Bejeweled and Alchemy
November 14, 2002 | Eddie
Park
The creation of a good puzzle game is a tricky thing at
best. Though rarely flashy in terms of graphics or sounds,
successful puzzle games have always shared the same
combination of traits: simple gameplay mechanics accompanied
by a deviously tricky set of strategies that are a combination
of foresight, speed, and luck.
This being said, it’s easy to see why PopCap Games
has been so successful with their line of puzzle games.
Already wildly successful on both the Palm and Windows
platforms, two of PopCap’s top titles, Bejeweled and Alchemy,
have been ported to the OS 9 & X platform courtesy of The
Omni Group. Thanks to publisher MacPlay, both of
these titles can be purchased in one shot, as they come
packaged together as part of MacPlay’s Value Series.
As both titles come on the same CD, I’ll be reviewing
them at the same time here, doing side-to-side comparisons
when necessary. Thankfully, both games carry the same basic
structure, so this won’t be that far of a stretch.
Jewels or Runes, Take Your Pick
Both Bejeweled and Alchemy are grid-based games, sporting 8x8
and 9x8 grids, respectively. However, Bejeweled is undoubtedly
the simpler of the two in terms of game mechanics. As soon as
a game starts, seven different kinds of jewels are dropped
onto the board, filling it completely. From there, the
activity is simple – any one jewel can be swapped with an
adjacent one on a horizontal or vertical axis (no diagonals).
The catch is that, when swapped, a row or column of 3 or more
of the same type of jewel must be formed. When this occurs,
those jewels will subsequently disappear, and the columns of
jewels will drop down to fill the empty spaces left on the
board. A meter at the bottom will slowly fill as rows are
completed, and will kick the player to the next level when
completely filled.
Alchemy, while also grid-based, takes a decidedly different
approach in its play. The board starts completely devoid of
pieces, which must be placed by the player. The goal is simple
– convert every square on the board into gold by placing a
magical rune on it. To meet this goal, players are given a
series of runes in a variety of shapes, with each shape coming
in several colors. The catch is, as players place the runes on
the board, each rune must be placed adjacent to an existing
one. In addition, each rune must share either the same color
or the same shape as the one next to which it’s placed.
As one might imagine, placing runes becomes increasingly
difficult as the board fills up. To make things easier, two
additional pieces, including a universal rune and a rune
destroyer, will pop up now and then. When an entire row or
column on the board is filled with runes, it will disappear,
clearing yet more room on the board for rune placement. When
there’s simply no way to place a rune, players can elect to
discard it, though this penalizes them by sending the rune to
the forge. If the forge is filled with three runes, the game
is over, though the forge also cools down each time a rune is
placed on the board.
Page 1 |
Page 2 | Page 3 | Page
4
|
