Dave Beauvais’ Web Site

I stopped by the Astraware site today when I read about their new RPG game and noticed that a new version of Bejeweled was released today. The game play itself is unchanged, but this new version supports VGA Pocket PCs running Windows Mobile 2003 SE! It’s nice to see a VGA-compatible game released — even if it’s an older game — and I hope this is the start of a new trend. The pixel-doubling required to make non-VGA applications stretch to fit a 480×640 screen does not make for smooth, crisp images.

This release does have an occasional, but very annoying delay on both my iPAQ hx4700 and the Dell X50v I use at work. The sound of the gems swapping plays, but the actual on-screen animation doesn’t happen until almost a full second later. The game will be completely smooth for another 10–15 seconds, then there will be the delay again. It’s just often enough to be annoying, but not so bad that I want to stop playing this highly addictive game.

Great work, Astraware!

This entry was posted on Monday, November 8th, 2004 at 23:50 and is filed under Pocket PC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.