Jewel Quest Mysteries: Curse of the Emerald Tear - New Adventures Await for You!

The new title from the extremely popular Jewel Quest series breaks the tradition that earned the games their popularity, and offers you not match 3, but hidden object basic game play. But the story is no less engaging, as in the first parts, and the match 3 puzzles are still here, though presented like mini-games.

Do you like traveling all over the world and discovering amazing ancient mysteries? Then this game is for you!

As you already understood, Jewel Quest mysteries is a continuation of adventures of the courageous heroes of the first titles of the series. Rupert and Emma again find themselves in the middle of a mysterious story full of unusual events, ancient treasures and dangerous competitors. This time they have found a secret place where The Book of Jewels was hidden, and from the Book they learned about the existence of the very first Jewel Board on Earth, the one that gives its owner some undescribable powers. And the first milestone on the way to the Jewel Board is Egypt. But the way will make them encounter a number of jeopardies and difficulties, of course. The whole story will unwrap piece by piece as you pass the levels, and you'll never know the ending until you solve all the puzzles - and that really keeps you intrigued (if you are prepared to read a lot).

The basic game play, as I already said, is hidden object. It's mainly like all the other traditional hidden objects, but some new features add spice to your game experience. For example, you can earn hints (called Special Moves) by collecting gold coins. 3 coins equal one hint. But you have a limited number of placeholders for hints, and thus a limited number of hints for a stage. The situation can be changed, though, by buying available upgrades with the color jewels you can find at every level. The upgrades are really useful here, and include additional hints slots or even hints at the beginning of each level, Jewel Sense (a nice option helping you find more jewels - and an expensive one), additional time at each level (handy when you play Regular and not Extended Time mode) or a number of gold tiles already on the board in matching levels.

And let's dwell a bit on the mini-games. The game offers two types of them - Match 3 and Puzzle. Everything is quite simple with match 3 - it's the game you've already got used to while playing the first parts of the series. Just match identical jewels and turn all the board into gold (don't forget special moves and coins). The other is more challenging and thus more interesting, as for me. You have a board or a pattern to turn gold and a number of tile blocks to do it. Your task is to find the correct sequence of using the blocks and levers to turn the necessary field into gold. The puzzle takes a bit of thinking and may be not quite understandable at the beginning, but it's worth the effort if you like brain teasers. If not - you are free to skip it by sacrificing some of your jewels and hints.

Tip: you don't need to use all blocks of tiles in some puzzles. Just make sure you match the pattern.

On the whole I would same the game preserves the production value of the previous titles, it continues to please us with the graphics, music and story, while adding some diversity to the game play. But make sure your computers meets all the technical requirements before you download your copy of Jewel Quest Mysteries: Curse of the Emerald Tear!

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