Jewel Kingdom Facebook Game Review

And I have to admit, the first level did leave me bored out of my seat. Apparently I’m pretty hard to please with a Match-3 formula game.

When it comes to other Bejeweled clones like King.com’s Candy Crush Saga, I find too much deviation from the formula distracting, but games like Jewel Kingdom and Rainbow Rush which hardly deviate at all are pretty difficult to be drawn to.

Basically, your game board is covered in jewels. Swap jewels horizontally or vertically to form sequences of at least three of the same jewels. The more jewels you clear and the more interesting shapes you make, the higher your score. Seems simple, right? Yeah, but “simple” and “fun” are two very different things.

One thing I do enjoy about Jewel Kingdom – and I’m sure the most casual gamers will agree – is that it didn’t try too hard to differentiate itself from the typical Match-3 formula and in turn become needlessly complicated with excessive bells and whistles. Unlike games like Candy Crush Saga, which throws in extra little twists and turns seemingly at random for the sake of keeping things exciting, Jewel Kingdom sticks with classic, inoffensive formulas. The one area in which it finds itself similar to Candy Crush Saga is its irregularly-shaped levels, which seems to be a point of differentiation that a lot of these Match-3 clones.

But does it really add that much challenge?

Not really. Power-ups (as well as how to buy them) are introduced subtly – almost too subtly – and you pretty much have to involve your friends in order to progress. Combine that with sub-par graphics and even a few misspelled words, and it’s pretty easy to bore of Jewel Kingdom quickly and move on to a game like Bejeweled or Candy Crush which at least has their formulas perfected a little more.

How to win at this game is no different than winning at any other Match-3 game.

You either have to achieve a certain amount of points (by making as many matches as possible) during a set amount of time, or drop some keys to the bottom of the screen through your combos. You level up gradually and the format of each level changes, but since there are only two formats, it’s pretty easy to get used to.

When it comes to the ones where you have to rack up the points, try to get as many L-shaped, T-shaped, and four-or-five-jewel combos. There’s no way to buy extra time unless you use a power-up that places random clocks throughout the board which add a few seconds on to your limit, and with the time it takes to click on the clock power-ups, they’re hardly worth it. So you get the most bang for your buck by clearing combos of more than three gems. If you clear five gems in a “T” shape, the jewel at the middle intersection will not be eliminated and will instead become a quivering bomb. When you do eventually eliminate that jewel, the entire column or row it is in (depending on how it’s cleared) will be eliminated.

In the rounds where you must get the keys to the bottom, it’s still timed, but it’s less about combo blitzes than it is about planning out your gem eliminations. This requires more strategy, so those little clock power-ups may be of use. Work on setting up a lot of horizontal combos so that you can drop as many keys down at once.

• Despite being a kind of boring game, it’s actually pretty difficult to progress in Jewel Kingdom because your experience points are hard to build and that will stand in your way.
• Fortunately, there is a really great program that PC called Cheat Engine which is free and can be downloaded via an online Torrent client. Users can utilize Cheat Engine to attain a really high score on Jewel Kingdom without having to play as much. It won’t enhance your gameplay, but earning a higher score will give you more experience points, which will make it easier to unlock some enhancements.
• So if you feel like taking the easy way out, this is how you do it. This only works if you use Mozilla Firefox and if you are a PC user – unfortunately, there will not be any cheating options for Mac fans. Open Cheat Engine and you will be prompted with a list of applications. There will be two listings of “flashplayerplugin.exe” – listed one after the other.
• Select the second flashplayerplugin.exe. Then start playing the game. Make a few moves to earn a score and pause the game.
• Enter the amount you scored in the Cheat Engine score field and click on “first scan.” A URL will appear in Cheat Engine. Repeat the same process up to five times.
• Double-click on the URLs produced and then right click on them and insert the score you want to apply to the game.
• The maximum score is over 21 million. If you really want to know how it feels to reach the top of the ladder in Jewel Kingdom, go for it. It may not be rewarding, but at least you beat the game without spending any money.