Bejeweled Blitz

Overview

Bejeweled Blitz is a tile-matching puzzle game developed and released by PopCap Games for online browsers (as a free-to-play Facebook app) on April 5, 2010, although it received multiple beta releases since 2008. It also received a digital PC and Mac release at the same time, with a retail release shortly after.

A spin-off of the Bejeweled series, Bejeweled Blitz focuses on quick bursts of play with a single game mode in which players must score as much as they can in one minute, with special game mechanics focused on speedy play. The mode was later revamped in Bejeweled 3 as "Lightning" mode.

It features Facebook connectivity that allow players to compete with their friends in leaderboards, as well as special power-ups (known as "Boosts") that can be purchased through multiple in-game currencies (some of which can be purchased with microtransactions). It received numerous updates years after its release, including an overhaul from Flash to modern HTML5 prior to the former's deprecation.

While the game mode was integrated with the iOS version of Bejeweled 2 on November 9, 2009 as a separate "Blitz" mode, it later received its own standalone mobile iOS release on December 7, 2011, with an Android version later released on May 2, 2013. Both were released as free-to-play.

The game also received a port by Torpex Games for the Xbox 360, known as Bejeweled Blitz Live. Released both digitally (as an Xbox Live Arcade title) and as part of the Xbox 360 retail release of Bejeweled 3, Bejeweled Blitz Live builds on the quick-burst gameplay with two single-player modes (Classic and Twist, the latter based on Bejeweled Twist) and two multi-player modes (Battle, which is one-on-one, and Party, in which up to 16 players online can compete in an endless amount of matches).