I know Bejeweled Blitz has been around like, forever, but it’s never too late to profess your love of something. Today I am professing my love for what is basically the only game I play in my busy schedule. If you haven’t heard of this Facebook phenomenon: get on it now!
This is an easy game to play that falls into the puzzles category. It has its own sub-category too as a “gem matcher” game specifically. The premise is so very simple: match three or more gems by swapping any two adjacent gems, score points by matching gems, beat your Facebook friends week after week.
The Bejeweled Blitz tips offered here are great for beginners who are just looking to up their games as well as advanced players who may want to scope out what the competition is doing. Keep in mind this is just my own personal strategy guide, though I have confirmed many of the tips I used to be utilized by another great player.
We regularly battle each other every week and with the introduction of coins, power ups, and gems, it’s been an ever-increasing battle for highest score. Developing some of your own personal tips and strategies is critical to staying ahead of your friends (or in my case at least in line with).
And without much further ado, I present to you the ultimate strategy guide to Bejeweled Blitz:
Tip #1 – Jump Start Each Game
You can move gems before the game clock starts. Use this to your advantage to begin matching gems immediately. This will give you an extra second of game play. As you get better, you’ll be able to find matches more quickly and this small 1-second window will become more and more important as a good start is key to a high score.
You can see in this picture that the timer is still at 1:00 yet a match of red gems has already been made. Make use of this free extra time!
Tip #2 – Work Top to Bottom
Player strategies vary on this but for me, in order to build speed, I tend to look for gem matches from the top to the bottom of the board. This gives me a chance to continuously break gems so as to get the speed power up. If you have never encountered this before, you get a small window of time (like 10 seconds?) where the board catches on fire and glows gold. During this time, any gems you break will explode the gems around them.
If you break from the bottom, it affects the gems on top as they fall and rearrange the board. This makes it harder for your eyes to find the next match and every tenth of a second will cost you. Meanwhile if you start from the top, while you are breaking the match your eyes can look for the next match below. The position won’t change even after you break the gems on top, allowing you to find consecutive matches more quickly.
Newbies may enjoy starting from the bottom as it seems to generate more activity (and points), but that is shortsighted in my opinion. If you want to score high, you need to get the speed bonus… multiple times in a game. To get the speed bonus, you must match quickly. To match quickly, start from top to bottom.
Tip #3 – Speed, Speed, Speed
If you haven’t guessed already, more critical than anything else in the game is speed. Speed, speed speed! And by that I mean the speed power-up. This is the best way to get a lot of activity going on the board so you can score those big scores. To get it, you have to string together a certain number of consecutive matches quickly within a period of time. The specifics I am not sure, but it’s something like 10 matches in 10 seconds or maybe even faster. Don’t take my word for it, I am just giving an idea of what it takes to get the power-up.
Besides the benefit of matches breaking surrounding gems, you also get faster gem movement and an overall better feel. It’s like feeling the turbo kick in when driving in a turbocharged car. Things just get taken to a new level.
Tip #4 – Work Side to Side
Your thinking, didn’t you just tell me to work top to bottom a few tips ago? You’re right. However, this is another strategy that is equally important. For example, if you are in the midst of a speed power-up, your matches will explode. This can impact the gems below. A great way to not slow down when this happens is to break a match on one side of the board, then break a match on the other side, and continue finding matches on opposing sides. It utilizes the same idea to let your eyes find a match on an area of the board that will not be affected by the gems you are currently breaking. You could apply this rule to opposing diagonals or anywhere for that fact. If you know gems are going to explode, don’t spend time finding a match near it that may not be there after the current gems break. Move your eyes to an unaffected region and look there.
Tip #5 – Don’t Admire the Explosions
Did you know that whenever you break a hypercube or a lightning cube (I’ve no idea what it’s called, I’ll just call it that), it pauses time? Don’t sit and watch the pretty explosion or wait for the pieces to settle before making your next match. While time is paused you should be not only looking for the next match, but predicting where it will be. That’s because a whole line or color could be erased by the explosion, so you need to be good enough to predict what the end result will look like. This is so that you can find the next match without using up extra time.
Tip #6 – Use Hypercubes Immediately
Which brings me to the next time. I got into a philosophical discussion about hypercubes about whether they were worth saving. Did you know that if you use a hypercube to break another hypercube the entire board explodes? This is horrible. You will lose time as you have to adjust your eyes to find the first match and then try to keep up your speed. NEVER use hypercubes to break hypercubes if you ever get the opportunity.
This has only happened to me a few times, and for good reason: I follow the philosophy of using hypercubes immediately. Rather than save them for a rainy day when you can’t find a match, I’ve found it more beneficial to use it up as soon as it is formed. It doesn’t really even matter what color you decide to break with it as it is really just used so you can stop time and find the next match. Remember, Bejeweled Blitz is all about speed.
Plus, I’ve found it easier to get more hypercubes within the same game by doing this. You see, when you destroy all gems of a color, the result is a higher concentration of the other gem colors, meaning more opportunity to form more lightning cubes or hypercubes. These gems are great as they stop time.
Tip #7 – The Power-Up Trifecta
If you plan on expending your hard-earned coins on power-ups, please don’t waste them on just one or two. In Bejeweled Blitz, getting a high score is an all-or-nothing deal. If you don’t go all out with stacked power-ups then you’re better off saving your coins.
Now if you are going to use power-ups, then you must choose these three, only these three, and all of these three: the 5-second time extension, the special gem to start on the board, and the free multiplier. Use these and use these only. I believe these are the three most expensive power-ups to buy but that is for good reason. Do not waste your time with the swap gem or the other one which I don’t even know what it is. Stick with the power-up trifecta I mentioned for maximum effect.
Why the time extension? As I said before time is critical. That extra 5 seconds could tack another 100,000 to your score easily. Why the special gem? You can get lucky and get a hypercube or lightning cube. For this reason alone it is worth it. And why the multiplier? Because like speed, it is one of the most important factors in getting a high score. In fact, the only real reason I stress speed is so you can build the multiplier more quickly. You get this by exploding a certain number of gems at one time. Usually a lightning cube or hypercube will do it, a chained explosion, or blowing up tons of gems during the speed boost. If there is anything as critical as speed in the game, it is the multiplier. Unfortunately there is not much you can do to control this, hence the focus on speed in my strategy guide.
Tip #8 – Which Rare Gem?
With the introduction of rare gems, scores above 1,000,000 have become commonplace. The most expensive is the phoenix gem which has a match-any gem that explodes anything it matches. You get a number of these throughout the game. I used to like it, but that was before I acquired my preference for the blazing steed. This is the second most expensive gem but in my opinion it is better bang for the buck. You get to start with an immediate speed bonus. This lets you explode gems very quickly and gets you the opportunity to build a high multiplier early in the game. I would rather take the chance to get a high multiplier in the early game than to have some random gems explode on the board as you know how I feel about uncontrolled or unexpected explosions– they are speed killers.
Use the rare gems with the power-ups. After your first game, you will be offered the chance to buy the same rare game at a discounted price. Do it if your score isn’t high enough. Remember, you are going all in here and you won’t get another chance to score a deal this low. After your second game you’ll get yet another chance to buy it at an even steeper discount. Again, if the score isn’t high enough, do it. This will last three games which is perfect as it matches exactly how many games the power-ups last. This will get you through three pumped-to-the-max games to get your score up and it will be worth it.
Tip #9 – Music or Sound Effects
I find them distracting though I know some people play perfectly well with them on. For me, it becomes added pressure especially when building speed if ever the pitch of the sound effect drops because you know you’ve dropped the speed meter and have to rebuild it. I turn off all music and sound effects and have found it to better increase my concentration. This is personal preference, get used to one and stick with it. Don’t change.
Tip #10 – Practice, Practice, Practice
Don’t think for one second any of these tips will do you any good unless you practice. You’ve no idea how many hours of game play I’ve put into the game to get to where I am at today. There is no substitute for practice. This single strategy will get you a higher score than any of the others. If you want a high score then you have to attack with an athlete’s mentality. An athlete practices over and over and over again until there is no one better at it. The same goes for Bejeweled Blitz. If you are a casual gamer, then don’t set any expectations that you will be breaking the 7-figure score mark any time soon. This comes with practice, dedication, and devotion to the game. Of course this ultimate strategy guide helps too.
Well, that’s it for the guide. I hope you’ve enjoyed what is probably going to be the longest post ever written on GHG. Put these tips and strategies to good use and you’ll be frustrating your friends on Facebook in no time. Stay tuned for an advanced tutorial for iPhone, iPod, and iPad users who like to play Bejeweled Blitz on their mobile devices!
Bejeweled Blitz Tips: Ultimate Strategy Guide - Geek Help Guide
