Jewel Quest for Windows

Jewel Quest is a puzzle game for Windows PC. It's another one of those type puzzle games where you have to match three or more jewels in a row, but the twist to this one is that the playing board changes with each level. It starts off very easy, but gets to be quite difficult as you go farther into the game.

Although I typically enjoy playing 3D shooter and role playing games, I do also enjoy the mindless fun offered by these simpler puzzle games. This is one where there isn't much strategy involved at all, but rather quick thinking and a lot of luck. Compared to other more popular games like Zuma and Bejeweled, this one isn't nearly as fun. The developers weighed it down with too much extra fluff and it gets old quick.

When you first start out playing, you use boards that are basically square. As you progress, the boards take on different shapes and give you tight spaces to match three or more of a kind. You'll quickly figure out that you need to focus on getting those corners and nooks matched first, or else you'll have a lot of problems as the board fills up. The object of the game is to match a group on every tile of the board, and each tile will light up in gold color once a match is made. You can make matches over and again on the gold tiles, but the level isn't complete until you've finished the whole board.

Strategically, this game is incredibly weak. There really is no strategy to the gameplay, since the jewels drop down at random from the top of the board. You can see what is in play and try to maneuver the pieces into position, but ultimately it comes down to the luck of the draw. The levels are played on a timer, and I never once found where I couldn't match at least one group of three before the time ran out. I thought this game was just a little too easy.

The graphics in this game are on par with something from the early days of the Sony PlayStation 2. The Mayan/Aztec theme used for the backgrounds is kind of cool and fits into the whole Indiana Jones motif of the game, but they only serve as window dressing to the puzzles. You can't change the resolution of the game, so it looks rather huge and block on my 22-inch widescreen monitor, especially when the game wasn't formatted for widescreen displays. At least the music was kind of cool, though I usually play this game with the sound off.

Having just spent the last month playing Puzzle Quest, which is far superior in every possible way, I found Jewel Quest to be quite underwhelming. The graphics are dated, the puzzles aren't all that challenging, and the overall game doesn't compel me to keep playing like most addictive puzzle-type games do.