PopCap and Square Enix’s Final Fantasy Bejeweled, or as I like to call it, Gyromancer, started similar to how most videogames do: as a joke. Alright, maybe that’s just how it happens in my mind and isn’t at all indicative of real life. Maybe.
Jason Kapalka, co-founder of PopCap, told GameLife that he was “half-joking” when he pitched the original concept for Gyromancer to Square Enix. Since Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords borrows from Bejeweled, he thought it would be “karmically neutral” for them to make a puzzle/RPG hybrid game in the same vein.
But instead of PopCap straight up copying a company who copied them, which would have been hilarious and probably ended tragically, they took the high road and gave Gyromancer the mechanics from Bejeweled Twist. Kapalka says it feels more “strategic,” and better suits “their vision for the game’s storyline and world.”
If only the jokes we made here on Destructoid would get turned into videogames. Oh wait, that totally happens already. How silly of me.
