''Jewel Quest'' is a tile-matching puzzle video game created and published by iWin. First released for

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

, it has been redeveloped for Symbian S60, the

Nintendo DS The is a handheld game console produced by Nintendo, released globally across 2004 and 2005. The DS, an initialism for "Developers' System" or "Dual Screen", introduced distinctive new features to handheld games: two LCD screens working in tan ...

(as ''Jewel Quest: Expeditions''), the Xbox 360's Xbox Live Arcade and other platforms. iWin also released a series of sequels and

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games.

Gameplay

''Jewel Quest'' is a "match 3" puzzle played on a grid filled with various tokens, such as diamonds, gold nuggets, coins, and skulls. The player may swap any two adjacent tiles, as long as the swap results in a horizontal or vertical line of three or more matching tokens. The matched set disappears, allowing tokens to drop into the gaps from above; if more matched sets form as a result, they disappear as well. Whenever tiles disappear, the background grid positions turn gold. The player must turn every square on the board to gold in order to complete the level. Failing to do so within the given time limit, or reaching a situation in which no more swaps are possible, costs one

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and sends the player back to the start of that level. As the game progresses, new variations are introduced to make gameplay increasingly difficult: irregularly-shaped grids, squares in hard-to-reach places, tokens that must be matched multiple times to clear them from the board, etc.

Jewel Quest

''Jewel Quest'' has 180

levels Level or levels may refer to: Engineering *Level (instrument), a device used to measure true horizontal or relative heights *Spirit level, an instrument designed to indicate whether a surface is horizontal or vertical *Canal pound or level *Regr ...

and is set within the Mayan culture. There are 36 grids and they are played through, in succession, five times, with each play-through adding a new level of difficulty. During the first run-through, "Explorer," the player is given pieces of storyline in the form of "journal entries" to read after completing each grid, with an additional snippet before the beginning of each level. After playing the 36th grid, the totem "speaks" in addition to there being a written blurb. After the "Explorer" level, new information is given only at the end of the 36th level, and once after playing the 1-2 grid during the second run-through. All other "journal entries" are quotes or sayings to encourage the player. Likewise, if the player fails to complete a level within the time frame, encouraging quotes will be used.

Jewel Quest II

''Jewel Quest II'' has 180 levels. After each level, the player advances along a map representing a journey in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

. Additional jewels are added. Again, there are 36 boards to play, with each play-through increasing in difficulty. For ''Jewel Quest II'', the boards are not necessarily the same as in the previous play-through. Also, while in the original ''Jewel Quest'', blank squares are obstacles, the player is allowed to move jewels into empty squares in the grid in ''Jewel Quest II'', introducing new strategy. The player's character is revealed to be named Rupert Pack, and the story revolves around him searching for a "Legendary Jewel Board" in Africa, as well as a romantic subplot with a woman named "Emma Swimmingly" and a villain named "Sebastian Grenard." Emma and Sebastian each receive their own first-person text entries for an entire play-through, though the final play-through is given by Rupert. The background reflects the location of the characters within the story.

Jewel Quest III

''Jewel Quest III's'' levels range throughout the world. The new globe interface allows the player to select from different regions to play.

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

East Asia East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea and ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...

, and

The Hawaiian Islands The Hawaiian Islands ( haw, Nā Mokupuni o Hawai‘i) are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, and numerous smaller islets in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kur ...

are the regions. In each region, there are several locations to choose from and each level has multiple passes. New to ''Jewel Quest III'' is that some of the jewels have special properties.

Scoring and lives

When a set of tiles are matched, points are gained based on the number of tiles matched and the number of "cascaded" matches that have occurred. "Cursed" black tiles appear in later levels; directly matching a set of these deducts points and erases the gold behind them. However, the cursed tiles can be safely removed through a "cascaded" match. If the player runs out of time on a level, or reaches a point where there are no moves possible, they lose a life and must start the level over. An additional life is granted for every 50,000 points earned.

Games

The ''Jewel Quest'' series has evolved since its beginnings starting with Match 3 games, and later including playing card games and hidden object games, starting on PC and later porting to consoles and mobile devices.

Windows

Match 3

Playing card

Hidden object

Consoles

Mobile

External links

Official iWin website

VGT review of Nintendo DS version of Jewel Quest: Expeditions

Website of the game itself

References

{{Reflist 2004 video games MacOS games Mobile games Nintendo DS games Windows games Xbox 360 Live Arcade games Casual games Video games developed in the United States Tile-matching video games