1. Try to keep your speed bonus up at all times. With a maxed-out speed bonus every move is worth 1250 points!

2. Multiplier gems apply not only to matches, but also to your current speed bonus. For example, with a x3 multiplier, each match made with a full speed bonus would be worth 3750 points. So once you’ve established a respectable multiplier, maintaining your speed bonus is extremely valuable.

3. Keep an eye out for bigger matches. Look for the opportunity to match 4 or 5 gems. This will create Hypercubes, Flame and Star Gems. These special pieces are instrumental in creating large explosions, which will earn you lots of points, more chances at extra Multiplier Gems and will help mix up the board, potentially making it easier to find new matches. Lost opportunities mean lost points.

4. Matches made lower on the board are more likely to generate cascades. If you’re finding it hard to make matches lower on the board, try creating and using a Hypercube or Star Gem.

5. When you earn a Hypercube, don’t waste it on the first color you see. Try to use it to on the color with the most gems on the screen. Or if you have any multiplier gems on the screen, consider matching it to the color of that gem.

6. The score chart provided on the Game Over screen is a great place to discover strategies of your own. Make sure you take the time to review this chart for your highest scoring games to learn the secrets of your own success.

A new contest begins every week on Tuesdays when we reset the scores. Once the scores have been reset, all you need to do is meet the minimum scores required for eligibility as per that week’s tournament, at which point a signup form will appear in place of your Team Score Widget. Enter your email address and press the Sign Me Up button. You can also click the Sign Up button located at the top right of the Team Score widget. Once you have signed up for the contest, you will be automatically entered in future contests, assuming that you meet the scoring eligibility requirements.

Note: Your email address is used to ensure your eligibility and contact you if you win the drawing.

Winning a prize in the contest

You must sign up for the contest to be eligible. Winners will be contacted by email.

How the contest works

The Bejeweled Blitz contests are based on a prize-drawing system. Eligibility for each drawing is determined by the team score level you reach during the duration of the contest. Once you reach the team score amount required for the lowest-level prize, you are eligible for the drawing. If you continue to grow your team score, you will become eligible for more valuable prizes. At the end of the contest, we will randomly select a contest winner from the pool of qualified players. We will then look at the team score for the selected player that week and award him/her with the highest-level prize for which they qualified.

Note: The exact rules of the contest may change from week to week. Be sure to look for the Official Rules on the game page.

I don’t live in the US, UK, or Canada. Why isn’t my country included in the prize contests?

It’s not that we don’t love you guys…We do! But running these sorts of contests is a far bigger headache and far more expensive than most people realize. We’re happy to be offering the contest for those thathappen to be eligible, and we really are sorry that some of you are excluded. But the alternative at this point would be for us to have no contest at all for anyone.

In the future we hope to add to the list of countries that are eligible to participate in our contests. But more importantly, we hope we’re providing a fun game that everyone enjoys playing. And rather thaninvest our time and money wrestling with lawyers of every country around the world, we’re going to be spending our time and money making Bejeweled Blitz a better game for everyone in every country.

Playing against your friends is easy! Anyone in your friends list who plays Bejeweled Blitz will show up on the leaderboard to the right of the game. If there is a friend you want to play against who has yet to discover Bejeweled Blitz you can invite them to play by clicking the Invite Friends button in the Bejeweled Blitz header. Simply click the friend(s) you would like to invite and press the Send Bejeweled Blitz Invitation button.

Note: You can only see 49 of your top scoring friends (plus yourself) on the leaderboards.

How is my team score calculated?

Your Team Score is a combination of all the scores on your leaderboard. Your high score counts twice when added to the total score. Your Team Score is unique to you since everyone has a unique friends list.

Note: If you win the drawing, you are the only winner. Your friends do not share in your winnings. The same holds true if someone on your friends list wins a drawing. This drawing encompasses all qualifying players.

How to Smack Talk

You can send Smack Talk to anyone on your leaderboard by pressing the Smack Talk button to the right of your friend’s name (Blue diamond). A Jewel Jabber window will be displayed where you can enter your own Smack Talk or let us do the talking with one of the default messages.

Note: You can scroll through different smack-talking jewels with the arrow buttons located under the jewel avatar on the left side of the Jewel Jabber window. Also note that your diamond will be grayed out as there is no need to send yourself Smack Talk.

What about cheaters?

We take cheating seriously and are taking steps to make Bejeweled Blitz more secure, but due to the nature of online games, it will always be possible for truly determined players to find a way to cheat. But the overwhelming majority of our players play the game as intended, and earn their scores fairly. If you have a friend on your leaderboard that cheats, perhaps that says something about your friend?

Also keep in mind that if another player cheats, it does not affect your chances to win our contest in any way. Our contest is based on a drawing, and is NOT a competition. If there are players out there with higher team scores than you, they are no more likely to win the contest than you are. In fact, players with scores that were obviously obtained via cheating will be disqualified from the contest.

© PopCap

Flame Gem – Match 4 gems to create a Flame Gem. Match that Flame Gem to ignite an explosion that will take out all neighboring gems and trigger other Flame Gems within its radius.

Star Gem – Match 5 gems in a “L” or “T” shape to create a Star Gem. Match the Star Gem to unleash its power, removing one column and one row of gems from the board.

Hypercube – Match 5 gems horizontally or vertically to create a Hypercube. Use the Hypercube by swapping it with an adjacent gem to turn all gems of that color on the board into a shower of points. Something awesome will now happen if you match two Hypercubes. Are you able to make it happen?

Multiplier Gem – These gems are created by creating large cascades or using power gems to destroy a lot of gems at one time. Matching the Multiplier Gem will multiply all points you get from then until the end of the game.

Speed bonus – Build up a speed bonus by continually making matches. You need to make 3 matches in about 2 seconds to start your speed bonus. The higher your Speed Bonus, the more time you have in between matches before it goes away. The Speed Bonus starts at +200 and caps out at +1000. This amount is added to every match you make.

© PopCap

Bejeweled Blitz is one of the most popular games on Facebook. Currently, over 8.5 million users play it monthly. The purpose of the game is to score as many points as possible – in the time frame of one minute. This is a special version of the original Bejeweled by PopCap. As with most PopCap games, Bejeweled Blitz is tons of fun, full of effects, colors and options, and mainly – very addictive. If you have been playing Bejeweled Blitz for a while now, and want to better your game, here’s a few tips and tricks on how to get that high-score. This post isn’t for those “playing just for fun” – it’s a strategy guide for scoring 300K points and more, and being the first among your Facebook friends.

Bejeweled Blitz – The 10 Seconds Rule

The most important gem on the game is the multiplier gem. Without it, you can’t get really high scores. You have to reach a multiplier of 4 for a decent game, and a multiplier of 6-7 or more for a great game. This means your game centers around the multipliers. And here’s the simple rule – if you don’t get the first multiplier in the first 10 seconds of the game – it’s not going to be a good game. So, abort and restart. Basically, since you have only 60 seconds in the game, you have to nail a multiplier every 10 seconds or less. It won’t happen every game, and that’s why you don’t need to spend time on games that are doomed to be low-scoring from the get go. You can continue playing if you need the practice – but otherwise, there’s no reason to waste time on mediocre games.

Multiplier gems appear when you make 12 gems or more disappear in one swipe. This can happen through chain reactions or multiple explosions of fire gems. If the board is weak, and you are not getting a lot of fire gems or chain reactions, you need to consider restarting the game. When a multiplier appears – do everything you can to get it. It’s your top priority.

Work Fast

This might seem obvious, but what you are really aiming here is Blazing Speed. This mode is not easy to achieve, but once you reach it, every move you make created explosions and destroys many gems. If you are already in a multiplier of 5-6 – it’s a great score boost.

Play at the Bottom

Chain reactions are more likely to happen if you work at the bottom of the screen. Concentrate your attention there, and go to the top of the screen only when you don’t have any more options at the bottom. A board that has no bottom moves right from the start is likely to produce a mediocre game – so skip it and restart.

Use Hints

Even skilled players, playing regular 250K games, night find themselves stuck for a few seconds. Since you don’t have much time on Bejeweled, getting stuck is a bad idea. If you don’t find your next move real quick, get a hint. It’ll get you going again and save you a few distracting seconds of searching for the next move. Of course, if all you do is get hints, this might not be the best of games, and you might wanna restart.

Kill the Sounds

There’s a bit of a debate about this, and of course each player has their own taste and preferences. Should you turn off the sound on Bejeweled? I say YES – I scored my best games while playing on mute, or listening to music or the TV. It’s good not to hear the annoying sound of the last 15 seconds, and avoid the distracting sounds of the gems blowing up and the narrator telling you how SPECTACULAR you are.

Kill the Firegems

Don’t wait or save the bonus gems. The second you get a chance – blow them up. If there are few firegems grouped together, it’s even more important to destroy them, because they can give you a multiplier.

Don’t Wait for the Gems

This is a nice feature in Facebook’s Bejeweled – you don’t have to wait for your move to finish, in order to start the next swipe. So, don’t wait for the gems and just keep swiping, as fast as you can. Remember – work mainly at the bottom of the screen, get the multipliers and try to achieve Blazing Speed.

Don’t Wait for the Go

You can actually start playing before the announcer says “GO”. Try it out – it gives you a few more seconds of game time.

Good Luck!

The object of the game is to make as many points as possible in one minute by moving the jewels around to line up three or more of the same color. You can only switch two jewels at a time, from side to side or up and down. When you line up three or more of the same kind of jewel, they will disappear and more will come down from the top. The idea is to get a cascading effect where each time you make jewels disappear more will line up by themselves and also disappear. There are also special extra shiny power jewels that blow up when you line them up and also hyper jewels that will wipe out all of one color jewel on the board.

Chances are if you are reading this, you already know the basic rules of the games and are just looking for strategy suggestions. Here are my suggestions for increasing your score in Bejeweled Blitz. First of all, it’s a very fast-paced game. One minute goes by very quickly, and you don’t want to be spending your time trying to find matches. If you are struggling with this, I suggest going over to Yahoo Games and playing classic Bejeweled for a while until you get the hang of matching up jewels and can do it rather quickly. You get extra points for speed, and they add up fast! So practice, practice, and you will get faster. Secondly, keep in mind that there is a lot of luck and chance involved in this game, so you really have to play it quite a bit to see some high scores. Don’t give up if at first your scores are low.

The main thing that drives up the score for me is getting the jewels that say x2, x3, x4, etc. You activate these by eliminating 12 jewels from one switching of jewels. You can only get one every 10 seconds though. The best way I’ve seen to activate those jewels is by detonating those
power jewels. The hypercubes are fun and everything, but I don’t really see them helping me out too much until I’m in the x3 and x4 range. By that time, each gem they zap is worth 1,000 points at x4.

So keep up the speed, detonate those power gems, and multiply your score! That’s the best way to score points on Bejeweled Blitz.