Hero image: Microsoft Jewel launch video. Image: Microsoft Casual Games
Microsoft Casual Games has launched its first new mobile app in seven years — Microsoft Jewel, a Match-3 game that now runs as a standalone app on iOS and Android and pays out Xbox Achievements on your phone.
The announcement came through an Xbox Wire post on 30 September, which calls Jewel the fifth app in the Microsoft Casual Games mobile lineup.
The game itself isn’t new. Xbox Wire says players who have used Jewel on PC, inside Microsoft Solitaire Collection or through the Xbox mobile app will find the gameplay “familiar”. You match three or more jewels, build Bonus Jewels and use power-ups to set off chain reactions, and Daily Challenges set a new goal each day. What’s new is the packaging.
There are three parts to it. Signing in with a Microsoft account tracks Achievements on mobile, and it syncs progress between the iOS and Android apps and the standalone PC app — so a run started on a phone can be finished on PC “without starting over”.
The third is Game Pass. Xbox Game Pass members get Premium benefits on PC, which the post lists as an ad-free experience and “additional in-game benefits”. Game Pass Ultimate members get those same Premium benefits on both PC and mobile.
Australian players can get it now — the Australian App Store listing shows Microsoft Jewel as free, rated 4+, from Microsoft Corporation. It’s also on Google Play. Beyond ad-free play, Xbox Wire doesn’t spell out what the Premium benefits include.
Achievements have been a busy area for Xbox this week. Mythic Achievements became available to Xbox Insiders on 29 September, and we looked at them in our feature on why they reward finishing.
Jewel moves a small slice of that system onto phones, with the Ultimate tier carrying the ad-free version across both screens.
Source: Xbox Wire – Microsoft Jewel Comes to Mobile with XBOX Achievements and Game Pass Benefits, App Store – Microsoft Jewel, Google Play – Microsoft Jewel