wwwhizz' blog Blog about some tech, some linux, my MIDIbox SID, etc.

My Bejeweled Blitz cheat bot

A few months ago I've written a cheatbot (in Java) for PopCap's Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook. Today I've done a few improvements. Time to share this with the web.

You might think "OMG H4X!!!one!!". Well, not really. I didn't manipulate the game or browser in any way, I simply let my computer move my mouse and play the game.

How does it work?

• Take a screenshot of the current grid (or field)
• Check the color of the pixel in the middle of each gem on the grid
• If it's a hypercube: move the hypercube randomly to a direction
• Check for each gem whether moving it is a valid move
• If so, move it!
• Repeat until the minute is over
• ...
• Profit!

This performs pretty well, check out the video below:

Improvements still to be done:

• It does not recognize every special gem, this should be fixed
• The first valid move is now performed immediately, perhaps a better heuristic is possible (e.g. find hypercubes first, then search for multipliers... etc.)
• It should have a shortcut to e exited, now it keeps on running; making the mouse impossible to use until the minute is over.
• The code is a bit messy, should be cleaned up.

Funny thing: Normally Blitz guarantees there always is a new move, however I happened to have a field once with no further possibilities, probably because of a race condition between my bot and the game, see below.

Questions and comments are welcome