Comment from Bejeweled Blitz Player Sue:

I have much trouble with Bejeweled Blitz, not in playing but it seems I cannot see my teammates scores at all. No one I know that plays has this trouble and was wondering if anyone knows how to get the running scores along side of my game. I played last week on my Mom's computer 700 miles away and it showed everyone on my team.

I called this Bejeweled Blitz player and she allowed me to take a look at her computer. We discovered that the problem was in her ad blocking software. We had to add this url as an "unfiltered" url in her Ad program:

http://labs.popcap.com

After this was done, the scoreboard appeared with the teammates' scores and the week's rankings!

Thanks for letting me check out your PC, Sue!

Julia G
 
 
I can't find an "official" page of high games, but you can become a fan of Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook, you can post your high score to the "Discussion" section. I've seen scores in the 700,000s there - this new game gives you the opportunity to reach really high scores!

To become a fan, click on the "Become a Fan" button at the top of the Bejeweled Blitz play board. You will also get any special announcements about the game on your Facebook wall.

I had a personal high last night and it was a big rush (see screen capture below!) 

Hope you're having fun with the new version.

I've decided to open my Julia Gemstone Facebook page to friends. If you'd like to be a friend, just look up "Julia Gemstone" and add me.

I don't use this for my "personal" facebook page, but I do spend a little time playing each week. I'm not a fan of smack talk, but you can try to beat me! :-)

Julia Gemstone
http://www.bejeweledlover.com
Picture
 
 
I thought I'd reply to a couple of the recent comments posted on my blog...

From Anne May
Sun, 11 Oct 2009 07:42:14
The new game seems a lot easier than the original version, I'm getting epic scores without much effort. I just scored 355,350.

It's not so much that the new game is easier. It's more that the score range is now higher.

It appears that the scale has now doubled, so where it used to be difficult to get many scores in the 200,000 range, now it's difficult to get scores in the 400,000 range.

That's one of the reasons they've removed the 25K medal scale in the stats - now it's almost a given that you'll get at least 25K.

I'm looking forward to when they add medals for 300K, 350K, 400K and 450K.

********************************

From rich (who posted on the Bejeweled Blitz Cheating post)
Sun, 11 Oct 2009 14:10:47
what does it matter? the thing on facebook has to be fake where it says you can win a laptop. because i didn't cheat before and our whole team got over 1 million points and did we win anything? nope. so i have the cheater program just to piss off this girl i dont like

Well, I just checked and there are now 7,688,337 monthly active Bejeweled Blitz users, so your expecting to win as soon as your team reached a million is a bit ambitious. Just because you didn't win, it doesn't mean that they don't give away a laptop each week. They absolutely do.

And as for your cheating, according to the Tips and Tricks tab at Bejeweled Blitz:

"Also keep in mind that if another player cheats, it does not affect your chances to win our contest in any way. Our contest is based on a drawing, and is NOT a competition. If there are players out there with higher team scores than you, they are no more likely to win the contest than you are. In fact, players with scores that were obviously obtained via cheating will be disqualified from the contest."

So your immature, infantile antics won't affect the girl's chances to win. :-)

Julia Gemstone
http://www.bejeweledlover.com
 
 
Reply to comment:

I haven't been able to play the new Bejeweled Bliz --I would like to know why!! I get to the scores and it would let me play!! I sure would love to be able to play again Please

First, Login to Facebook, then click on this link:

http://apps.facebook.com/bejeweledblitz/?lpt=bookmark

Julia G
 
 
I've been absent from my blog for a while, but it's because I've been working on the New Bejeweled Blitz guide.

The brand new Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook takes the one-minute game to the next level - no... it takes it way beyond the next level!

I've written the new guide, and it's available at:

http://www.bejeweledlover.com/bjsales.html

If you already own my current guides and haven't heard from me yet, just send me an email at:

jgemstone @ cableone . net

and I'll get the updated guide to you for free.

If you haven't played the new game, it's just been released on Facebook, and it's a total blast!

Julia G
 
 
I've spent some time playing the new Bejeweled Blitz Beta game, and it's a wild ride!

I'll have more to say about it soon, but get ready for a whole new game vocabulary. Pretty soon you'll be talking "flames," "stars," "rainbows," and "amazing speed" instead of power gems and hypercubes.

At the end of your one-minute game, gain additional points during the "last hurrah," where any remaining multipliers, flames, stars and rainbows are exploded.

And for those of you who have a problem with the addiction level of the original Bejewled Blitz, I have bad news for you. The new game is just as addictive!

I'll be adding Blitz Beta strategy tips to my Bejeweled Blitz and Bejeweled 2 guides very soon!

Julia G

P.S. Here's a tip for the new game: it's easy to get caught up in creating flames, stars and rainbows, but keep in mind that getting and matching multipliers are still the key to the highest scores!
 
 
I compete with friends and some family. Well, something fishy is going on. Not monumental, but they all get over 150,000. They say you can reduce the number of colors and the background color for better viewing. Is this true. Help from the black sheep of the family.

There is no legal way to do this. If your family and friends are reducing the number of colors of gems, then it is done illegally.

My only question is, what kind of fun is that? It doesn't make sense to me.

I have used game cheats in the past. When I had a Nintendo, I got a Magin Boy, but I was playing with others who had the same advantages in the game. Wanting to take advantage of a cheat when your fellow Facebook friends got their high scores through practice and skill is like taking a taxi to the end of a marathon so you can finish first. It only makes that person a loser.

You make it sound simple to use the multiples, but I get them to match sometimes but not others. I add it to the middle or end but there has to be a better explaination of just how you use the multiple.

You are absolutely right - it's not always easy to get the multipliers to match. But it's a one-minute game, and if the game isn't going the way you'd like, you can stop it and start over without having your score entered into your statistics.

One thing I did notice, though, is that if you can't match a multiplier, and you get a second one, the second one is generally easier to match, and after that the first one also becomes more easy to match.

Julia G
 
 

Dear Ms. Gemstone,
I play Bejeweled Blitz. If you have a row that has almost 5 matching gems in a row with only the center gem missing, should you try to save that "set up" for a possible chance at a hyper cube? I suppose that would only be if it were a horizontal pattern. I always feel that I'm wasting the pattern to drag one of those gems to make a match of 3.
Thank you, Sophie H.

Hi Sophie,

Because Bejeweled Blitz is a one-minute game, my advice is not to go for the hypercube setup.

The reason is that your mind will be working with that setup and missing other potential moves as the timer ticks down to zero.

The way I view potential hypercubes in Bejeweled Blitz is to take advantage of them if they present themselves easily, but not to go out of the way to create them.

If you were playing the regular game of Bejeweled 2, you would be wasting the pattern to create a 3-gem match, but if you're playing Blitz, it's better to take the 3-gem match and not waste the time.

Julia G

 
 

Comment from Ellen...

"Hi Julia Gemstone,

I've been playing Bejeweled Blitz on facebook and Bejeweled Deluxe 2 for a awhile. I wonder about a couple things. One is, sometimes - a lot actually when on facebook - when I try to move a gem it won't go, it gets a little frame around it and I have to click a couple times to get it to move. Is this an issue with my mouse and how I use it? Or is this part of the game designed to drive the player batty about wasting precious seconds trying to move gems? Also, why does that guy keep saying "Go" throughout the minute? Is he trying to get you to move faster? I must admit it's rewarding when he says, "Excellent"... Another thing is, on the Deluxe 2 version Action game, what determines when a round is over? I can't figure it out."

Hi Ellen,

The "Go" is a one-time thing that happens at the beginning of a Bejeweled Blitz game, so you might be hearing "Good" after the initial "Go." A "Good" doesn't necessarily mean you'll get a multiplier gem, so it's best just to ignore it. Usually you'll get the "Good" comment after one of your gem matches causes two more. "Excellent" is mentioned when the resulting "cascades" are power gem matches or more than 3  3-gem matches, and the "incredible" happens when your move causes several more matches and greater points.

With the frame thing... are you clicking on the one gem and then clicking on the gem that you want to move it to? If so, you will make more moves faster if you left-click and hold on a gem and then drag it to where you want it to go. I've never had the non-moving gem problem, so that's the only thing I can think of.

For the Action game, your play begins with a timer which works down to zero time while you play. If you get big moves and moves with lots of points or cascading matches, the time to play goes up. If you sit there and can't find a move, the timer will go down pretty fast. So the object is to keep making moves and matching power gems and creating and using hypercubes quickly so you can keep that timer from going down to zero.

A round begins with the amount of time you have left, and it's up to you to make the moves that move that bar toward the end, so it is move and time driven, rather than getting to a certain amount of points.

You'll never run out of moves with the Action game, so if you can't find a move to make, look toward the top of the game board because the gems that fall from the top will guarantee that you have moves to make.

Julia G

 
 

Note added 10/16/2009: This message was originally written when the first Bejeweled Blitz Game was in play. With the new version, much higher scores are possible. I have had scores in the 400,000s and someone commented that she had a score of 511,000.

It is still possible to cheat, and a score of 511,000 is very rare, so scores above that may be suspect.

Julia G

Comment from DeeDee:

"It says on my score board that one of my friends got 12 MILLION some odd tonite on Blitz. Have you ever heard of that?"

Well, to be blunt, a score of 12 million is an indication that your friend cheated with a program that automatically plays the game.

I don't know if PopCap disqualifies people who cheat from receiving their weekly prizes, but IMHO, I think they should. Any score over 300,000 is suspect (I would even stretch that to 350,000, but I've never heard of a score that high).

If Blitz is ever changed to store the replay of the highest scoring game, this might be easier to detect in the future, because a "bot" would be easy to spot during a replay.

If I were you, I'd make sure your team score was over a million without your "friend's" score.

Julia G