Online Casual Game Walkthrough: Jungle Jewels

Any of you play Jungle Jewels? It's one of those free online match-three games... And one that I happen to be sadly addicted to. (Addiction is NOT pretty in any form!) Literally HOURS can go by while I mindlessly scramble to match 3 sets of gems until all the medals reach the bottom of the playing area.

Similar to Bejeweled, Jungle Jewels has players exchange the order of two side-by-side gems to form groupings of at least three gems of the same color. Once you match three gems in a row, the jewels disappear, making room for more gems to drop in from above. If you are lucky, or skillful, enough to get four gems to match, one explosive jewel remains after the three disappear. A match of five leaves a swirling vortex. If you swap the vortex with one of the gems next to it, all of the same-colored gems will drop from the board.

And that's where the similarities end. While the whole focus of Bejeweled is simply to swap as many jewels as possible, causing cascading reactions to score more points, Jungle Jewels adds a few more challenging elements to keep you hooked!

Keep an eye on the upper left corner of your screen. Displayed there are the goals for your current level, each represented by a number of jewels of a different color. Once you have matched enough jewels of those colors and all of the gems have dropped from the upper left corner, you are rewarded with a gold coin. After the gold coin is added to your game area, the jewel needs to be moved to the bottom row by removing all of the gems under it by matching sets of 3.

On level 1, there is only 1 gold coin. Once it reaches the bottom, the next part of the puzzle is unlocked and the player levels up. Increased coins are added to each subsequent level, two coins on level 2, three coins on level 3, and so on.

Jokers are additional rewards that players receive through gameplay. Using a joker will remove an entire vertical and horizontal line of jewels simultaneously, speeding the progress of the gold coin to the bottom of the gameplay area. Once a joker is used, the clearing bonus for the gameboard is divided in half. In addition, using a joker does not clear goal gems in the upper left area of the game window. You're best off saving your jokers til Level 4 -- believe me you will need them!

Jungle Jewels also allows a bit longer gameplay time with its five minute timer... It's amazing how fast five minutes flies... and multiplies!

Are you addicted to Facebook games?

I can’t log onto Facebook with seeing that one of my friends whom I haven’t spoken to since high school has declared war on one of my other high school buddies! What's a girl to do? Faction infighting? Really? Now that I think about it... not much has changed since high school.

But now it’s all part of this Facebook craze. What should’ve been just another fad has taken users by storm and driving all the other users crazy.

Have you recently heard anyone say "I have got to go home and shake down my rackets." And you think to yourself, "Shake down what rackets?" Or "I only have four hours left to water my crops" which of course prompts the thought, "They live in the city... what crops?"

They’re talking about Mafia Wars, Mobsters, Farmville, Farm Town, Country Story, or any of the other very addicting game applications on Facebook that do a very nice job helping people to waste their time.

With the farming games, for example, players are given a virtual farm they must tend to. They can plant crops, which grow at different intervals so they must remember when they’re ready to harvest before they are ruined. They earn coins to buy more crops by selling them. They can also earn ribbons for advancing skills. Truth be told I even play one or two of them myself!

Try doing a simple search on Facebook and you will find over 500 groups with the word Farmville in the name. The groups promise cheats, coins and new friends if you join them. Same with Mafia Wars or any of the other popular applications.

People have entire blogs devoted to the games, spending every waking moment strategizing how to get "level up" so they can get more coins. Do these people not have a life?

I’m not the only one who feels this way, a Facebook fan page called Not Playing Farmville boasts 2 million fans!

But "it’s just a silly game," you say to yourself. Just a silly game? Tell that to the 75 million users of Farmville and 14 million users of Farm Town!

Of those, 235 of those Farmville players are my friends! And Mafia Wars another 917!

It’s a travesty.

Maybe they can all join the Farmville Addicts Anonymous group. Even though it’s not exactly anonymous considering your name is on your Facebook.

Oh, and I figured out how to block the constant game notifications that kept me from keeping up with my friends. At least I can get on Facebook without going crazy now ;)

OMG! Farmville Groceries are REAL!

Now let's think about this! Any of you who play Farmville... where you spend hours and hours growing your own virtual fruits and veggies. I just found out that now you can buy your very own FarmVille brand junkfood at 7-11! Where have I been? Not playing FarmVille I guess... Don't look at me! I just get paid to write about these games... not to play them :P And the iPad games are kinda the "in thing" right now so I have been sadly neglecting my Facebook play time.

But ya know... Nuthin says "fresh and healthy" quite like a good junk food spree at 7-11! Especially when an in-game swimming pool might be included with your snack purchase ... if you're lucky ;) I guess that's one way to work off those junk food calories... Taking a dip in your very own FarmVille pool!

Posted via email from momsdaword's posterous