Bejeweled Twist Freeze

I'm a big fan of casual pc games. I just love the type of game you can just drone off into and spend 10-20 minutes and it does not have to be so serious. One of my all time favorites is Pop Cap Games Bejeweled. I even downloaded it to my mobile phone. I guess all the match three gaming is the cause for my little navigation stick being so wonky.

This was probably one of the games that started the whole wave of casual pc games, and the series has been sold in a whopping 25 000 000 copies worldwide. That is what I call success!

Bejeweled was also one of the inspirations for our own match three puzzle game with the added twist of using clues to navigate your pirate ship.

Speaking of twists the newest installment of Bejeweled is just released! It's called Bejeweled Twist. I immediately downloaded and got it up and running. I was really expecting much of this game, and sure enough it delivered. At least in the department of graphics, sound, music and that sort of smoothness you have come to expect from a top notch casual game.

The change from the classic Bejeweled games are that you this time spin four jewels clockwise to make matches. You are free to spin any four jewels at any time, that is your spin does not have to make a match.

This new mechanic has one big advantage, the game as a whole becomes much less random. You can always make a move, and you can line up your matches as you like. This is a very very big advantage as one of the biggest problems in classic match three games are that you can run out of moves and the whole game becomes quite random. Bejeweled Twist definitely brings the need for skill into the match three games.

The drawback is that it takes a bit of time to get used to. It is definitely not as intuitive as the normal match three, and it might have a harder time attracting the hardcore casual player... I don't think that Bejeweled Twist will bring new players into the causal games arena, rather it is a top notch game that is made for current casual players.

And now for the big anti climax...
Bejeweled Twist seem to have some sort of freeze bug in it. Seemingly randomly when playing a level I get unexpected freezes. The game stops, stalls and just won't respond. Gaaaah! I don't know if it is just om my computer, but I have restarted the game several times, and after playing one or two levels. FREEEEZEHTH. I have quite a good and new laptop computer running Vista so there is nothing strange in that department... other games seem to work just fine.

I really expected this game to work flawlessly. Especially considering the time and budget Pop Cap has, but I guess even the big guys have a hard time testing. Especially if you can opt for spending time and money on a big extravagant release party...

Hmmm what should I do today... Test the game some more... or test different champagnes for the release party.... hmmm This testing business is so hard...

Maybe if they had developed games iteratively they would not have this problem.