Big matches are trickier at first, but some old friends are still ready and waiting. Crucially, I can't remember really playing Twist that much beyond a few turns at the EMP, so earlier this week I thought I'd give it another five minutes as a reminder of why I didn't like it, and then I'd get on with my life, an older and wiser engine. It sold well enough, I gather, but I don't get the impression it connected with its audience as obviously as Bejeweled 2 had - and by the time Bejeweled 3 came along, the alterations that Twist made to the basic formula were nowhere to be seen. Somewhere in my mind, I have Bejeweled Twist filed as a bit of a botch. Twist, meanwhile, would prove considerably more problematic. The tower defence offering was one simple name-change away from video game legend. Less typically, they had gotten the specifics muddled up. Typically, as it happens, the PopCap founders were correct.
![popcap.com bejeweled twist popcap.com bejeweled twist](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/EZMAAOSwtEhgXR6Q/s-l300.jpg)
No worries, though, right? Whatever happened, they had a guaranteed million-seller on their hands, and another game that should at least go on to be an entertaining curio.
![popcap.com bejeweled twist popcap.com bejeweled twist](https://images.sftcdn.net/images/t_app-cover-l,f_auto/p/81bdceba-9b27-11e6-893a-00163ec9f5fa/2621948429/bejeweled-twist-screenshot.png)
Pre-lawyering, it was called Lawn of the Dead. A zombified spin on the tower defence genre, they knew it was clever, but they sensed it was potentially a little too hardcore, a little too niche to become another cash cow.
![popcap.com bejeweled twist popcap.com bejeweled twist](https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/3560/0000006077.1920x1080.jpg)
They'd shown me an early build of another new game, and it was one they seemed to be ever so slightly nervous about. Earlier that day, I'd had a chat with the company founders back at their huge HQ just down the road. Gymnasts played human match-three in the wonky, Gehry-rigged lintels, and waiters in retro-future Jetsons outfits wandered about serving cocktails. In 2008 - before the crash - PopCap launched Bejeweled Twist with a party in the Sky Church at Seattle's Experience Music Project venue.