There are programs out there for people. People that have things in their lives that they can’t get over. Things like drugs, alcohol and gambling. Unfortunately, I don’t think there are any that can help me.

I have an addiction.

Now, granted some people have more of an addiction than I do (Like Doug) to gaming on their Pocket PCs or Smartphones (my personal gaming vice is on the PC) but I still have an addiction. My Addiction is Resco Diamonds. Doesn’t matter if it is on the Pocket PC or on my BlackJack – if I get 5 minutes of free time and I don’t have anything but my device with me … Diamonds gets loaded up. Resco Diamonds is my addiction and thankfully it’s a fairly harmless addiction. Unlike some drugs I can think of Diamonds isn’t likely to break up my marriage, and I’d be willing to bet my daughter isn’t going to look at me like a crack addict over it – but it’s an addiction none the less.

What’s so special about Diamonds that it’s caused this you ask? Well honestly, absolutely nothing about it is special. It’s just got something about it that makes it impossible to put away for long… sort of like a really good book. A good book doesn’t have anything "special" about it either, it’s just paper, ink, glue and some artwork - but something about it makes it different from all the other inked up paper bundles … and that’s what Resco Diamonds is like. There’s plenty of Bejewelled clones out there, heck there’s even Bejewelled itself – but Diamonds is just different enough to make it better. I’ve done the bejewelled thing and frankly I never got too into it. My wife did – I didn’t. My wife got waaaayyyy into Diamonds. 9pm and I’m trying to find my wife. Where do you think she was? On the bed. With Diamonds in hand. You just can’t put it down…

As you can see there’s four game modes in Diamonds:

Endless Lines – Simple concept – Create simple lines of diamonds for points. There’s no time limit just the simplicity of creating lines. Well … I hate to say it but it just isn’t that simple.

Action Lines – Got Time? – This builds on the concept of the endless lines, only the score bar doesn’t keep score, it’s a countdown timer. Timer hits the bottom and you lose.

Endless Shapes – My favorite – Here the simple concept gets even simpler. Create any shape as long as three or more diamonds are connected and blamo – you get points. Reach a preset amount of points to advance to the next level, the higher the level the more points you need to move on.

Action Shapes - My second favorite – This is the timed version of Endless shapes.

So as you can see, the concept is simple. The challenge is endless.

Above is the game interface. For Smartphones you use the D-Pad to move around. Select the color you want, press the D-Pad center button and then move the diamond the direction with which you want to swap it with. Simple. Atleast so it would sound.

Along the left side of the interface is basically the stats – the level you’re on, you best score in this game mode, your current score and the time.

So… where’s the addiction? I’ll show you where.

See the shiny diamond? That little bad boy is a "breaker" as I call it. You get a breaker by creating a line (or shape) of 4 diamonds. This breaker if joined into a line with other diamonds of it’s color will destroy all diamonds in the surrounding squares. Those are fun. More fun is the diamond below.

The Star of the game! The "star" is created by joining 5 or more diamonds together in a row (or shape). The great thing about the star is that all you have to do is swap it with a diamond of any color, and all of the diamonds on the board of that color are highlighted and then destroyed (obviously for points). Once that’s done the shift starts where all the new diamonds come in to replace the ones played… if done right you can amass thousands of points in just one move. I’ve done this on some levels and taken care of half the points I need to move on to the next level. Very Nice!

Anyway … That’s Resco Diamonds and it’s my adddiction.

I’m linking to a video I made (slow but it will give you the concept) of Resco Diamonds in action on the BlackJack.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZj8peJ57xo