Some people prefer the simplicity of Bejeweled.”ĭespite drawing a clear line between the two properties, PopCap was risking alienating longtime fans. “There are some people who never liked Bejeweled who love Bejeweled Twist. “It’s not really a direct sequel to Bejeweled 2, our conception of it was that this would be a spin-off,” Kapalka said. It was decided fairly early on that there would need to be a clear separation between the main series and this new upstart. Most notably, the core gameplay of Twist has very different from traditional Bejewled, despite similar goals of matching a set of three gems. This did, however, present some considerable problems. It was decided that that Twist would become an offshoot of the beloved Bejeweled franchise. “Somewhere along the way we realized that nothing really worked as well as jewels.” Fruit just didn’t have the sparkle and sushi… well, sushi speaks for itself, doesn’t it? But, Kapalka says, they just couldn’t cut it. PopCap spitballed lots of different items to use in the project, which was originally codenamed “ Zongo,” including fruit and even sushi. “The first thing we plugged in as temporary graphics were the Bejeweled gems because they were convenient,” said PopCap’s Jason Kapalka.

Bejeweled twist fruit gem