Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook: Beginner's Guide to Playing and Getting a High Score

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The game itself is addictive but what makes it more addictive is competing against your friends. My wife and I are constantly goading each other about Bejeweled Blitz. Whether PVP'ing in WoW, console gaming or playing Bejeweled Blitz, competing against your friends always brings a whole new aspect to a game.

A list of your friends who play Bejeweled Blitz shows up on the right of the game board along with their high scores for the week. Bejeweled Blitz also has medals you obtain by scoring multiples of 25000. There is a different medal for each interval. The game keeps track of how many times you get each type of medal. You can see how many times you, or any of your friends, have received a medal by clicking on the yellow stars in the friends list.

As I stated above the concept behind the game is pretty simple, but being good at it is not. You need good eyes and a fast mouse hand, but most of all you need a bucket load of luck. The way to the highest score is to have the game play itself. This happens when you make a move that makes a row disappear, which makes another row disappear and so on. In Bejeweled this is called a cascade. Since there is a speed bonus, the more gems that disappear in one move the more points you get. Another thing to keep in mind is that you can get bonuses for creating rows larger than three.

These three special gems were the only special bonus gems available in the beta version of the game, so you may be familiar with them. They are all still available in the new Bejeweled Blitz along with some new gems discussed on the next page,

Flame Gem

When you create a row of four, three of the gems disappear, one stays behind and looks like it is on fire. This one is now a “Flame

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Flame Gems, Hyper Cubes and Multipliers continued

Hyper Cube

If you make a row of five you will create a “Hyper Cube”. With these, you simply choose any neighbouring gem and swap, all of that

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Multiplier Gem

Sometimes a “Multiplier Gem” will drop onto the game board. These drastically help you get a higher score, especially if you can get three or four of them in one game. Once you make a row with the multiplier gem, the points you receive from any future moves will be doubled. If you get another, the points will triple, and so on.

Two new bonuses were introduced, when the game came out of beta a couple of months ago, that drastically change the dynamic of the game.

Star Gem

The “Star Gem” can be create in one of two ways. The first way is to create an L shape or a T shape with five gems of the same colour. The

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Once you have created a Star Gem, you can set it off by creating a row of three with it. Once a row is created it will shoot out a bolt of electricity, destroying all the gems in the horizontal row and vertical column that the Star Gem occupies.

Check out Part two in this series to learn about more of the new bonuses in Bejeweled Blitz and a list of tips and tricks to get you to a higher score.