Pong and Beyond

704th played so far

Genre: Puzzle
Platform: PC
Year of Release: 2004
Developer: Popcap Games
Publisher: Popcap Games

I’ve been getting invested in match three games for a bunch of reasons recently and, while I was looking through the list, realised that the grand daddy of them all, Bejeweled, had two of its sequels on the list. It feels like enough of a reason to play it now and see how it holds up now.

Our Thoughts

The first Bejeweled isn’t on the list, although I’m sure I must have played it. Still, I know the genre from all its derivatives – match three is almost its own genre, played mostly on phones, with Candy Crush Saga and Toon Blast regularly being high on the top grossing charts. In comparison, this is simple – only very basic combos, no weird objectives or similar. Just get a high enough score, a certain number of matches. I believe this sequel adds some modes and new levels compared to the original, but the core game is still there.

Even then, though, it’s hard to separate the original from its expanded sequels. The matching of gems is there. The power ups for matching are in there. You gain points. The objectives are simple – mostly just matching – and beyond that you just play the game. Depending on your game mode, you keep going, you have a time limit or you just have a limited amount of pieces where you need to solve the puzzle. It’s simple. It’s straight forward. But it works. And becomes incredibly addictive real quick. You can see why it has such lasting appeal.

I’ve been spending a lot of time with match three games and playing them, but more isn’t necessarily better – I really appreciated the simplicity this time.