Bejeweled 3
Distraction Reduction

Posted:

When Bejeweled 3's game board starts filling up with fire gems, star gems, and other special effects, I sometimes have difficulty seeing matches through the sparkly special effects.  PopCap's games are usually fantastically animated, and this one's no exception, but all the flare can get especially annoying when you're playing a timed game and running out of time, you make a great move, and then the “compliment” text obscures the board for a full second or more.  Since Bejeweled 3 doesn't have an option to turn off these annoying distractions, I went to the trouble of removing them graphically:

  • Non-numeric “complement” text doesn't display any more, i.e. no more “SPECTACULAR!” obscuring the board (but giant, flashing score numbers still appear).
  • “GO!” has been shortened to “!”  I also shortened “GET READY!” to just “.” but it doesn't seem to show at all any more.
  • Fire gems and star gems are much less flashy.  It's still obvious what they are because the fire gems are still a bit fiery and star gems still have that “sucking up matter” effect.
  • I increased the transparancy of the “+TIME” gem overlays.  (I couldn't do anything about the jumping electricity as the effect doesn't appear to use an actual image file.)
  • Objects buried under the sand in quest games are transparent so that after you uncover them and they hover over the board you can still see what you're doing.
Gameboard with reduced visual effects.  Mouse-over to see with normal effects.

You may have to pay a bit more attention to notice what the special gems are, but when you're trying to match gems as fast as you can you don't have much time to strategize.  Just go nuts making matches and you'll usually do very well.

I've made these graphical fixes, but you'll still need to add them to the asset archive yourself:

Step 1:  Follow these instructions to decrypt and decompile the game's asset archive.

Step 2:  Download my modification pack, unpack it, and overwrite the original asset files.

Step 3:  Follow these instructions to recompile the game's asset archive.

Tips:

  • It's a good idea to back up the original assets archive so that you can easily restore the original graphics.
  • If you find that you like some of my changes but not others, you can easily pick and choose by selectively including my replacement files when you rebuild your assets archive.

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