6/21/2023 0 Comments Bejeweled 2 pop![]() The most plausible argument is that people are inherently attracted to applying order to chaotic systems. So if Bejeweled 2’s largest innovation was a few new modes of play, why the insane popularity? Steve Meretzky once said that it should be possible to state the rules of a casual game in three sentences, so it’s not like complexity is generating the appeal for people. Not having a timed portion of the game, which could only be played if the game was purchased, ended up being far more appealing than anyone expected. ![]() Statistically people play much longer than the minimum, but they are enticed to start precisely because they think it will only be a small commitment. Juul comments that Bejeweled 2’s main innovations was having an untimed mode and making sure there was a method for allowing short play sessions. Simplifying the matching criterion is a goal that Kapalka also echoes in an interview with Rock, Paper, Shotgun where he points out that typically intellectual puzzles that can only be solved in one way are not as popular as mechanics that are infinitely replayable and don’t require deep thinking. It was too confining and limited the player’s options. The first thing to be removed from Tetris was requiring the player to fill a whole row with matches. Juul defines the rules of a matching game like this, “Video games where the player manipulates tiles in order to make them disappear according to a matching criterion.” The matching aspect is the core mechanic, but it’s the criteria that is constantly changing in these kinds of games. Two games are attributed with kicking off the genre: Tetris and Chain Shot, the latter of which falls more along the lines of making matches while aiming a colored block. ![]() Jesper Juul wrote an excellent article chronicling the history of these types of games.
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