Bejeweled Twist

The king of casual returns

I often lie awake at night, constantly perplexed, running endless mental arithmetic trying to determine what exactly Popcap could possibly spend their millions on. Their barrage of time-consuming, disgustingly charming 2D puzzle games have had me completely hooked since Bookworm Adventures consumed half of my Christmas in 2006. And I'm not even going to mention Peggle. If Popcap makes any more profit I imagine they'll need to incorporate potential company spending opportunities into Folding@home.

Returning to the game series that made them successful, then, was inevitable. The original Bejeweled has been ported to everything with a processor, and before long you'll probably see versions of it available inside domestic appliances. The franchise is huge. After spending some serious time with its newest incarnation, I am convinced that Bejeweled Twist is a lucky game. It's all about everything just clicking and sitting back in your office chair whilst you watch pieces spin, everything working together in synergy, and then gloriously basking in combos of lights, explosions, pops and on-screen accolades. More astute critics will note that this is the exact same feeling that Bejeweled used to elicit, too. Same with Peggle. It's this sensation, these little moments of reward for simply getting lucky, that Popcap continue to harness and create entire games around. It ain't broke, that's for sure.

Bejeweled Twist is a simple game, which makes it particularly difficult to review. What else makes it difficult to review is that it's constantly sitting on my desktop, beckoning me to double-click on its little inviting icon.

Seeing as they've plonked it right in the title, I can only assume Popcap are wearing the twist aspect of their game with a similar sensation of pride to a seven year old on the receiving end of his first Scout badge. There's a lot of pressure on these new mechanics, too, as Popcap desperately want to convince everyone that they need to spend another 14.99 GBP. Basically, swapping adjacent gems has been done away with to make way for rotating a square of four. A click of your mouse will cause the quadrilateral you're hovering over to rotate clockwise - and it will only go clockwise - hopefully lining up at least three of the same colour. A crucial difference to classic Bejeweled is that if you fail to make a match the blocks stay rotated instead of reverting back to their previous position. It's nothing too devious, but then these games were always beautifully simplistic to begin with. Popcap aren't exactly reinventing the wheel here, though their changes to the fundamental mechanics are different enough to stay interesting for more hours than you'd think possible.

Leaping on a current trend, Popcap have added a score multiplier to the works. Ensuring a match causes the score multiplier to tick steadily upwards, but failing to line anything up for a few goes causes your bonuses to get siphoned away quicker than petrol from a car parked near a gypsy resort. Whilst the game doesn't force you to get a match with every turn, you're always very conscious of the need to do so. The game is cleverly balanced, and moments of clarity will be quickly shattered when various bomb gems are sweeping across the board. It's as if the developers are mocking your moments of panic, rushing to deal with all of the on-screen nasties only to find your multiplier entirely eroded.

There's also a clear creative influence from recent waves of old-school games -Pac-Man: Championship Edition, Geometry Wars 2 and Lumines are good examples here - in Bejeweled Twist's blitz mode. You're reduced to a five-minute time limit, so you're basically left spinning everything around whilst you try and keep your multiplier high. Bombs are less threatening here, as their frequency and ferocity is considerably lower than at higher levels of the classic mode. Then you've got a challenge mode, where various arbitrary tasks are set before you with increasing difficulty.

The game is pretty much the slickest looking casual game out there, with the whole package exuding a degree of shiny professionalism. Popcap are clearly pushing themselves forward as a studio, and even though they absolutely refuse to move outside of their niche it's clear that they've made their unique brand of off-beat humour and luck-based puzzle shenanigans distinctly their own. Flogging these kinds of games has always struck me as an impossible task, with piracy and flash-based variants being so rife I figured most of the market would just find a way of not shelling out any cash. Yet, somehow Popcap have managed to monetise their products so brilliantly I have no doubt in my mind that they're the most nefarious company in the entire world and they've probably got us all under some kind of hex, mind-control scheme or subliminal control.

Ultimately, the burning question: is it worth the £14.99? The answer depends on how much you're a fan of Bejeweled to begin with. If you've never played the series before, the answer is a resounding yes. If you're the kind of person that likes to play games to avoid writing essays, reports and generally being productive, then you'll still love Bejeweled Twist. People who've played Bejeweled to death already and have had their fill of the game might have to think a little harder, though. It's still a beautiful, engaging title; it just might not be enough of a revolution. Because we've all seen it before, it doesn't quite have the sublime whizz of the original.

That doesn't mean I can stop playing it, mind you.

75%

By Martin Gaston