Jewel Quest: Seven Seas Collector's Edition

In Brief

Jewel Quest: Seven Seas Collector's Edition is the last of the Jewel Quest match three games, released October 2016. The version we have appears to have the files for three other languages i.e. French, German and Spanish.

Introduction:

The famous jewel adventurers, Rupert and Emma are back... and unlike you have ever seen them before! After receiving a mysterious message, from their old friend Hani, that the Jewel Boards were in danger, the duo must work fast to save both the jewel boards as well as Hani. But can they do both? Will they have to choose between the treasured Jewel Boards and their friend? And who is putting everyone in danger?

Dive into this exciting adventure by matching 3+ jewels as fast as you can. Jewel Quest: Seven Seas stays true to its roots - giving longtime Jewel Quest fans a "pure" jewel matching experience while delighting new players with jewel swapping tricks unique to this beloved series. Exciting new elements include new jewels to match, new tools and power-ups as well a never-before seen Collapse-style mode!

Reference accessed HERE. 23rd November 2019

The Game:

You can see a few Steam community comments HERE; and some tips and tricks over on Gamezebo HERE as well as a full review of the game HERE. You can also see some in-game videos of game play HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE & HERE.

Conclusion:

A standard Match 3 game with tasks to perform for each level, such as ring the bell or use the wheel. some levels have limited moves, so you may find some levels more challenging, but there's little to differentiate this last offering from the Jewel quest match three series from most other match three games. Graphics look decent and the game play is sound, so, if you enjoy match threes this is worth downloading.

Don't forget to check Epic Games for the latest weekly freebie, this week its Bad . North: Jotunn Edition a rogue-like action strategy game with tower defense elements. It will be free until the 28th November when Rayman Legends a fast paced, comedic platformer local coop and cooperative game play available (up to 4 players) will be available for a week. Also check Indie Gala Dev's showcase for more freebies.

Jewel Quest

In Brief

Jewel Quest is the first of the Jewel Quest series of match three games, released almost 15 years ago in 2004.

Installation Issues:

Jewel Quest downloads to a 22.5 MB zip file that unzips to three files, (a setup.gcd security wrapper the set-up file and a read me). The game installs to the following path by default, but can be changed if you wish. The installed game is approximately 15.9 MB (19.4MB) in size.

C:\Program Files (x86)\MyPlayCity.com\Jewel Quest>

Four shortcuts are installed to the desktop; the shortcut to the game, plus three others ''Play Online Games, MyPlayCity Games and a shortcut to a free online game. These latter three shortcuts can be deleted once the game has been installed. The Themida wrapper may alert your security and even block the installation; there are details about this issue in the read me that unpacks from the downloaded zip file.

Introduction:

Once a grey and experienced professor found the notes which were made in his diary some years ago. The writing says about a strange grid with mysterious puzzle solving of which may lead to the powerful artifact. The professor was so fascinated with the Mayan treasures hidden in the wild forests he decided to take the challenge this time. His Jewel Quest starts! Traveling from one location to the other he has to match similar objects in the line of 3 or more. Once matched the tiles activate the ancient magic which turns sand into gold. As soon as the game field becomes entirely golden the level is completed. The grid which seems easy at first glance gives a lot of unpredictable surprises to the excited professor. First, some new tiles appear to make his life even harder. Then it becomes more and more complicated increasing in size and acquiring numerous corners. Finally, there appear special tiles which are either cursed or contain parts of the artifacts. Do not wait for an easy life in the mysterious Jewel Quest game - you have to think hard to find the Mayan treasure. However, the pleasure you get while solving complicated riddles cannot be compared to anything. Don't waste your chance to explore the ancient ruins and get something precious for it. Download the awesome Jewel Quest game right now absolutely for free and find the treasure together with the professor! Who knows what is waiting for you in the end!

Reference accessed HERE. 22nd March 2019

The Game:

It'd be easy to write that it'd be easy to dismiss Jewel Quest as yet another Bejeweled clone, but that would be lazy - spend more than half an hour with it and it's fairly obvious that it's actually put an interesting slant on it. Instead I will dismiss the allusion-to-the-ease-of-hapless-dismissiveness approach, and focus on the other obvious intro fodder: the incredibly brilliant story that nicks all sorts of bit from the Mayans and uses them to justify tile-twizzling.

"In the distance I can spot Tleyquiyahuillo, The Temple of the Third Sun. I must reach it! But the winds of time have ravaged this next grid... Some squares are missing altogether! I must match carefully here," writes the person who's supposedly solving all these Bejeweled-inspired puzzles. Later it's "Welcome to Tleyquiyahuillo, twinned with Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch." Who knew the Mayans had so much in common with the Welsh! [Stop making things up. - Ed]

"If I'm not mistaken, the creature who emerges is the dreaded Chimalmat, she with the eyes of ruby and lust of vengeance. The Popol Vuh speaks about how she birthed Cabrakan and Zipacna. As vicious as she is known to be, surely she will reward me for freeing her children." Later your quest descends into the selfish pursuit of the "Stelae", which is apparently some sort of tablet containing the meaning of life made out of molten aluminium. Or something. The "Popol Vuh" remains something of a mystery (i.e. I got to the point where even Googling these things became boring).

Fortunately Jewel Quest is not exactly story driven, although I certainly enjoyed the little interludes - at least until they gave up even trying for a consistent narrative and just starting pasting Chuchill quotes, giving the game the air of a spam email. "Endeavor Societies church addition Christian pledge following special ways which they forward ever held before member For sake character future success Tleyquiyahuillo etc." Insert game. Poor show. But, as I say, none of this is the point. The point is to manipulate squares on a grid, each of which has a little "relic" on it, so that you can create lines of three or more identical relics, which then disappear. As with Bejeweled/Zoo Keeper/et al, you can only swap around two adjacent tiles, and you can only do so if you're creating a line of three or more.

The difference between Jewel Quest and the games whose central mechanic it's riffing on is that here you're not trying to reach a score or clear the decks (indeed, you can't clear them), or even trying to top up a timer. Instead, you're trying to create a line of relics on every square on the grid. Whenever you get some relics to vanish, the squares underneath them change to gold, and you clear each stage by turning the whole lot to gold, which isn't as easy as it sounds.

Well, actually, to begin with it is as easy as it sounds. In fact, if you've any experience of the other games I've mentioned, it's boringly simple, and you'll sit there wondering what the fuss is about, and bemoaning silly little oversights. For example, you swap tiles by selecting one with A and pushing the direction you want to send it on the analogue stick or d-pad, but you can't perform these actions while relics are disappearing or chain-reacting. Zoo Keeper on the DS's brilliant fluidity owed so much to being able to move other tiles while things were still unfolding elsewhere on the grid - given that these little tile-swappers are practically a genre of their own now, you'd think they'd be nicking each other's best ideas (particularly since the fonts used in Jewel Quest suggest iWin's not averse to casual thievery).

But the niggles soon become a footnote to what turns out to be a very enjoyable little puzzler, as the developer introduces grids with twists (and holes, and burrows), forcing you to scheme appropriate chain reactions to convert difficult-to-reach squares to gold. For example, you might find yourself up against a grid with a line of three squares stretching off the bottom. In order to convert the deepest of the squares, you need to line up a reaction that'll send appropriate relics into the depths when the ones below them disappear. Simply vanishing relics wherever you see them isn't good enough to make any concerted progress.

iWin claims that you get 180 levels for your money (not that we have had to pay for it), although actually there's quite a bit of repetition. The variation comes from the addition of fiendish obstacles, like immovable "partially buried" relics that you need to work around, creating a line for them to become part of by arranging fitting chain reactions and so on. Only then do they become maneuverable themselves, so in effect you have to play them twice - not something that you'll find easy when they're buried deep in hard to reach places. You're constantly up against an emptying hourglass (well, a little stone head whose tongue's retracting) too, and you can't do anything about its progress, so as things become more complicated there's a definite sense of mounting pressure.

Jewel Quest is about planning ahead rather than reacting; the pace is deliberate rather than manic. It's Chess next to Zoo Keeper's Operation. It doesn't evoke any particularly exciting adjectives, but it did swallow most of my weekend - and gave me all sorts of obscure words I might be able to get away with in Scrabble, which is more than most puzzle games do.

Reference accessed HERE. Originally posted by Tom Bramwell based on the Xbox 360 version, posted 14th March 2006,

Conclusion:

Although Jewel Quest is a little dated now (it was released almost 15 years ago), it is still an old favorite of mine. There have been many better match three versions released over the intervening years (my favorite being those variants that include an rpg element such as Puzzle Quest and Puzzle Kingdoms as well as the Treasures of Montezuma series). Jewel Quest gives you the basic match 3 mechanic and in my opinion despite its age is still worth downloading and playing.

Back when it was released, I'd have given it a 9 out of 10. These days, after playing many improved versions, I'd score it a decent 7 out of 10.

Other Reviews and Videos of Jewel Quest:

You can read other comments and other issues with Jewel Quest HERE.

Also, you can see several in-game videos of game play HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE & HERE.

Suggestions:

After you've had an opportunity to play today's giveaway please take a few moments to give some positive or negative feedback; for example, what you liked or disliked about the game, or how it could be improved. If you don't like the genre at all, please explain why and if any, what improvements would change your mind? If you don't have time to post a comment today, please do so at your convenience, thank you. If you wish to post a review or comment about the game later, you can access the comments section by going to the game giveaways home page, then scroll to the bottom of the page where it says Archives and select the date the giveaway was live (giveaway days are in bold type). This will open the appropriate page for you to post your comment or review. Alternatively, you can Google the name of the game and include Gamegiveawayoftheday in the search. This should give you a list of links to whenever this game was given away.

If you miss today's game giveaway you can always get the game free 24/7 via MyPlayCity HERE, or play an online browser version HERE. If you prefer to purchase the game to ensure no adverts etc, you can get it HERE via Big Fish Games. You can also get the first three Jewel Quest Match three games in the series as a bundle via Steam HERE for £14.99/$19.99/€19.99/₽419 (when not on sale), and Jewel Quest Seven Seas CE HERE (£ 9.99/$12.99/€12.99/₽289).

Problems getting the game to work:

If you're having problems installing or activating or getting Jewel Quest to work please visit the FAQ's Thread HERE and read through the communities comments because sometimes fixes have already been posted, for example, a common issue seen since the Themida wrapper was introduced three years ago is that some community members installation of the game are blocked by their security because Themida code has been known to hide malware, (usually an error message is flagged for example 'The executable is corrupted' even though in reality it is not); so as a precaution some anti malware programs will block and even delete the suspect installation files even though the files (i.e. the setup, read me and setup.gcd files are actually totally free from malware. This issue can be solved either by rebooting your computer in safe mode with networking or a quicker method is to temporarily turn off your security software to allow the installation. You could also try white-listing the setup.gcd file. In the almost 12 years this game giveaway site has been operating there has 'never' been a game given away that was infected with malware.

If for any reason you want to contact the giveaway team, for example, you have a game to offer the community, or are unable to download the latest game or other issues that the FAQ's thread or these comments don't cover or solve you can do so HERE

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank MyPlayCity for giving away Jewel Quest and also to the game giveaway team, as always, for securing other ways to get free games.

Useful Information not related to today's game giveaway:

If Jewel Quest doesn't interest you, but you still hanker for something new to play, you'll find details of some game deals whether they be sale items, indie bundles or games being given away for free HERE (I've not updated the thread in a while, but most of the links still take you to the latest deals).

The rest of the information that used to be posted in the game review can be found in the forums HERE. Finally, check out Delenns threads for details of other free games and offers HERE and elsewhere in the game discussion forums HERE, (usually on the first page of the game discussion forums). The free game over at Epic Games is Oxenfree a supernatural thriller about a group of friends who unwittingly open a ghostly rift, ( worth £14.99/$19.99/€19.99). Oxenfree ends April 4th, where a new game called The Witness will be given away. Indie Gala have just added Memoranda to their free games list, plus another 20 free games in their recently added showcase section that includes adventure, RPG, Simulation, strategy and casual games i.e. Memetown USA, The Great Story of a Mighty Hero, Camp Sunshine, Five Nations, False Birth, GOR - Gorilla Office Rampage, Home is where Chip is, Age of Fear: The Free World, Die Legende von Saya: Befehl aus der Dunkelheit - (The Legend of Saya: Command from the Dark), What Never Was, The Last Humans: Awakening, Childhood, Dunwell, Safe Not Safe, Hi Hotel, Bugs Must Die, Cuadradito y Circulito, Hellino, Hovership Havoc and Wake Up , or you can find them all HERE. The Humble Store are giving away downloadable copies of Tacoma HERE, (ends Sunday late afternoon). Finally, there are some excellent bargains on sale via Steam HERE.

You can get most of the Jewel Quest match three games apart from Jewel Quest: The Sapphire Dragon from MyPlayCity i.e Jewel Quest II, Jewel Quest III, Jewel Quest Heritage, Jewel Quest: The Sleepless Star and Jewel Quest: Seven Seas.

You can find Jewel Quest: The Sapphire Dragon HERE but I've not checked the sites integrity.

Also available from MyPlayCity are two of the Jewel Quest Hidden Object Mystery games, i.e. Jewel Quest Mysteries: Curse of the Emerald Tear and Jewel Quest Mysteries: Trail of the Midnight Heart. You can find free versions of the other Hidden Object games in the Jewel Quest Mystery series i.e. Jewel Quest Mysteries 2: Tail of the Midnight Heart and Jewel Quest Mysteries: The Oracle of Ur plus the three Jewel Quest Solitaire series (1,2 & 3), but I've never downloaded games from the sites I've found giving these games away so cannot vouch for their integrity.