Players can download free versions onto their mobile phone.
Bejeweled is available on PC, mobiles, internet, iPhone, iTouchm PSP, DS, DSi and BlackBerry.
PopCap have won over 24 awards.
PopCap have over 35 different games.
PopCap has over 200 employees (games developers.)
Bejeweled was originall created for PC games as a web based Flash Game called Diamond Mine, but had to change the name as it was too similar to Diamond Mines.
A Bejeweled scratchcard is available.
In September 2006 it was available to download for the iPhone.
In October 2007 it was available on the PS2 and Xbox 360.
In September 2008 World of Warcraft made a free version of it as an add on for the WOW interface.
In October 2008 the third installment of Bejeweled Blitz was available.
In December 2008 it was available on Facebook.
In Novemeber 2009 the iPhone released Bejeweled 2.
At first I was entertained and hooked by Bejewled as it offered exciting colours and sound effects which hook the player. After a few rounds of playing, the repetitivness started to bore me.
I am a dedicated gamer and therefore I need sustainable games to keep me interested, something Bejewled does not offer due to its simplicity.
This our final cut of our thriller opening sequence:
The main changes we made, as stated in my Rough Cut blog entry, were adding more sound effects, increasing the level of sound continuity and making the titles more appropriate.
The one difficulty we came across was when we used Adobe After Effects to create a day to night conversion allowing the scene to look as if it was shot at night. We had trouble rendering it as the computers we used were not able to handle the memory needed to do it. We therefore decided to scrap that idea and produce it regardless.
I think our final cut of our thriller opening sequence has been highly successful and was a fun task to complete.
We got 28/60 for our rough cut of our thriller so we had a lot of changes to make to increase our mark.
Our rough cut:
The feedback we got from our rough cut that the visual continuity was good but the sound continuity was failing. The real sound we had also clashed with the sound effects as it was overpowering due to the noise in the background of other cars. We were told to scrap the real sounds completely and only use sound effects which proved difficult as there was a limited amount available to us. Adding these sound effects will create a more realistic scene as they are all the ‘little’ noises that people rarely actually notice but make a huge difference in the overall production.
Another criticism was how bad the titles were. They offered no relationship to the thriller in their font, colour or size so we decided to completely remake the title sequence.
We also decided to extend the time of our initial title sequence as our thriller currently did not meet the minimum time limit. Instead of re-filming to extend the time, lengthening our title’s was the most applicable option in our case.
We will try to extend the title’s to roughly 25 seconds. We will animate them and add digetic to make the 25 seconds not look extended just to make the time limit. We will have them introduced before any footage is shown to set the scene and give the audience an inkling of what is going to happen.
Overall we do not have much to change and should not take more than a few hours to complete.
Anne-Marie Nicholson as the protagonist.
Barney Nash as the antagonist.
Outline of the thriller
The basic plot our our thriller is that the protagonist is driving home and comes across an oddly placed pram in the middle of the road, she inspects it but finds nothing except a doll. She pushes the pram to the side of the road and walks back to her car. As she reaches her car door she realizes it’s open, not the way she left it. She reluctantly drives on but within a few seconds the antagonist appears to be sitting in the back of her car. The thriller then blacks out leaving the audience on a cliff hangar.
How it meets thriller conventions A crime at the core of the narrative is shown towards the end of the thriller as the antagonist has unauthorized entry into the protagonists vehicle. The audience also percepts that more crimes will come after the black out such as rape or murder.
Our thriller offers a subdued complex narrative structure, with false paths, clues and resolutions as before you even meet the antagonist there are clues placed in the narrative. The doll in the middle of the road heightens the tension as it’s an unusual item to find plus the stereotype of doll’s in thrillers will be in the back of the mind of the audience. It’s used as a false path as it is not directly linked towards the antagonist at first but towards the end a relationship is shown mainly through non-digetic sound.
The titles used in our thriller look as if they have been written in blood which reflect an aspect of the protagonists psychological state and give the audience an idea of what will happen. Although there is no blood in our thriller the ending leaves the audience of a cliffhangar and lets them make up their own decision of what will happen which the majority of will be centered around death. Therefore I feel that the titles were a good representation.
Costumes:
Ann-Marie plays a regular girl, so she will be wearing just a simple jeans and jmper, with a coat if it’s cold.
Barney, the antagonist, will wear dark clothes, though we probably won’t be seeing them at all.
Props:
1) Pram – She almost drives into the pram, this is what causes her to stop.
2) Blanket – the blankets covering the doll so she doesn’t know what’s underneath
3) Freaky doll – she finds the doll in the pram
4) Car – She’s driving
The props used are their to create anticipation within the audience. When they see the pram covered with the blanket, they will instantly be wondering what is underneath, why is it in the road, what’s going to happen next?
Setting:
The setting of our thriller is supposed Down a country lane at night, however due to filming restrictions and possibilities, we had to settle with the best setting we could find.
We filmed in quite a wide road, though it was very quiet. Also, we had to film during the day, and are planning on making it look like vening during the editing process.
Mise en Scene:
To make our thriller realistic, we have chosen to film in quite a realistic setting. A country lane is somewhere that anyone can be driving down, which makes it more naturalistic.
We’re making it look dark in the editing process, as we feel it would be more scarier in the dark as everything will be ambiguous.
