by Pete Davison

Created on: January 12, 2009   Last Updated: November 10, 2011

As with any form of media, cliches are rife in the world of video game culture, in the sense that sometimes game designers run out of ideas and dip into their Big Fun Barrel of Things We've Seen Before for inspiration. There's a time and a place for the use of said barrel, of course, but it pays to occasionally be aware of just how cliched some of these things are. Most genres of gaming are guilty of dipping into the barrel to one degree or another, but it is particularly noticeable in three, these being puzzle games, role-playing games and first-person shooters. Let's examine the evidence:

In 2001, PopCap Games released Bejeweled as a web browser-based game. This game was regarded by many as the first of a now very long line of "match three" gem-sliding games and became wildly popular very quickly, with ports quickly appearing on every platform you can think of, and possibly even a few you would never have thought of, including PocketPC, Palm OS, the original Xbox console and numerous others.

There was a reason for Bejeweled's popularity, and it is the same reason that Tetris has endured so long - simplicity. The gameplay can be explained in a matter of seconds - "tap two gems to swap them, if they make three or more in a row of the same colour, you get points. Repeat." - but the gameplay has an addictive quality that has led many people to hours of time being lost in their own personal gem pile. Naturally, this popularity, and the simplicity of recreating it in another game, has led to a number of imitators. These imitators sometimes add something new to the mix (such as Puzzle Quest, which is an RPG which uses a two-player turn-based variant on Bejeweled to resolve combat) and sometimes they're just exactly what they appear to be - Bejeweled with different graphics.

Sure, Bejeweled's gameplay is excellent, and it is ideal for a handheld device such as the iPhone or Palm devices, but do we really need to see it over and over and over again? Even PopCap themselves haven't been immune, with Bejeweled 2 following a few years after the original, and Bejeweled Twist being released most recently. 2 is virtually the same game as its predecessor, with a couple of extra ways of making bonus scores (ironically, probably "borrowed" from the original game's imitators) but Twist at least adds a different movement mechanic to the game - but it's still Bejeweled, let's face it. You're still matching gems on a big grid to score points to try and do better than you did in

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