Following the significantly unusual spin-off Bejeweled Twist, Bejeweled 3 returns to the standard match-three formula. As in previous games, the player has a board filled with various colored gems. The competition aims to remove rocks from the board by exchanging adjacent gems to form a chain of three or more stones. Then, new gems will appear at the top of the screen and fall into the vacant places. Rocks falling and making recent matches can set off a chain reaction. The ability to swap gems during a chain reaction is new in Bejeweled 3. There are some unique gems; flame gems are formed by matching four and erupt when compared, eliminating surrounding rocks. A five-gem match will start a hypercube that can be matched with any neighboring rock to destroy all gems of that color. T- or L-shaped games produce star gems, which destroy all gems to their right, left, up, and down.
The game has four modes: classic, zen, lightning, and quest. Classic refers to the original premise from earlier games. It has no time limit and stops when no further moves are feasible. Zen mode is intended for relaxation and has no end. The player can turn numerous audio-visual effects on or off here. Breath modulation, ambient sounds, mantras, and binaural beats are examples. Lightning is a timed mode that terminates when the timer runs out. The primary time is one minute, but you can add more time by matching rare time gems. There are several obstacles in the quest mode. Each challenge relates to a relic that the player must activate.
Four more secret modes are expanded versions of quest mode challenges. Poker, butterflies, ice storm, and diamond mine are among them. The player must construct poker hands with gem matches in poker mode. A pair is defined as two of the same sort of gem. Unique butterfly gems move up from the bottom in the butterfly’s manner. Before they may reach the top, these must be matched. Ice moves up the board in ice storm mode, and the player must make matches to knock it down again. The lowest half of the playing field is covered with rocks in the diamond mine mode. The player must work their way through it by matching adjacent jewels. This allows gold coins, artifacts, and gems to be extracted from the rock.
The browser version is built with HTML5 and is powered by Google’s Native Client. Unlike the initial 2000 web version, which acted as a trial for the Windows Bejeweled game, this full release is freely downloadable. There are two graphics modes, one for faster processors and one for slower machines. However, it only has two game modes: traditional and fast (the latter is identical to lightning), with the same power-ups.
