Game Review
Jewel Thief by ServantWare/Paul Ligeski
Jewel Thief is definitely one of my all time favorite games, one of the
few that is 100% mouse based. This game looks so easy on the surface, all
you have to do is move your person over all the jewels on the screen without
having all your lives eaten by running into enemies such as spiders, bats,
and helicopters, and then you move on to the next level. There are 14 levels.
The last one, with raindrops requires very precise timed mouse movements
to get through. This game is very addictively simple yet challenging.
Here is a download link for Jewel Thief shareware
version 1.3. It works fine on Windows 95/98, but seeing as how it was
written in 1992, i'm pretty sure it better work on Windows 3.1 also. The
only thing worth noting is that the game is much easier to play in 256
color mode than "high color" mode. In high color mode the guards and bats
and whatnot will appear almost invisible. Change your display settings
first.
Strategy Tips:
Did you catch what I said about setting your display to 256 color mode?
I also like to turn my resolution down to 640x480 to play this game--that's
what it was designed for, and definitely seems easier that way. Turn your
windows "asterisk" and "default sound" to none or pc speaker beep. If you
have a sound file, you will only hear one "ding" when you lost five lives,
whereas with pc speaker sound you get more immediate feedback of how fast
you have to move to avoid double and triple dings on your lives. Other
than that, make sure you clean your mouse before playing--being able to
accurately and precisely move the mouse is critical in this game. Oh yeah,
and one last strategy: practice. Warm up on "expert" and then turn it down
and suddenly the game will seem really easy compared to the faster mode.
Screen Shots:
This is the ninth level, one of my favorites because it's when you can
stop and take a "rest break" since the guards can't move up to the sky
but you can. This comes right after a challenging level too, so getting
here is an accomplishment most days.
This is the second level. The first level looks much the same but with
a different jewel. See how they start you off easy with only four "enemies"
you want to avoid?
What can I say about this one? The bats are much easier than the spiders
that come on this same background in the next level. I like the cute heart
shaped rubies.
Ships... nothing particularly exciting about this level other than it
is nearly impossible in high color mode because the Onyx triangles disappear
unless they overlap!
