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!).
How do you match or explode multiplier gems? I get them, but then I can't explode/match them to make the multiplier go into effect. Very frustrating!
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Explode a Multiplier Gem written by Tony,
October 15, 2009
You can explode a multiplier by doing a swap where you match 3 gems, with one of them being the multiplier or you can explode it if it's in range of a power gem (now called a flame gem) that is exploding. A star gem can also explode a multiplier if the multiplier is in the right row and column.
not good enough!!! i can only get 350k and i top out there.
what are the rules regarding the multipliers? it is no longer one every 10 secs, because i can get them faster than that (7x) before. But at the same time, it isn't as easy as the old bejewel, where one explosion would create a multiplier. now the normal explosions don't seem to create anything, adn only the ice blocks do...
or am i doing something wrong?
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Two hypercubes drawn together clear all the cubes ;D written by Ed,
October 23, 2009
It kept saying that if you ever put two hyper cubes together something interesting would happen. First time for me today and it clears all the cubes!
Also if you get your speed up for a long time it starts moving faster and the board glows amber, kinda cool but things are moving so fast that it is difficult to enjoy.
I was happy with 200+k then I got 319k and now I want to play better all the time.
ps don't run your mouse over your stats and divide it by 60 to find the hours you have lavished on bejeweled
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Multipliers written by Frank,
November 01, 2009
I think I read somewhere that in the old bejewled blitz, 12 total gems had to be removed from a cascade to earn the multiplier. In the new one, it seems that if you swap other jewels while in the middle of a cascade, that number resets and you need 12 more from that point to receive the multiplier gem. Does that sound right - and if so, is it better to just let the cascade run it's course so you have a better chance of getting a multiplier?
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Two Hypercube Gems Together written by Tony,
November 19, 2009
I finally got 2 hypercubes together, made the swap and saw what happened. It clears the board. Pretty cool. It started at the lower right and went all the way up, exploding multipliers and giving me a whole new screen of gems. That was great.
+2
... written by Chris,
November 27, 2009
I would second that if you swap in the middle of a cascade you reset it. Also it seems as if once you get a multipler from a cascade you can't get a second (which sucks with a used star). Keeping the speed bonus can be a pain, my best games are when I have a good flow going. High is 564k.
-1
you only need 250 games of each score to get gold written by tim102289,
December 14, 2009
you wrote that it takes 425 games of each score to get gold status. however, you only need 250 games of each score to get gold. when you go from say level 2 to level 3, it doesnt reset your number of games back to 0. instead it will say 25/50, not 0/50, so you only need 25 more. thus, when going from level 5 to gold, it will change from 100/100 to 100/250, meaning you need 150 more. so for each medal, you just need 250 total games of that score. so theoretically you could get gold for all point levels after 2500 games, 250 for each score. but that is the minimum number of games u'd have to play.
ps thats 41 2/3 hours, or about 2 full days minimum to get all the medals.
+1
finally got two hypercubes... written by rebekkah,
January 17, 2010
And time RAN OUT just as I was about to put them together!!!! Boooooo!
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coins?? written by Vic,
March 18, 2010
any comments about using coins? Hints or suggestions?
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fast scanning written by de_ckill,
May 02, 2010
Read all the tips and hints and saw astounding scores for Bejeweled Blitz (above 200.000....woooowww)
Most of the time I'm stuck after half of the time - sometime my speedbonus is as high as my collected points...so it's necessary to increase my scanning skills..but how to do so?
Do you have any suggestions how to scan the area fast? something like "split screen virtually in 4 parts" or "search for special formations" or something like that?
oh - also it would be interesting for me to know what's your average score per play (for sure you don't get above 100.000 all the time)? Sometimes I got heavy frustration about all my 7.500 points - is it normal or do I have to train alot?
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de_ckill written by Tony,
May 02, 2010
I think my high score now is near 500k. :-)
I downloaded the separate game from PopCap and now can connect to Facebook with it. I like that version of the game, too. They gave me a million coins, too, so I've been using those.
Anyway, the way to get a high score in Bejeweled Blitz is to make a gem match and then go find the next one right away. Don't wait to see what happens with the match you just made. Try to think about 2 moves ahead when you can. Move from quadrant to quadrant. You'll learn that you can make some moves, like on the top of the screen, that won't affect gems at the bottom so you can then plan your moves accordingly.
And if a multiplier appears on the screen, your top priority is to blow it up and get it - always.
It takes some practice but if you go fast, then you'll get the Amazing Speed bonus and if your multiplier is high, then you get mega points.
recently Ive been getting fast enough for the ultra speed mode...whre things get all "goldeny" and every gem swap is a bomb...
well once I got into golden mode... and I got so excited I forgot all about a hyper cube I had been saving.... I was lucky enough to get the hypercube within the first 5 seconds or so of the game and just let it sit there...
I wonder how many points I could have gotten if I had the hypercube + golden mode.... (not to mention my multiplier wihich might have been like x3 or x4...
ahh.,.missed oppurntunities...
has anyone managed to pull that off? just how good can it be?
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bejeweledblitz on facebook written by iyq2friend,
May 23, 2010
I have a real problem iv not been able to get into my facebook in a week its says site maintenance and you should be on in a few hours thats been a week ago i don't know how to get help with this i can't play bejeweled blitz on ny facebook because i can't get on facebook somebody pleaseeeeee help me i don't know what to do?????? iyq2friend
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... written by Bruce,
May 24, 2010
Does anyone know the storyline behind the scene changes at the end of a game? When you start the new game, there are just a few patches of moss or grass, and the river is dried up. If you get a good score then river comes back, plants and trees grow, plus some kind of crystal grows up higher then the 2nd set of mountains. It appears to be tied to both high score and multipliers. Does anyone have a screen snapshot of what it looks like at 300K+ ?
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Scenery Change written by Roscoe99,
July 14, 2010
The scenery changes with each successfully converted multiplier from 2x up to 8x.
10/16/09 - Regina posted a good tip on the other 
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