Bicycle Barrel - Levels 253 - 258

[OpeningCeremony]

oooh boy i am managing to keep up with TL's updates to Jewel Mania... quite the challenge!!

Level 253... glass moves level with surprise doom jewels



35 moves to break 40 glass in this interestingly shaped board. the more difficult areas to break are the left and right columns. some of the corners in this shape can be tricky and oh this entire thing is double glassed. i made a bunch of vertical blasters in the center vertical strip, so that area seemed to take care of itself. haven't passed yet... so i'll be focusing on the left and right sides. and doom jewels drop in so you gotta waste moves on making sure these don't detonate. the count seems to start at 8 on the doom jewels, but i swear i saw one that started at 7... not sure because all the ones that dropped in after i thought i saw 7, were all 8.

oh and interesting note that i just learned. i had a diamond next to a green blaster and there was one doom jewel on the board that happened to be green too. so i was trying to get more green colored jewels on the board before i combined the diamond + blaster. i waited until the count on the doom jewel was at 1 to make the diamond + blaster combo. but instead of the doom jewel turning into a blaster, it detonated. to add insult to injury, one of the jewels that turned into a blaster lined up with the detonated doom jewel and blasted it. sigh... but i guess it doesn't matter since it already detonated. i think the detonation should happen after all the jewel movement on the board is done, but oh well.

[OpeningCeremony]

i'm dying!! i left my charger at home and my device ran out of batteries... just thinking about the unused energies is driving me bananas!! i can't even post the pics some of the other levels (254, 255) because they're stored on it! aaaaaaaah!! (just had to vent )

[Phaedrakiki]

Lol, it ****s me, too--when energies go to waste! When I get too busy or something happens that keeps me from playing, that #5 energy level just hovers in the back of my mind...

Suppose we're addicts? Hope you can play soon!

[thesacredphoenix]

I'm having a hard time catching up with you, aileeniweeni, haha. I got caught up on a couple in the Windmill Heights level. I'm currently on 246 and those darn teleport panels make burning the flames difficult! I'll have to try extra hard to catch up!

[OpeningCeremony]

Lol, it ****s me, too--when energies go to waste! When I get too busy or something happens that keeps me from playing, that #5 energy level just hovers in the back of my mind...

Suppose we're addicts? Hope you can play soon!

turns out i had a car charger, so i charged it as soon as i got in my car. but i'm still in the same place as i was 2 days ago and yes i think we are addicts!! JMA (jewel mania anonymous)

I'm having a hard time catching up with you, aileeniweeni, haha. I got caught up on a couple in the Windmill Heights level. I'm currently on 246 and those darn teleport panels make burning the flames difficult! I'll have to try extra hard to catch up!

i know what you mean about those teleports!! the jewels end up going where you don't want them to you'll be here soon!! not very far at all. i'm currently stuck on 256... that one is hard but not. gonna post some pics hehe.

[OpeningCeremony]

Level 254... timed digging level with super dirt and surprise doom jewels







this is a loooooooong dig down. there are only 3JC (3 jewel colors) on the board so expect a lot of special jewels to be made. even though you make a lot of bombs, blasters, and diamonds, it doesn't really matter unless they're strategically placed to blast through the super dirt. sometimes diamonds aren't that helpful, and remember that this level is timed (2:40 on the clock), so you don't want to have to wait for blaster after blaster to go off. but sometimes you can't help it and the special jewels will just make themselves. this level is pretty fun but you gotta hustle to the bottom. if you reach past the goal line, (happened in the round that i passed), the matching continues for awhile after the clock ran out and it was crazy! but my score was still very low compared to Paul's #1 score which is 1,615,000! oh and i forgot to mention that doom jewels drop down, but you really don't have to even worry about them because there is so many matches going on that it'll take care of itself. if you happen to see one w/ 5 sec left, then maybe you should worry. haha

[OpeningCeremony]

Level 255... digging moves level with restricted jewels and super dirt




not a far dig down compared to the level beforehand. but it's actually quite difficult to make well-placed special jewels in this level. i didn't really focus on trying to get rid of the stone jewels, but releasing the restricted jewels is helpful to dig down and make useful matches. anytime i'd make a horizontal blaster it'd be too high and not within super dirt range. or i'd make a vertical blaster that was in the center, so it wasn't even blasting through super dirt. i can't remember how i passed it exactly, but obviously special jewels were involved. 30 moves in the level, so play smart.

[OpeningCeremony]

Level 256... timed fire level with snakes and crates



ok WTH. i was playing this level a couple days ago and it used to look like this... NOW it looks like this monstrosity below:



6 snake heads on one snake body. must eliminate all to get direct access to the fire below. the fire spreads pretty quickly, and there's only 0:45 on the clock. this is really not much time at all. getting rid of the crates also makes it easier to contain the fire above the snake body. but there's so little time that you need a ****er perfect round to pass this (or so it feels like). i've gotten close with one flame left, but then time ran out. sigh. i've been stuck on this level for awhile, hoping the time will increase.

[OpeningCeremony]

wow level 256 was really tough to pass especially with the additional 2 snake heads to get rid of! somehow i managed to pass it within that 45 second window. just make any match you can, but try to make vertical blasters if possible.

Level 257... glass moves level with snakes and stone jewels



the hardest snake heads to get rid of are the one at the very top left corner, the very bottom right corner, and the 4-head cluster in the bottom left corner. most of the snake heads in the middle will be easy to get rid of by blasters, bombs, or just simple match making around their heads. the ones in the top right wasn't very difficult to get rid of each time i played this round. but remember that there is glass underneath the mini-2-headed snake in the top right corner. once you clear out that massive snake body, you'll be left with glass and the 4-stone jewel cluster in the bottom left corner. the stone jewels can be tricky to move out of the way or get rid of via special jewel making. so focus all your moves towards moving out those stone jewels so you can break the double-glass underneath them. this level took me a few tries, but i really enjoyed it because it involves a lot of thinking to make smart moves

ooh one time i had a board reshuffle because there weren't any matches, so it moved the stone jewels out. but of course i wasn't able to clear out all the snake heads to have enough moves left to break all the glass. darn!

[OpeningCeremony]

Level 258... timed fire level



this level looks like it's straight forward. but the only tricky parts is getting rid of the fire in the tight spots. also try to prevent it from growing too tall, then it gets into those upper tight spots. blaster + bomb towards the bottom would be perfect. only tried twice but haven't passed it yet. 1:35 on the clock for now.