If you share the same mini-addiction that I do, then you already know what this post is about.
I’ve surrounded myself with the best game consoles, the most high-tech gadgets, and an embarrassing number of PCs with enough combined computing power to launch a 20th century satellite, but what do I do with it all? I play Bejeweled Blitz. A lot. Each week brings a new tournament, and unless I’m at the top of that list with at least 300,000 points, I am not a happy camper…
I’ve been playing Bejeweled off and on for years. For a while I got my wife to play me competitively, but that didn’t last as long as I would have liked. Seems losing wasn’t any fun for her. (My victory dances may have become tiring as well.) Of course that boosted my ego quite a bit, so when Blitz and it’s Facebook community of players came along, I was more than eager to take the challenge. In fact I was downright cocky. Winning the weekly tournament wasn’t a question, the only question was how badly I would beat my friends. All went well for a few weeks and then the weirdest thing happened… I didn’t win. Addiction, meet Al. Al, meet addiction. I’ll leave the two of you alone now…
Game design is fascinating to me. There are so many games out there, and while certain games will always find their niche, there are those that find a much broader appeal. In the PC age, I’d consider Tetris and Bejeweled two examples to contrast with Chess and Checkers in “the before times” – meaning that they are instant classics that will be around for generations to come. Bejeweled Blitz in particular has a unique strength in that each game is only 60 seconds long. There are no time bonuses. You can’t freeze the clock. The board can be kind from the start of the game, or it can be cold. (I have a love/hate relationship with the randomness of the initial board layout and am still trying to decipher any possible patterns for spotting a “good” board from the start.) The player is rewarded for being able to recognize patterns and act quickly. This sense of urgency is the key ingredient in the games’ success and I think the game designer is absolutely brilliant for it. Clones will surely follow.
Happy New Year, and here’s hoping that all my Blitz playing friends enjoy a taste of the top of the Blitz Leaderboard in 2010. But don’t get used to it, I’m not going away anytime soon…
