Art of Achieving High Score in Bejeweled Blitz

The other night on Facebook chat, an old friend asked me how I kept getting such high scores on Bejeweled Blitz by Pop Cap Games.

I was more than a little surprised by the question and laughed it off, telling him "Practice, man, practice."

But as I thought more about it, I wondered if there really was a trick to being really good and always getting high scores on Bejeweled Blitz. While my scores are nowhere near the numbers racked up by my friends Amy Browne and Jennifer Walker, I decided I'm not too shabby at it. Then, I decided to figure out why.

Almost everyone who has ever spent 10 minutes online has played Bejewled or Bejeweled 2 which are the forerunners that Pop Cap Games created to the new Bejeweled Blitz. The game is all in all, fairly simple and not unlike many other puzzle games of various names. The idea is to combine three gems of the same shape and color in a straight line, diagonals do not count.

Those gems are then destroyed and the rows above them tumble lower. In the original versions of Bejeweled, the idea was to keep going scoring more and more points for destroying gems. To score more points faster, the player wanted to combine rows of gems in such a way that the ones above would make combos as they fell into place.

In addition, if the player could combine four or five gems instead of just three, they would be given a special gem with additional powers. A combination of four gems made an explosive gem of the same color. So, if you combined four blue gems, in the place of one of them you would receive an explosive blue gem. When that gem was combined with two other blue gems, it would explode, taking out all the gems around it as well, scoring additional points.

When you combine five gems of the same color, you create a hyper gem that has the power to destroy all the gems on the board of a certain color. Choosing which color gem to destroy can be a major strategic decision in how the board looks after you're done.

Anyone who has played the original Bejeweled games is familiar with these concepts, but to add to the fun and frantic game play of Bejeweled Blitz, Pop Cap Games added a couple new twists. First, is the one minute time limit. This game moves fast and rewards you for moving faster. The quicker you make the next swap, the more points you get for speed.

But the real trick in achieving a high score in Bejeweled Blitz is in the multiplier gems. When you create a cascade or explode gems so that 12 gems are removed in a single swap, the game will send down a multiplier gem, first time two, then times three and so forth.

As soon as you make a swap involving the multiplier gem, you start earning points that much faster. Sounds simple, right? Bejeweled Blitz is easy to learn and addictive to play. Since it only takes a minute for a game, you will soon be challenging friends and yourself to achieve that new high score. When the game is played on Facebook, the high scores reset every Monday evening, giving you a new chance to best your friends every week.

The two best pieces of advice for achieving high scores on Bejewled Blitz are to always have your next move planned and be ready to start the swap as soon as the jewels stop falling. And, perhaps more importantly, if you don't see the next swap immediately, hit the hint button. Taking a hint does not impact your score and sometimes save you very valuable time. Since time is of the essence in this game, quicker is better.

With these tips and quick hand and eye coordination, you too can be rivaling Jennifer's and Amy's high scores.