Bejeweled and Alchemy

Preview Date: June 28, 2002

Genre: Strategy/Arcade
Developer: PopCap Games
Mac Publisher: MacPlay
Minimum System Requirements (both games): 233MHz G3, Mac OS 8.6 with 64MB RAM and CarbonLib 1.5, or Mac OS X 10.1 with 128MB RAM, monitor set to Thousands of Colors or Millions of Colors.
Network Feature: No
Price: $19.00
Availability: July 2002

I've never really been into cleaning things up. Sure, I keep a clean bathroom and I occasionally find cabinets in which to dump all the computer magazines and CDs I accumulate, but I don't clean things as a fun way to pass the time.

Many gamers, however, love to clean. After all, isn't that what many computer games are about? As far back as Asteroids, gamers were cleaning screens from debris and monsters. One of the biggest computer games of all time, Tetris, was nothing more than an exercise in stacking and cleaning boxes. It can even be argued that most first person shooters are no different from a Saturday morning spent with a broom and a dust pan; you're simply running around, cleaning up a mess.

In spite of my fears, neither Bejeweled nor Alchemy are about cleaning up messes, so much. If they are, you can make no progress on Bejeweled's mess, and Alchemy's can only be cleaned after you've made the mess in the first place.

Both of these games have been around for quite some time in one form or another, the most popular of which would currently have to be the online versions at PopCap. For those who don't want to spend all night online, or who want to play at the airport, or who are on AOL or Compuserve and therefore just hate the entire internet experience, MacPlay will soon release Bejeweled and Alchemy on one CD for your gaming convenience.

Let's first take a look at Bejeweled, since it's my favorite of the two. Basically, you're given a game board with 64 gems of various colors and shapes. Your task is to swap them--either left/right or up/down--to place three or more like gems in a row. These will then disappear and the gems above them will slide down to fill the void. See? No cleaning here. There will always be 64 gems on the screen, your task is to simply make sure there will always be gems that can be swapped. Well, I say "simply," but that's not always the case. Planning ahead to create collections of four or more, or to create multiple collections by moving just one gem, greatly increases the point value. Quite often, the best gems to swap are not the first ones you see.

Unless you're playing in time trial mode, that is. In this, it's a race to reach the next level before time expires. At moments, this proved tremendously easy. But then, either my mind would go blank, my eyes would fail me, or the game would get cruel, because I suddenly wouldn't be able to find anything. In a panic, I'd click the hint button, then smack myself for not seeing what should've been obvious.

The music of Bejeweled, composed by Skaven, is tremendous. It sounds like the kind of music you'd hear in the background at a science or health museum if said music had been recorded by an 80s super band comprising Thomas Dolby, Peter Schilling and Roger Taylor. It sounds...scientific. Smart. I can't help but feel I would've scored higher on my ACTs had this music been playing in the background.

Now, I enjoy Bejeweled. My wife, on the other hand, prefers Alchemy. Bear in mind that she's an accountant, so she probably enjoys cleaning things. She likes taking a big jumbled mess of numbers, whether it be company invoices or our checkbook, and making them all add up.

This is basically the point of Alchemy. It's a matching game. The game starts you off with a board of 72 blank squares, which you must both fill up and clear of playing pieces. The pieces come in various shapes and colors, and each piece must match--either in color or shape--each piece it touches. The pieces have to be placed next to another, and unplayable pieces have to be discarded. Discard too many without laying any down, and the game ends.

Once an entire row or column of pieces has been laid, it clears out and changes color. The goal is to change the color of all 72 spaces on the board. In other words, each space must at one point have a playing piece on top of it. No problem at first, but the more pieces you lay down without also clearing them out, the more difficult it becomes to lay down new pieces. To compound the confusion, higher levels start bringing in new shapes and colors, making it more difficult to match. Some special pieces can match anything or destroy pieces already on the board, but they come infrequently so it's never wise to hope for one in a time of need.

As with Bejeweled, Alchemy can be played in either regular or time trial modes. My preference here depended upon how much time I had to play the game. If I had half an hour to kill, I played regular mode. If I had half a minute, time trial.

The music for Alchemy is also composed by Skaven, and again contributes greatly to the game. The graphics are comparable, yet also come across as a bit more sophisticated. Both games retain the look of those from which they're inspired, but Alchemy feels more modern; more OS X and less Sega Saturn.

I previewed the gold master of Bejeweled/Alchemy, and the game ran very well in OS X, provided I didn't try to play in full screen mode. Plenty of anomalies appeared, so I quickly switched back to window mode and contented myself with that. When I booted up in OS 9 to play, none of my on screen commands (clicking and such) would work until I clicked the mouse on the menu bar. Weird. If I clicked options, for example, nothing would happen. But if I next clicked on any item in the menu bar, the Options window would then pop open. If this is still the case then I do the full review, I'll try installing the games from OS 9 to see if that clears up the problem.

Bejeweled and Alchemy will be amongst the first games released through MacPlay's value series, and I can't think of a better title to spearhead the campaign. These games are perfect for the general consumer, providing easy gameplay that's also challenging and addictive. I know quite a few people who are still figuring out ways to make their old copies of Tetris and Jewel Box work on their Macs. Although neither Bejeweled nor Alchemy are similar in gameplay, they're both close in style and entertainment value.

Of course, if you're looking for something close in style, but perhaps not in entertainment value, you could always just come over and clean my house.