Jewel Quest is a ‘match 3’ puzzle played on a grid filled with various tokens, such as diamonds, gold nuggets, coins, and skulls. The player may swap any two adjacent tiles, as long as the swap results in a horizontal/vertical line of three or more matching tokens. The matched set disappears, allowing tokens to drop into the gaps from above; if more matched sets form as a result, they disappear as well.
Whenever tiles disappear, the background grid positions turn gold. The player must turn every square on the board to gold in order to complete the level. Failing to do so within the given time limit, or reaching a situation in which no more swaps are possible, costs one life and sends the player back to the start of that level.
As the game progresses, new variations are introduced to make gameplay more difficult: irregularly shaped grids, squares in hard-to-reach places, tokens that must be matched multiple times to clear them from the board, and so on.
