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April 13, 2007

Staff Pick of the Week: Jewel Quest
by Chris Lemon, MSN Games

Hi there! While Moxie is away getting a refill on her favorite caffeinated beverage, it's my privilege to sit down in the chair (and with apologies to Monty Python, this is quite a comfy chair...Moxie gets ALL of the perks!) and tell you about my latest MSN Games addiction. (I can stop ANYTIME I WANT...really!) And this week, that lucky winner is Jewel Quest.

Now, I have played a lot of games in my time, of every sort, and the match-three-in-a-row concept is certainly not a new one. But Jewel Quest throws some wrinkles into the mix that sets it apart from the rest of the field. The basic game is a simple one, and one you're already familiar with (Bejeweled, anybody?): swap two adjacent pieces such that three or more symbols in a line match, they disappear, everything slides down, and new pieces drop in from the top to replace them. But the catch is what makes it so enticing: when the symbols clear, the tiles behind them turn gold, and in order to move on to the next level, every tile on the board must be gold before the timer expires.

And it's that wrinkle that makes Jewel Quest such a great game; it sets up interesting strategic decisions about which sets you want to knock off next, because the pieces falling might move a potential match down to a spot where it no longer helps you since the tiles it now sits in are already gold! On the other hand, that same match might move another jewel down to a point where you can use it to make a match in a place you're having trouble clearing out.

In a nutshell, even if you're not a fan of the match-three genre, you really ought to give Jewel Quest a try. When two hours pass and you're still sitting in front of your computer trying to figure out how to get a skull to the lower-left corner, you'll understand!

Tips and Tricks

·          Early in a level, you just want to knock off as many spaces as possible, so work on the matches on the lower half of the grid, and see if you can set up big chain reactions to knock out a lot of spaces at once!

·          The hardest spaces to match off are those at the very top and very bottom of the grid. When you see a match that will allow you to clear a space there, don't pass it up...particularly at the top, where any match below it will move those relics out of the top row.

·          Later levels include "buried" relics that are locked in their spaces until a match involving them is made. These really hinder your flexibility, so match those to get them unlocked as soon as you can.

·          If you can't find a match that helps you, just knock off anything you see, because that will shift the relics into something that might me more helpful.

·          Sometimes you just can't find a match, but I have yet to see a situation where one just plain doesn't exist. Stay calm, wait a moment, and the game will "twinkle" two relics that you can swap to make a match and get back on track.

Coming up next week…
Another member of the crack MSN Games staff will tell you about a diabolically addictive little word game...you won't want to miss it! Have a great week, and we'll see you back here next Friday!

Check out the Staff Pick of the Week archives!