board where you can make another. It seems that if the swap is available when you see it, you can make it and it doesn't matter what else is going on at the time. I have to give it up for the programmers for making that possible, nice.
If you save power gems to the end of the game, it's now nice enough to blow them up for you at the end, where you can really earn extra points beyond the 1 minute game if things keep cascading. That's even more incentive to get that multiplier up there. I had it up to 6x or 7x times already. I also just scored 324,650 no problem!
Check back here for more New Bejeweled Blitz tips, tricks and strategy!
Flame Gem - Match 4 gems to create a Flame Gem. Match that Flame Gem to ignite an explosion that will take out all neighboring gems and trigger other Flame Gems within its radius.
Star Gem - Match 5 gems in a "L" or "T" shape to create a Star Gem. Match the Star Gem to unleash its power, removing one column and one row of gems from the board.
Hypercube - Match 5 gems horizontally or vertically to create a Hypercube. Use the Hypercube by swapping it with an adjacent gem to turn all gems of that color on the board into a shower of points. Something awesome will now happen if you match two Hypercubes. Are you able to make it happen?
Multiplier Gem - These gems are created by creating large cascades or using power gems to destroy a lot of gems at one time. Matching the Multiplier Gem will multiply all points you get from then until the end of the game.
Speed Bonus - Build up a speed bonus by continually making matches. You need to make 3 matches in about 2 seconds to start your speed bonus. The higher your Speed Bonus, the more time you have in between matches before it goes away. The Speed Bonus starts at +200 and caps out at +1000. This amount is added to every match you make.
Blazing Speed - Keep your speed bonus up for an extended amount of time and you will start to fill your speed bonus meter, the text displayed for your speed bonus will change color from white to orange. Once your meter is full you will be in Blazing Speed! Each match will grant you the same effect as detonating a Flame Gem until Blazing Speed subsides.
Strategies on getting high scores!
Many players have asked us what strategies they should try in order to get a high Blitz score. Here are some of the strategies that members of the Blitz team use when going for a top score.
Try to keep your speed bonus up at all times. With a maxed-out speed bonus every move is worth 1250 points!
Multiplier gems apply not only to matches, but also to your current speed bonus. For example, with a x3 multiplier, each match made with a full speed bonus would be worth 3750 points. So once you've established a respectable multiplier, maintaining your speed bonus is extremely valuable.
Keep an eye out for bigger matches. Look for the opportunity to match 4 or 5 gems. This will create Hypercubes, Flame and Star Gems. These special pieces are instrumental in creating large explosions, which will earn you lots of points, more chances at extra Multiplier Gems and will help mix up the board, potentially making it easier to find new matches. Lost opportunities mean lost points.
Matches made lower on the board are more likely to generate cascades. If you're finding it hard to make matches lower on the board, try creating and using a Hypercube or Star Gem.
When you earn a Hypercube, don't waste it on the first color you see. Try to use it to on the color with the most gems on the screen. Or if you have any multiplier gems on the screen, consider matching it to the color of that gem.
The score chart provided on the Game Over screen is a great place to discover strategies of your own. Make sure you take the time to review this chart for your highest scoring games to learn the secrets of your own success.
So like I said, keeping the multiplier up is important. It's more important than going fast, I think. So make good more rather than more moves. Making 10 moves at 1x is not as good as making 5 moves at 3x. The speed bonus is good but you should really go for that once you get the multiplier up. Get it up to at least 2x or 3x times before you start really thinking about speed - and then you'll have a high score.
This game is so fun. There's so much happening and you can get higher scores than the old game. The graphics and sound is really good - top quality. You almost can't believe that let you play this for free. So go have fun!
-Tony
10/16/09 - I think I'm convinced that having a faster computer will help you get higher scores. I just got a new, screaming computer at home and I'm getting much higher scores on that one than on my laptop. It's like a quad core with 6 GB of RAM, so it's pretty loaded. I usually just have FireFox open with Bejeweled Blitz running since I'm trying to get things moved over from the old PC still.
If anyone else has noticed this, please leave a note in the comments.
My high score to date is 380,850 which I got last week and this week I'm up to 366,900 and both of those were done on the new PC.
Enjoy playing! -Tony
10/16/09 - Regina posted a good tip on the other Bejeweled Blitz Strategy page. If you mouse over each of the levels now, it show you how far you are and what you need to get to the gold level or reach the next level. With each level, it increases. I'm gold all the way up through 100k right now. So for 125k, you need 250 games from level 5 to gold. So it's like this:
Level 2 to level 3: 25 games
Level 3 to level 4: 50 games
Level 4 to level 5: 100 games
Level 5 to gold: 250 games
So to get from level 2 to gold, you need to have 425 games with a points total in that range. That's a lot of games! Keep playing!
08/15/2010 - Regarding the Bejeweled Blitz Moonstone, I think it's not worth what they're charging for it. It's just not worth 25,000 coins, so I'd say skip it. Try it once if you want and see what it's like but you will probably agree with me on this one.
08/16/2010 - Here's a video series on some good Bejeweled Blitz tips and strategy (cough... ripoff!).
I thought this kind of thing was not possible. Weird.
A Zero point magnetic power generator is basically a Free Energy Generator. It uses magnets, and magnetic force to induce perpetual motion. It runs by itself, indefinitely without stopping, thus creating completely free electrical energy, which can fully power your home for free. A Perpetual motion device refers to a machine that runs perpetually i.e. indefinitely, and produces a larger amount of energy than it consumes. Thus, it produces free energy indefinitely, runs by itself, without having to need a third-party device or resource to power it.
Ok, they're maybe a little goofy looking when you first see one but they're actually very cool. I first saw one at a restaurant that a friend of mine owns. He explained that they were a unique design that Samuel Adams worked on which was supposed to bring out the full flavor of the beer. I ended up doing some website work for him and instead of getting paid, I did a trade for some of these pint glasses. I'm glad I did.
10/16/09 - Regina posted a good tip on the other 