Man Beats Bejeweled 2

Father, grandfather, bowler, softball player, stock car racer, and steel contractor Mike Leyde has beaten Bejeweled 2.  Now, we know what you’re saying.  “Bejeweled 2 is the flagship product of PopCap Games, gurus of easy to learn, difficult to master.  You can’t beat Bejeweled any more than you can beat Tetris.”

Well, that’s true.  But you can, over a period of several years, amass a score so high that the game can no longer comprehend the magnitude of it: 2,147,483,647.

Leyde’s game was 2,205 hours and 51 minutes long (about three months), played it over the course of three years. His take on it:

I’d generally play the game for an hour or two per day, sometimes longer, depending on what my schedule would allow. I figured this was a marathon, not a sprint; no sense trying to finish the game in a single setting, and since I didn’t know what the maximum score might be, I figured I’d better pace myself.

His achievement becomes even more impressive when you hear what PopCap themselves have to say about it:

“While developing Bejeweled 2, we debated endlessly whether it was even possible to best the 2.147 billion ‘maximum’ score,” John Vechey, another of PopCap’s co-founders, reminisced. “We spent hours delving into intricate math equations and even created the ideal ‘AI program’ to play Bejeweled with a perfect strategy.  We deemed it impossible to hit such a high score and thus kept the cap at 2,147,482,575 knowing we were safe.  Finally, man has bested machine, jewels, and game developers.”

Congratulations Mr. Leyde.  Might we recommend Plants Vs. Zombies?

(via Joystiq.)