Skull Gem

The Skull Gem as it appears in-game.

"Careful! Skull gems eat downwards. When they reach the bottom, you lose!"

— Mouseover description from Bejeweled Twist.

The Skull Gem is a type of gem that was scrapped from Bejeweled Twist. It has no graphics and instead appears as a bare space on the board. Using a hex editor or LDinos Save Editor, you can make Skull Gems appear on the board.

Through a hex edit modification to the game's files, it is revealed that when a Skull appears, it continuously chomps and destroys the gems below it without regard of moves. Once it reaches the bottom of the board, the game ends but also crashes since there is no written death animation script for it. Thus, the player is required to actively "juggle" the Skull and to destroy it with Special Gems in a quick manner to end the threat.

Trivia

• In the Spanish version of Bejeweled Twist, Skull Gems and Doom Gems share the same name.
• According to evidence found inside the game files, it appears the Skull Gem would have appeared after Level 24 in Classic Mode. If this setting is changed, the game will freeze before it gets to the main menu.
• The Skull Gem apparently uses the same sound effect for the Bomb Gem's explosion once it reaches the bottom of the board.
• The message when the Skull Gem first appears shows "What's this? This SKULL is chomping thru your gems! Destroy it before it hits the bottom!" and "If the Skull reaches the bottom, it will destroy one of your Shards!"
  • It's possible that "Shards" is a scrapped mechanic. Bejeweled Blitz does have Shards as a form of currency to upgrade Boosts, however.
  • Obviously, this is no longer true in the final game. The game instant ends once Skull Gem reaches the bottom.
• Skull Gems functionally resemble Fire Tiles from Bookworm Deluxe - every time a word is spelled, any Fire Tiles in play destroy the tile below them. The game ends once a Fire Tile reaches the bottom of the board, burning up Bookworm's library in the process.

Names in other languages

Language	Name	Meaning
Japanese	スカルジェム Sukaru Jemu	Skull Gem
Spanish	Joya prohibida	Forbidden Jewel
French	Gemme crâne	Skull Gem
German	Schädelstein	Skull Gem
Italian	Gemma Teschio	Skull Gem
Portuguese	Caveira	Skull
Korean	해골보석 Haegol Boseog	Skull Gem