[Review] Jewel Quest (PC)

Sometimes, in our preoccupied lives we need games that are mindless time-wasters. Well, okay I’ll speak for myself…I do! Anyone who knows me in my personal life knows my mind goes in 17 different directions in a normal day. Call it anxiety if you will, but my mind never stops thinking. And sometimes, I need something non-caffeinated, non-medicated… and, frankly, non-boozed to get me to relax a bit. This season, my go-to mindless casual game is Jewel Quest.

Jewel Quest is one of those games the hubs found for me on one of our thrift shop runs this past summer. A CD game, I installed it on my PC and went to town.

When I started playing Jewel Quest, I realized I am no stranger to this type of game. Considered a timed “match-three” style game whereby you are given a grid board full of different coloured “jewels”, you try to match three or more of the same colour vertically or horizontally to clear the board. As you do so, more jewels fall to fill in the space just vacated. You have a time limit to complete the board, and points are given per match.

My first run-in with a game like this was on my iPod Touch playing Bejeweled 2. Later, I played Hexic on the Xbox 360, and of course there are others like it such as Candy Crush Saga that pepper the casual gaming landscape.

Jewel Quest‘s concept is not original by any stretch. The game itself fashions a storyline whereby you are an archeological explorer searching in ancient temples and sacred places for artifacts, all the while completing match-three puzzles to earn those artifacts. With each level, the grid board changes to make the match-three a little more difficult. There is a sort of journal that fills up with info as you complete levels, my guess is to make the game “more interesting”, but as I’ve discovered, if you don’t want to pay attention to it you won’t miss anything in the gameplay itself. My problem was the font on the journal is hard to read without using my Glassbrick magnifier anyway, so I didn’t bother with it.

Really, what makes Jewel Quest fun is its Indiana Jones styling with the Survivor-type music (*ahem*  That is to say the TV SHOW, Survivor, not the band!) with bongos, sitars and didgeridoos set up the adventure atmosphere and give the game a general friendly perpetual gameplay that never gets old.

There are variations to Jewel Quest that exist, depending on platform you play the game on. My version of Jewel Quest supposedly has 180 levels, and it’s hard to imagine what you get at the end of the game. I had also discovered, aside from mobile devices, and gaming consoles, that it is also available to play online for free on Yahoo Games as a flash game, played within the user’s web browser. Mind you, there are minor differences between the online and PC version, but the game is certainly playable, and suitable enough to play on your lunch break at work.

Jewel Quest‘s strength and appeal is in the fact that anyone, of any gaming level can pick this game up and play it for as long or as little as they like. So, if you haven’t tried this addictive, yet relaxing game – try it!

3.5/5

Jewel Quest
Developer: iWin / Mumbo Jumbo
Released 2004