Bejeweled
Genre(s)Puzzle
Developer(s)PopCap Games
Publisher(s)PopCap Games
Electronic Arts
Creator(s)Jason Kapalka[1]
Platform(s)Microsoft Windows
Xbox 360
Windows Phone
Windows Mobile
Mac OS X
iOS
Android
PlayStation 3
PlayStation Portable
Nintendo DS
Wii
Java ME
Adobe Flash
Palm OS
Symbian^3
PlayStation Vita
Online
Arcade
First releaseBejeweled
May 30, 2001
Latest releaseBejeweled Champions
September 9, 2020
Spin-offsBejeweled Twist, Bejeweled Blitz, Bejeweled Stars

Bejeweled is a series of tile-matching puzzle video games created by PopCap Games. Bejeweled was released initially for browsers in 2001, followed by seven sequels: Bejeweled 2 (2004), Bejeweled Twist (2008), Bejeweled Blitz (2009), Bejeweled 3 (2010), Bejeweled Legend (2012, in Japan only) Bejeweled Stars (2016), and Bejeweled Champions (2020) all by PopCap Games and its parent, Electronic Arts. More than 10 million copies of Bejeweled have been sold, and the game has been downloaded more than 350 million times.[2] By February 2010, Bejeweled sales hit 50 million. The figure includes the original game, plus the Blitz and Twist versions.[3] An arcade version was released in Q3 2013.

Games

Release timeline
2001Bejeweled
2002–2003
2004Bejeweled 2
2005–2007
2008Bejeweled Twist
Bejeweled Blitz
2009
2010Bejeweled 3
2011
2012Bejeweled Legend
2013–2015
2016Bejeweled Stars
2017–2019
2020Bejeweled Champions
Main series
Spin-offs

Influence

Bejeweled was directly influenced by a web-based game called "Colors Game" (1999), with possible indirect inspiration from games such as Shariki, Tetris Attack, and Columns, although the extent of their impact on Bejeweled's design remains a subject of speculation.[5][6][7][8]

The popularity of Bejeweled has spawned several clones. Collectively known as match three games, these games revolve around the mechanics of creating three-in-a-row combinations of identical pieces.

Legacy

After the release of Bejeweled, the game has been ported to many platforms, including cellphones, smartphones, game consoles, plug and plays, in-flight entertainment displays, and more. The series would be subject to several non-video game products including casino machines, three board games from Hasbro, a web series based on the characters Snackers and Anchovy from Bejeweled Blitz and more.

On September 25, 2008,[9] Bejeweled was officially released as a free addon for the fantasy MMORPG World of Warcraft, alongside Peggle.[10][11][12][13] In addendum to the standard 'Classic' (Normal) and 'Timed' modes, the addon has an exclusive 'Flight' mode, wherein the game begins when the player takes a flight from one in-game location to another, with the goal to score as high as possible before they reach their destination.[14][9] The WoW addon adds achievements to the game, as well as a levelling system.[14][9]

In 2014, Bejeweled and Candy Crush Saga (along with many other similar match three games) were proved to be NP-hard.[15][16]

Bejeweled is often considered an important part of the match-3 genre.[citation needed] The series had won multiple awards. By 2013, PopCap estimates that over 10 billion hours of the game had been played on over 500 million downloaded copies.[17] In 2020, Bejeweled was inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame.[18]

Further reading

References

  1. ^ "Bejeweled® Deluxe Readme". Archived from the original on 2010-06-12. Retrieved 2017-03-07.
  2. ^ Ward, Mark (2008-03-18). "Casual games make a serious impact". BBC News. BBC. Archived from the original on 21 March 2008. Retrieved 2008-03-20.
  3. ^ Alexander, Leigh (February 10, 2010). "Bejeweled Sales Hit 50 Million". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on September 7, 2020. Retrieved March 14, 2020.
  4. ^ @worldwinner (September 9, 2020). "Let's celebrate! Bejeweled 2 is now Bejeweled Champions! Check out the new version on http://worldwinner.com AND in the WorldWinner app! ✨🎉 https://go.worldwinner.com/LEaPXlY8D9 TODAY: Enjoy 10X Rewards Points in Bejeweled Champions cash tournaments until midnight ET" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 2020-09-09. Retrieved 2020-12-14 – via Twitter.
  5. ^ Kapalka, Jason (March 4, 2011). "Classic Game Postmortem - Bejeweled" (video). youtube.com. Game Developers Conference.
  6. ^ Hester, Larry (October 21, 2013). "Inside Bejeweled: An Interview with Executive Producer Heather Hazen". Complex. Archived from the original on October 26, 2017. Retrieved August 15, 2023. When Brian Fiete, Jason Kapalka and John Vechey of PopCap came across a Russian match-three game called Shariki (or The Colors Game), it inspired them to create a browser-based game named Diamond Mine which later evolved into the glittery, ball of addiction we now know as Bejeweled.
  7. ^ Edwards, Jim (February 18, 2014). "Here's The History Of The Game That Was Copied To Create Candy Crush Saga". BusinessInsider.com. Retrieved August 15, 2023. But even Bejeweled isn't the original match-three game. That honor probably belongs to a Russian computer game from the early 1990s called Shariki
  8. ^ "Museum of the Schariki game" (in Russian). Archived from the original on 20 October 2008. Retrieved 2008-11-13.
  9. ^ a b c Chalk, Andy (September 22, 2008). "Bejeweled Comes To World Of Warcraft". The Escapist. Archived from the original on March 20, 2021.
  10. ^ Cavalli, Earnest (September 19, 2008). "Bejeweled, Warcraft Combine to Form World's Most Addictive Game". Wired. Condé Nast. Archived from the original on June 16, 2014.
  11. ^ Schramm, Mike (September 20, 2008). "WoW Insider's preview of PopCap Games' Bejeweled addon". WoW Insider. AOL. Archived from the original on December 17, 2010.
  12. ^ Dumitrescu, Andrei (September 22, 2008). "Bejeweled to Appear as Minigame in World of Warcraft". Softpedia. SoftNews NET SRL. Archived from the original on September 24, 2008.
  13. ^ North, Dale (September 22, 2008). "Unholy unity: Bejeweled added to World of Warcraft". Destructoid. Enthusiast Gaming. Archived from the original on August 19, 2009.
  14. ^ a b Welsh, Oli (September 22, 2008). "Bejeweled add-on coming to WOW". Eurogamer. Gamer Network. Archived from the original on February 16, 2012.
  15. ^ T. Walsh (2014). "Candy Crush is NP-Hard". arXiv:1403.1911 [cs.CC].
  16. ^ Gualà, L.; Leucci, S.; Natale, E. (August 2014). "Bejeweled, Candy Crush and other match-three games are (NP-)hard". 2014 IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games. pp. 1–8. arXiv:1403.5830. doi:10.1109/CIG.2014.6932866. ISBN 978-1-4799-3547-5. S2CID 21294688. Archived from the original on 2021-10-05.
  17. ^ Edwards, Jim (2013-09-11). "The Definitive, Illustrated History of the Most Underrated Game Ever". Business Insider. Archived from the original on 2017-03-13. Retrieved 2017-03-11.
  18. ^ "Bejeweled, Minecraft among games inducted into hall of fame | The Spokesman-Review". www.spokesman.com. Archived from the original on 2020-12-02. Retrieved 2020-12-08.

External links

PopCap Games
Electronic Arts
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