Oh joyful day! It's time for a contest! And not just any contest, either. We've teamed up with PopCap (you know, the folks who have taken away most of your free time with games like Peggle and Plants vs. Zombies) to celebrate the impending release of Bejeweled 3! Our original idea was to run a contest where the prizes included high fives and fist bumps, but then we decided to up the ante. How "up" did we up it? How about a Bejeweled-emblazoned netbook for the winner?!
What better way to run a Bejeweled contest than to match gems of your own? From now and for the next 12 days, we'll be hiding a few gems in game reviews throughout the archives of JIG. We'll send out a riddle for each hidden gem, sometimes right here on the front page, sometimes on our Twitter feed, sometimes on our Facebook page, pointing you in the right direction. Find the gem, take a note of its color and the title of the game reviewed on the page where it appears, and keep that info somewhere safe. When you find three gems of the same color, you've earned yourself an entry into the netbook giveaway!
But there's more! We'll be using all seven gem colors from Bejeweled 3, so feel free to submit matches for more than one color. If you submit a match of five like-colored gems, your name will be entered twice! So, theoretically, you could have your name dropped in the hat over a dozen times. In the very big hat we've reserved just for this occasion! And even if you don't win the laptop, we've got three copies of Bejeweled 3 to give away, so there's plenty of opportunity to walk away with something great.
So you know what to look for, here's an example of the gems you'll see in the coming week (no, they're not part of the contest!). Each one will be in the body of the article of the game in question, easy to find once you decipher the riddle! Gems will be available for approximately 24 hours, at which point the next round of hints will become available, pushing the old ones away forever.
The official colors are as follows (from left to right in the image above):
blue, green, red, white, yellow, purple, and orange.
Wait until you collect a match of three gems of the same color before e-mailing us. Sending in random gems doesn't count as an entry. It's best to wait until the end of the contest, then organize all the gems you found into matches and send us one e-mail.
Contest rules and details:
- Contest runs from December 3 to December 14.
- Gems will be hidden on review pages throughout the site. A few of the gems will be released per day, each one available for a limited time only.
- Clues pointing to the gems will be announced on our website (https://jayisgames.com), on our Twitter page (http://twitter.com/Jayisgames), on our Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/Jayisgames), or a combination of all three.
- You must be at least 18 years of age or older to enter.
- Contest is open to US residents only. Employees of Casual Gameplay and their family members are not eligible for this promotion.
- Send us your name, address, phone number, and a statement that you're at least 18 years of age or older, along with an itemized listing of all the gems you found, including: 1) gem color; and 2) the title of the game reviewed on the page where you found the gem; to: [email protected], or mail your entry to: Casual Gameplay, P.O. Box 22775, Rochester, NY 14962.
- Entries must be received no later than December 17, 2010 to qualify for the drawing.
- Winners will be selected by random drawing on December 18, 2010, and the results will be published at https://jayisgames.com soon thereafter.
- Total prize value is $425, specifications include: HP Mini 210 HD Edition Netbook, 1GB DDR2 System Memory, Wireless-G Card, IntelAtomN450 (1.66GHz, 512 KB L2 Cache) and Intel Grphc3150, Genuine Windows 7 Starter 32-bit, 250GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive, 10.1 in HD LED widescreen (1366x768).
- Prize is non-exchangeable.
- Casual Gameplay is not responsible for any lost, late, misdirected or incomplete entries. By participating in the contest, the winners and entrants (a) agree that Casual Gameplay, its employees, directors, and partners shall have no liability in connection with the acceptance or use of the prizes awarded. (b) acknowledge that said parties have neither made, nor are in any manner responsible or liable for, any warranty, representation or guarantee, express or implied, in fact or in law, related to any prize including, but not limited to, its quality, mechanical condition or fitness for a particular purpose. (c) shall indemnify and hold harmless Casual Gameplay employees, directors, and partners from and against any and all liability, claims, loss, damage, injury or expense, including reasonable attorney's fees, arising from or in connection with any third party action arising out of a breach, or allegation which if true would constitute a breach, of any of its representations, warranties, or obligations herein.
- No purchase necessary, void where restricted or prohibited.
I assume the sample gems as well as the ones in the bejeweled banner do not count ?
Correct. You'll see one gem all by itself. Once you find the right review, you can't miss it.
For us colorblinders, can someone list which color goes with each gem-shape? Or arrange the SAMPLE gems into ROYGBIV order or something?
This is going to ROCK. Except for the part where I skip studying for finals in favor of solving riddles and looking for jewels. Otherwise, it's going to rock.
Considering JiG is the premier walkthrough site, I wonder if site loyalty and community spirit will win out and people will post solutions to the riddles, or if the competitive spirit (i.e. selfishness) will win out and people will keep their solutions to themselves. Guess it'll depend on how hard the riddles are?
For the colorblind:
The gems in the example are in order (left-to-right) blue, green, red, white, yellow, magenta, orange. (These are my names; official names may of course differ)
I'm not sufficiently up on technical names of gemcutting styles to offer descriptions of them all, although as a gamer I'm really digging the orange icosahedron at the end.
Yes, in addition to being uniquely colored, gems also have their own shape, so you can still play if you're colorblind!
By the way, just over an hour until the first hints appear!
I'm confused. Do I send you an e-mail each time I find a gem, or do I wait until the contest is over and send in a list of all of them?
This is so great, scouring the site in order win free stuff. And spectacularly, the gem I found so far is on a game I'd forgotten about after so long! I feel ecstatically happy. Free stuff, fun games. The only thing missing from this day would be a sandwich and a hug.
The riddles are pretty good so far, not impossible but not obvious either. Keep em coming :)
just found gem but cant join cos im not from US.... Why no one in Europa does such things.... And i w8ted for so long...long time..
Sylocat: You only get entered in the contest once you have at least three gems of a single color. Collect those, then send us an e-mail. Or, you can wait for the end of the contest and include everything all at once.
xxerox: Unfortunately, the US-only limitation is out of our control, and it's due to export/shipping issues. Nothing we could do about that, we're sorry to say. However, I promise you a badass high five if I ever run across you in person!
Fun fact: the gem hints get much more difficult as the days go by.
Is there a time limit for the clues themselves? Will the gems vanish after a certain amount of time has passed, or could someone on the last day solve all the clues and find all the gems?
True or False - Every gem (for the giveaway) will have a hint (or will itself be) on (at least) one of the three pages listed in the rules. No other/additional gems will be sequestered anywhere else.
Just makin' sure
aww man i just read the rules now, after finding the first gem... boo im in canada :(
Every gem will have a hint, and the hints will be divided between here, our Twitter feed, and our Facebook page. No other gems will be hidden.
chiuni: Don't worry, we're planning other contests for everybody in the world to participate in. :-)
figures i get the clue right away for the first gem and i'm under 18 :( sooo sad.
Drats. I think the gem for the 1st Facebook riddle has already disappeared :( About how long does each gem stay around after a riddle is announced? Does the time for each gem vary (ex. if another riddle is announced, the gem for the last riddle will no longer be available)?
The facebook one is still there for me. In quotations, third down, announcing the contest.
Oh... Oops xD I think I understand the riddle now...
...that is if the riddle was referring to the contest announcement.
The contest announcement doesn't give you any gems, hence the "sample" watermark there. :-)
Gems stay active until the next round of hints are unleashed. We're looking to swap hints at noon EST every day.
Wait.. So the 1st riddle on the Facebook page was not referring to the contest announcement?
...nevermind. I found it OTL
So...*scratches head* one new gem comes out every 24 hours, right?
In that case, I found it :p
I'm French, but I'm in Canada now and I will stay a week in New York. Is it possible to give you an adress in New York even if I'm not a US resident ?
Can't participate if you're in Europe? What a shame. :\
[I'm sorry about this. There are export restrictions that prevent us from shipping computer equipment out of the country. This is the only contest where we haven't included the entire world, and it's not something we were ourselves pleased about. -Jay]
ghost: THREE gems come out every 24 hours. One hint on Twitter, one hint on Facebook, one hint here, each leading to a different gem.
has alrdy 5 gems even if i cant join ill still try to find them all :D btw what time the hunts are released?
Umm... a completely hypothetical question... What happens if you were saving your jems in an email draft, but you accidentally clicked "send" instead of "save as draft?"
xxerox: Around noon every day, EST. But that could vary.
awesomelyawesomeAJ: No worries! Your "sent" folder should have a copy of the gems you saved, so just copy them from there, and we'll ignore any e-mail that already came in.
Thanks! I suppose I should leave the contest email out until I'm actually ready to send it this time...
Can you give a sample format for the e-mail?
I mean, if you need to organize colours together, include dates for each gem, or number them according to the order you found them, etc.
It would be best if you organized your findings by gem color. That way, it's easy to spot matches. Listing the gem color followed by the game's name would be great. Like so:
Another fun fact: The first possible match will occur on Tuesday, the same day Bejeweled 3 is released.
Can you answer to my question please ? :
I'm French, but I'm in Canada now and I will stay a week in New York. Is it possible to give you an adress in New York even if I'm not a US resident ?
[The person entering the competition must have an address and reside in the US to be eligible for the contest. I'm sorry, but we have strict rules we must adhere to for this contest. -Jay]
I have found few of the gems, but i will not participate in competition, because i'm NOT ALLOWED!
Siriously, you exclude the whole world from the game, and you think it's Ok? You say you ar'e sorry, I think you just don't care. You could have thought of a better solution. You have demonstrated how egocentric americans are.
I'm so disappointed.
[I understand you're disappointed, and we really do care. Anyone who's been visiting us for a while knows we are not egocentric. Nor are we all americans. The JIG team is made up of people from all over the world. But you're free to call us names and believe anything you wish, that's your right. We'll just keep on bringing you free games to play every day, reviews to read, banner games to enjoy, international game design competitions for budding game developers to win cash prizes, and comics to giggle at. No, I guess we just don't care about anyone but ourselves. -Jay]
Ooooh, thanx johnB!
Today's jayisgames hint is hard :(, or maybe because I just woke up.:D
can someone pls delete my comments cos im saying when i find a gem also can i send the gems even if i cant join?(if i find them all)
Just a clarification and reminder since we've already seen a few submissions. As JohnB says: "Remember: you can only enter the contest after you have found at least three gems of the same color. Send your findings then, or even better, wait and make as many color matches as you can and send them in when the contest ends."
So unless you have found THREE GEMS OF THE SAME COLOUR, your submission doesn't net you an entry. Wait until you have three MATCHING gems before you submit anything or your entry does NOT count.
Ada,
I understand your disappointment, but please stop for a moment and consider what we do here before you resort to calling us names. Every day of the week we bring you free content and spend our time writing reviews for the best of the crop. We also run multiple contests and competitions that are option to everyone, EVERYWHERE.
This Bejeweled Giveaway is not limited to the US to exclude anyone, and it's not limited because we "don't care". It's limited because of import/export restrictions, which is entirely out of our hands. Is our Casual Gameplay Design Competition and it's prizes also unfair and uncaring because it's "restricted" to people who make games or try to create them?
I can promise you we will continue to provide free content to everyone, and you will see even more promotions in the future open to all.
So it's not international because you're not allowed to make it international. But could maybe the out of US users here be eligible for the three copies of Bejeweled 3?
On another note, the gem locations are truly getting harder. Today's Twitter one is a puzzler.
[I promise we will have other contests and promotions for our international audience again soon. In fact, look for another caption contest coming up again on Thursday. -Jay]
I've been on JIG for years (yes, I know I really do need to make an account XD), and I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank Jay and all of the writers and others who help to keep the site going. It really is the BEST casual gaming site on the internet. Sure, there are small annoyances like contest restrictions and ads, but in the end its obvious to me that JIG puts its community first, and everything else second.
Thank you, JIGTeam!
Today's Twitter puzzle is the first one I've really had any trouble with... I won't sleep until I find it!
Normally I would not have signed up just to leave a comment; however, the commentor 'Ada' clearly does not have a good understanding of how things work with regards to prizes and/or give-aways. As someone who has recently been paid staff for other gaming websites for the past 3 years, I can assure you that the red tape involved and the hoops required to jump through, make it nearly impossible to offer goods outside of CONUS; this means that most give-aways cannot even include areas that are US territory outside of the continental US such as Guam and Hawaii.
It's unfortunate that some would resort to name-calling based on what they are unaware of but it has been my personal experience to chalk it off and, as staff, to constantly remind myself that it's not personal. This is my encouragement to all the wonderful folks who bring us fresh and new content... keep up the great work guys and gals - we love ya!
My suggestion to Ada... try and find gaming websites/platforms that support your country and offer prizes that you do qualify for. I know that the UK has sites that offer prizes but only to UK residents so please understand, it is not just an American thing - other countries have the same problem with red tape.
awesomelyawesomeAJ - Same here. Today's Twitter clue is the first one I haven't been able to figure out and I have a feeling I won't be sleeping much either!
Also stuck on the Twitter clue. That could be referring to nearly every platformer reviewed here!
Would anyone who already found it be kind enough to give us a hint?
YES, I finally figured it out! Donut & The Logical Ghost: I'll try to narrow down your search a little:
The game was reviewed on a Friday.
Hope it helps!
Got it! Thank you so much AJ, your comment was very helpful! Funny how the clue makes a lot more sense now.
Funny, I was just playing the four-keys-twitter-hint yesterday=D
Got all the jewels today!
:D just understand it.9 jewels so far
I can't wait until we get into some of the more difficult clues. These have been candy so far. :-)
Tychmo: Thank you for that post! *high five*
Argh, I forgot to have someone check the colors yesterday, and now the gems are gone. :-(
If I put a game under the wrong color, what happens to my entry?
Phoenix; If you email me the game names I can email you back the colours if you like.
[email protected]
Today's gems were easier to find than yesterday's gems I think.
Can someone give me a clue for the main page gem? I've figured out the Twitter and Facebook clues but this one is driving me nuts. I know the OBVIOUS answer, but searching for it is a pain, and the two games which feature it prominently in their titles (one six times, the other four) don't have the gems, either.
Ryusui, you're really close to the answer. There's hardly any hint I can give you that will not completely spoil it. Maybe writing down what you already know can help? Just think about it a little harder, or perhaps not as hard =)
I'm completely stuck (again) on the Twitter riddle, it's even crazier than it was yesterday. Any tips?
Ooooh...that's a nasty one if you don't know the game it's referencing.
The kindest clue I can give is that "Actress Daryl" is Elle Driver in Kill Bill, though the name in the game's title is spelled without an "h" at the end.
Mind giving me an extra nudge for the main page? Because I'm still drawing a blank.
Well, from your comment it's obvious you got down to one letter (I went to those games too). Now think about it! By the way, the game's title has 6 letters, and they don't repeat.
URRRGH. Solved. I can't believe I didn't think of that one.
Thanks a bundle, BTW. Perfect record so far...here's hoping I can keep it up. :3
Thanks Ryusui for the Twitter hint! Saved me a lot of Googling.
I thought of the logical location to yesterday's Twitter-hinted gem too late. The dozen and two strips of paper with my name on it I dreamed of tossing into the Big Hat have turned to ashes. Or, at least one strip has. Well, there's no penalty for guessing, right? As long as I get the others I could guess the color for it...
Are you planning to post the answers to the riddles after the contest is over, for those of us who aren't as bright as others?
The gem for yesterday's Twitter? The one whose name involved the upper corners of the keyboard?
There's a character in the anime Wolf's Rain who was voiced by the same person in both the original Japanese version and the English dub.
>_>
Hey, guess what! I've found 9 of your gems so far! Better step up the difficulty JIG! :D
I got here late....are the gems still up?
Yup! The gems are still there.
soleta: Good idea! I think we just might!
Robert: Don't worry, they only get more difficult as the days go by.
Chiisexy: The gems stay up for about 24 hours from the time the hint was posted. Then, it's on to the next batch. Don't worry, even if you just started, you can still enter!
So how many clues have been released so far? I think I might have came late to the party and missed one of the first ones.
@fctd The latest three clues are the 10th, 11th and 12th, I think.
Yeah, twelve clues as of December 6th.
Yeah, twelve clues as of December 6th.
yess i also have 12 gems now hehe
Yep, 12 gems so far! Today introduces gems 13-15. This Friday is the last day you can start participating and still collect enough gems for a match.
now i have 14 gems cos today the hunts are lot more easier than yesterday.But where is gem 15?
It seems there is no JIG Clue for our White Gem today.
YAY my first match! :D but... there's no hint on the homepage! :(
Yay I have all of today's ones (no homepage one?)
I have all of them except the "four keys" one, which I still can't figure out. :(
...And speaking of "rageful", the main page clue is up and I'm utterly stumped. Other two were easy (especially with a helpful clue on Facebook), but this...O_O;
I know what ç means, but I can't for the life of me figure out the imagery. A face? A...church? House? It looks like a famous building I've seen, but I can't put my finger on it..
We're going to stagger the hint releases a bit so everything doesn't hit at one time.
A bonus sub-hint for today's JIG hint:
Don't take the clue so literally. Or, take it really, really literally. >:-D
Oh, but that was at least half of the fun of it - if you couldn't get the first hint, there was another one you could try. Oh, well - thanks for the help.
I've tried searching the character, I've tried searching for "cedilla"...nothing.
And I don't recognize either the face or the building, though both are maddeningly familiar at the same time. Can anyone provide a helpful nudge?
[Please, if you're going to use angle brackets for faces in your comments, please use the correct HTML entities for them: < for < and > for > Also, please do not post answers to our contest clues. Thank you. :) -Jay]
Okay, so the previous comments have made the "$#231;" part obvious ... if they're going in the right direction? But no interpretation of that hint in that direction seems to be helping. Not to mention all the posters seem stuck on the image.
Any other sub-hints? From anyone?
Another sub-hint, in case you haven't gotten today's front page clue:
The image on the right doesn't refer to the building, only its face.
Friend of mine helped me figure it out just before you posted that, JohnB!
It was such an OHMYGOSH moment. It's really a great puzzle: so obvious, but irritatingly so. The redundant elements were what threw me off, I think.
Finally figured it out. Thanks.
In retrospect, that was an excellent puzzle.
I still don't get it. This is driving me crazy.
finally got it, after trying something really obvious that I should have tried at the start.
Heh, when JohnB said to take it literally, I immediately thought of Take Something Literally. Obviously that wasn't the answer, but it was worth a shot =P
Anyway, I finally found the homepage gem, thanks to you guys! The funny thing is that I went to that game's page just yesterday looking for the Twitter gem (don't ask me how I got there), and since it was late already I thought to myself, "Hey, this looks fun, I should come back tomorrow and play this!"
Ironically, I didn't, because I was too busy looking for today's gems.
I am still lost on the main page hint for today.
@tlsims, read the comments. All of them, not just the sub-hints (you probably already did, but then read them again). There's plenty of information here to help you, something should point you in the right direction. Also, remember that the "drawing" clue, the "$#231;" clue and the "house" clue are not three different things, but a single, big clue.
So I found the front page clue [I think I just got lucky with some google searches], but I still don't understand what it means!
Got the other clues fine but this one has me stumped. Not sure how all the parts relate to each other (face, building and symbol) or which features are relevant (boy, drawing, house, building, red and ç) or which order and how to combine them.
Any hints would be greatly appreciated.
That took a bit of thinking, Very clever.
However I think the building was what confused me the most.
Argh finally got the front page! I can't believe it was staring me in the face! (No pun intended)
I have 15 jewels.Cant wait for the next one
Today's homepage hint: I think I've tried to count off every 7 letters in every way possible, both including and not including "hidden within." No luck! What could it mean???
@TheLogicalGhost:
The homepage hint is much easier than you think. I actually stumbled into the answer by accident. :)
Sub-hint:
The answer is truly hidden just in the very letters of the sentence. No need to rearrange them, or count-off.
Small hint for today's homepage puzzle
(7) refers to the number of .... something. Onion rings? Possibly.
or, it could be the number of letters
Kegan04: If it's an anagram I may possibly go insane.
I even counted up the number of each letter. I was happy to find that counting "hidden within" there were 7 "t"s and I was like IT'S SEVENTY! THAT'S THE HINT! But there are no games called "70" or "seventy" or that have 70 levels ... am I over-thinking this?
Logical Ghost:
You're overthinking :)
Anyone have a hint on the Twitter clue?
The Logical Ghost :
You are overthinking this. :)
There is a 7 letter word hidden somewhere in the sentence, that also happens to be a game in one of the cgdc competitions. Its not backwards, or an anagram. In fact itS MORE LIKe this, if "smorelik" was the word I was trying to hide.
I count 35 gems at the end of today. I have 34 right now.
Oh, nevermind. There are 36. I didn't notice the first clue for today.
I basically brute-forced clue #2 (the Archive is handy), but clue #1 has got me stumped (again). Any hints?
There are five gems of each color, making a total of 35 gems released during the contest. There are 36 hints, however. Ooh, mystery!!!
And yes, we will be posting answers to the riddles at the end of the contest.
Some creative googling will net you clue #1.
Yeah, I found it. Searching the last part gets the best results, but you'll have to keep an eye out for it - it won't be the first thing that comes up.
Okay, final clue's up. Strictly speaking, I don't need it, but I wanna solve it anyway. :3
Oh, I guess I did miss a blue gem somewhere, then. Thanks for the wildcard clue, guys!
Aaaaand...sent! *crosses fingers*
i got the first 2 so fast today but the wildcard one has me stumped...i need it to cause i started late and missed the first couple of days.
Please clarify: if, for example, I have 3 red gems and 5 purple, can the wildcard be used with the 5 purples to make two sets of three? (i.e. two entries)?
DeeBelle: Yes, but 5 gems nets you two entries anyway, so doing that wouldn't be very helpful. :-)
Thanks, I missed that part in the rules.
Got everything except the wildcard clue. I'm wondering whether to send in the 35 now or wait and try to get the wildcard in case one of them is wrong or something.
If we have all five of all the colors, is there any sort of bonus for having the wildcard too?
Missed some since I was sick for 2 days and couldn't use the computer. :( Meanwhile, the wild card has me pulling out hair.
Wild card hint anyone?
The wildcard hint isn't that hard. No hints for this last one; use all your mental cognitive abilities you have built up thus far for the final stretch.
And think LOGICALLY. And use GOOGLE. And eat some BREAD while you're at it. And watch out for any future riddles that may BOGGLE your mind.
Aha. Ahahahahaha.
NOM NOM NOM.
VICTORY! Now to sort 'em up and send 'em in.
I just want to officially say here that I am, in fact, at least greater than or equal to the age or older than the age of 18 years of age or older, and not a day younger than the age of 18 years of age. /redundant
I can't solve the Wild Card unless it has something to do with
Simone Wilson's first Grammy-nominated rap hit from her Down to Earth album.
Thanks, Google.
The Wild Card answer was actually mentioned here in the comments. What do the words "bread" and "middle" bring to mind?
You saved my butt again, Ryusui. My theory had been involving the fact that "bread" was in quotes and was therefore not literal bread but possibly the slang term for money, incurring me to google "money in the middle", bringing me to the 80's rap hit "Monie in the Middle," by Monie Love. Needless to say, that wasn't it.
This was really fun!!! Thank you so much for putting this togehter.
You're welcome.
To be honest, it was a lucky shot, and the same person that helped me figure out Triple Jack gave me the flash of insight I needed to solve it. He doesn't post in the comments, but he checks this site regularly. If you see a TheGunheart trolling around on teh interwebz, you can tell him thanks.
(I was addressing Akarroa, not taking credit for the contest. ^_^;)
I'll give Gunheart a wave! And I'll be sure to say "Hi" running into you, too. :3
When will the results be announced? I'm anxious to see who won!
Update