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TUAW's Daily App: Shifters
Shifters is a fun little match-3 game with a "twist" -- instead of switching colored blocks to match three of a kind, you rotate them in sets of four. That changes up the strategy a bit, as the patterns look a little different from the standard Bejeweled-type game (the shifting mechanic is obviously more similar to Bejeweled Twist) but the gameplay is still simple and fun. Shifters is presented in levels, too, with each level providing a separate goal to meet, from matching a certain number of shifters to meeting a score within a certain time. Is it simple? Yes -- if you want anything more than some empty tapping and silly faces, you won't find it in Shifters. But the mechanic is entertaining enough to while away a few minutes of waiting in line or for the bus, and the 99 cent price is worth it as long as your expectations are low.
Man 'beats' Bejeweled 2 after playing for 3 years
digg_url = 'http://www.joystiq.com/2010/04/30/man-beats-bejeweled-2-after-playing-for-3-years/'; We admire all forms of dedication -- even the absolutely insane forms. A California steel contractor named Mike Leyde recently displayed one such type of persistence by playing a single round of his casual game of choice, Bejeweled 2, for 2,205 hours and 51 minutes over the course of three years. In that time, he collected 4,872,229 gems, earning the game's highest calculable score, 2,147,483,647, at which point the score display got really perplexed and went blank. (Check out a video of Mike's achievement after the jump.) According to PopCap, Leyde is the first person to ever "beat" Bejeweled 2. That's one way of looking at it, we suppose. Another way of looking at it is to say that everyone else who's ever played Bejeweled 2 is a quitter. Yeah, that's right. Why don't you follow through with something for once in your life? Sheesh.
Bejeweled celebrates 10th birthday, tops 50m units sold
Can you believe that Bejeweled has been around for a decade? It seems like only yesterday when we accidentally sunk our first afternoon into gem-matching ... and then another ... and another -- oh where has the time gone? According to PopCap, a 10-month celebration of the puzzle game's decade of dominance has commenced. Throughout 2010, a slew of community events will be held, like the first official Bejeweled competition, and new installments in the franchise will be released. The Bejeweled creator has also served up some starting statistics, including word that the various installments in the franchise have collectively sold more than 50 million units. By PopCap's calculation, a copy of Bejeweled is purchased every 4.3 seconds. By our calculation, eight people bought Bejeweled in the time it took you to read this post. Maybe more, if your reading comprehension could use some work.
Bejeweled, Bookworm coming to DSiWare
If you've been trying to convince your casual-minded significant other that you don't just want, but rather need, a DSi in addition to the DS you own, your moment may have just arrived. PopCap has announced that it'll be bringing its stupefyingly popular puzzle titles Bookworm and Bejeweled Twist to DSiWare this month and the next, respectively. Sure, they'll be out later on retail shelves (December 1, 2009 for Bookworm and Q1 2010 for Bejeweled Twist), but if you're going to score yourself a new DSi, your significant other can never know this. They can never, ever know.
PopCap following Peggle: Dual Shot with DS Bookworm, Bejeweled Twist
Until now, perhaps the only people to be safe from PopCap Games have been DS owners: we have plenty of excellent, short-session, portable puzzle games that seem to preclude the need to seek out stuff like Peggle. But now Peggle: Dual Shot has found us, and PopCap isn't stopping there. The company told Forbes that it is planning DS versions of Bejeweled Twist, the latest iteration of its hit block puzzle game, and Bookworm, a block/word puzzle game about creating words from fallen tiles, for release this holiday season. No specifics were given, but these two small, casual puzzle games would certainly be killer apps for DSiWare. [Via Shacknews]
Popcap spinning out Bejeweled Twist in October
PopCap games has announced Bejeweled Twist, a "new spin on the match-3 genre" due out next month. The game will be officially unveiled October 27 at an event at Seattle's Experience Music Project Sci-Fi Museum and Hall of Fame. It will launch as a $20 download on PopCap's website. As to what the new "twist" on the genre will be, PopCap isn't saying. The game has reportedly been in development for three years, so we're curious what the team has done with that time aside from swimming in a pool of casual gamer money. Our best guess is that Popcap has taken the Bejeweled board and rotated it 45 degrees. What a twist!
Bejeweled add-on coming to World of Warcraft
There are many ways to deal with the boredom that can sometimes strike during lengthy World of Warcraft sessions -- other than walking away from the computer to partake in a more enjoyable activity (that's just unthinkable). Some people level up new characters. Some people head to the Barrens area to spew their hate-speech towards like-minded scoundrels. However, the virtual denizens of Azeroth will soon be wasting their time using a popular, real-life time wasting engine -- PopCap's uber-successful casual puzzler, Bejeweled. The in-game add-on began as a homebrew Bejeweled clone from Michael Fromwiller, cleverly titled Besharded. Fromwiller developed the add-on as a method of killing time during long raids and farming sessions, but it wasn't too long before PopCap caught wind of the MMO mini-game. Instead of issuing a timely cease and desist, the casual gaming colossus hired Fromwiller to create a more polished version of the application. The add-on will launch this coming Thursday -- it would probably be wise to put in as much quality time with your WoW-playing acquaintances before then, as you won't be seeing them again for quite some time.
Bejeweled franchise downloaded 350 million times, sells 25 million units
The crack refinement corporation disguising itself as a game company -- also known as PopCap Games -- has announced that the Bejeweled franchise has sold over 25 million units across all platforms. The definition of "all platforms" would consist of online, mobile, retail, "in-flight" and other channels. PopCap also noted that the Bejeweled series has been downloaded 350 million times from the interwebs and makes up one third of the company's billion-plus downloads. The game has earned over $300 million in revenue through sales and "tens of millions" in online advertising. Jason Kapalka, co-founder of PopCap, says online distributors wanted no part of the game when it released eight years ago -- he vividly remembers buyers telling him, "It's not even a game."
Romantic gamer proposes with homebrewed Bejeweled
Proposing in MMOs like World of Warcraft and Second Life is played out, so what's a gamer to do when he wants to drop to one knee and still retain his nerd credibility? Well, how about homebrewing your honey's favorite game to pop the question? Xanga user Bernie did just that to propose to his girlfriend Tammy. Knowing that Bejeweled was her favorite game, Bernie spent a few weeks putting together a Nintendo DS version (completely from scratch, no less). Once the game hits a certain score, the screen clears and a ring made of the game's jewel sprites lowers on the screen. When his girlfriend played the game and arrived at the special screen, Bernie was ready with real ring in hand. Proposal by casual game is certainly a first, so congrats to Bernie and Tammy both for getting engaged, and for setting a new precedent in nerd love.
PopCap's Bejeweled free on iPhone
PopCap Games released a free web-based version of Bejeweled for Apple's iPhone, available via the Safari browser. Take note, this is not a downloadable game, thanks to Apple's insistence on web-based third party apps, so the game actually plays inside the phone's browser. GameDaily spoke with PopCap's Greg Canessa about the project and details of the web-based format here. We've seen what World of Warcraft looks like on the iPhone – and there are already a good deal of web-based iPhone games out there – but Bejeweled is arguably the first polished iPhone-"native" game out there. With the handheld's accelerometer and multi-touch display, we'd love to see what sort of games developers could develop using an actual SDK. Until then, we'll settle for web-based Bejeweled (which you can test out using Safari by going here).
PopCap gives Bejeweled away free for Mother's Day
For that cheapskate in all of us, PopCap has announced that they will be giving away free copies of their mega-hit Bejeweled Deluxe -- as a Mother's Day gift for your maternal caretaker, of course. Beginning tomorrow, May 9, and continuing through May 23, existing and new subscribers to their newsletter will receive a registration code via email for a full retail copy of Bejeweled Deluxe. The offer must be redeemed before May 30. If your mother already has Bejeweled or, on the other end of the spectrum, has never figured out how to use a mouse, then consider this a gift for yourself. For most countries, Mother's Day is coming up this Sunday (May 13), so if not this, you better of think of something to give.
Kong Demo and other goodies up on XBLM
Every time we hear about something new on the XBLM, it's like a small dose of Christmas. Just a little bit. Mostly when it's free stuff. Today, the Major announced a glut of new Marketplace content, including: a King Kong demo, Fight Night Round 3 picture packs and themes, new sounds and graphic packs for Crystal Quest, and Hexic and Bejeweled 2 theme packs. Wowza! As usual, the varied bonus packs are gonna cost ya, but the demo's what we're really interested in, right? If you haven't tried Kong yet, you're missing a really polished and elegant game, if a little short. If the easy 1000 gamerscore points hasn't lured you in already, maybe the demo will. See also: Joystiq Review: Peter Jackson's King Kong (Xbox 360)
