Bejeweled Bedemoed Band Beleased

Popcap's latest, Bejeweled Twist, has now launched. And there's a demo version too. It was, according to the game's press release, unleashed on an unsuspecting world. World? Is that true?

Bejeweled is Popcap's triumphant match-3 game that has sold in numbers that sound like I'm exaggerating them for comic effect. Of the original, 93 billion copies have been bought. Oh, I'm such a wag. It's actually (and genuinely) 25 million copies bought, and frankly frightening 350 million downloads. That's the population of America. Or one really weird guy 350 million times.

The titular twist in the third version of the game, should you be wondering, is the new way the tile matching puzzle is performed. Rather than swapping adjacent jewels, you now rotate squares of four clockwise. There's also a pile of new gem types, specials, and so on. It is of course still a match-3 game, so you know, perspective. But Popcap seem to know what they're doing with it. 350 million people can be wrong, clearly. But they probably aren't about Bejeweled.