Review: Jewelrumble
Score:
80%
Version Reviewed: 1.2
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Constantly updating your software has two effects – the obvious one is you get listed rather a lot on “updated software” lists. More importantly it allows existing users to feel that their comments on the software are being listened to, while new users can be confident that if something is wrong, then it’ll be fixed in short order. And that’s one of the strongest recommendations I have for JewelRumble – it’s constantly being evolved.
The game concept is a simple one, and for those of you coming from the Palm OS platform, this review boils down to a simple phrase: This is Bejeweled. For those of you not aware of this little puzzle game, glance at the screenshot. You’ve a playing field of a number of jewels, and on each turn you can exchange two jewels that are side by side. You can only do this when the exchange will result in three or more similar jewels being in a line, they’ll disappear, new ones will feed in from the top, and gravity will fill the gaps.
It’s yet another simple concept that proves to be rather infuriating to the games player. There’s a few bonus jewels added in as well, that can wipe out a number of different patterns of jewels (for example a whole row or column, everything surrounding one specific block, that sort of thing), which jumbles up the board enough. It’s always best to keep these until you really need them, unless you can make a massive score by triggering them earlier.
JewelRumble is also more forgiving of an ‘end of game’ situation, as you have a number of lives that allow you to jumble up the board and make another attempt. The purist in me thinks that this just isn’t on, when you die you die, but there you go. Because of this, a single game can take a long time to play through. The application will remember the state of the game board if you switch away, you can even exit the application and come back to it later
JewelRumble is Java MIDP 1.0, and thankfully it is running in full screen mode. One thing is that being a Java app, you have to use the inbuilt java launcher on earlier Symbian devices. And as well as the Series 60 version, you have versions for UIQ and Series 80 Communicators. Recommended for all you puzzle freaks out there – it’s one of the finer examples available.
Purchase JewelRumble from the AAS Store. It's avaialble for Series 80, Series 60 and UIQ devices.
Reviewed by Ewan Spence at