• What is the secret behind the Emerald Tear?question mark image by Suresh Makinidi from Fotolia.com
  
  In "Jewel Quest Mysteries: Curse of the Emerald Tear," Rupert and Emma from the previous "Jewel Quest" games are searching for the Emerald Tear, a treasure that is said to have healing properties. When Rupert is afflicted with a mysterious illness, Emma's quest becomes more urgent. "Mysteries" features three kinds of puzzles that become gradually more difficult, but offers hints and upgrades you can use to your advantage.
  
  

Levels

• Each level contains hidden object, map and jewel board puzzles. You must complete all of these puzzles within the time limit for the level. At the beginning, you'll have two slots for hints, called "specials," but you'll be able to increase the number of slots and find additional specials as you play. New locations will appear on your map as you solve puzzles, so it's best to work quickly and conserve special moves to get through the level.
  
  

Hidden Object Puzzles

• In these puzzles, you must search locations for the items that appear on your list. Don't click randomly around the area when hunting for these objects, as 30 seconds will be deducted from your score if you make three consecutive incorrect clicks. You may use a special to highlight the location of a list item.
  
  Hidden object puzzles also contain gold coins and colored jewels, which aren't on the list. You'll receive an additional special move for every three gold coins you find. Use jewels to purchase upgrades between levels. Once you find the last item on your list, you'll return to the map screen, so collect all the coins and jewels before finishing the list.
  
  

Map Puzzles

• Map puzzles, which you must complete to unlock new locations, are solved by fitting puzzle pieces into the board and turning all of the spaces gold. Some map puzzles will provide you with more pieces than you need, making them trickier to solve. When two puzzle pieces overlap, the spaces will revert back to their original color, so it may be necessary to layer three or more puzzle pieces to turn all of the spaces gold. You can choose to skip the map puzzles, but you'll lose all of your specials for the level.
  
  

Jewel Board Puzzles

• Each level ends with a jewel board puzzle. You must also turn all of the spaces to gold, but this time, you do it by swapping gems and making lines of three or more pieces of the same color. You can use special moves to turn individual squares to gold, and more specials can be earned by making three matches of three gold coins.
  
  

Upgrades

• Level of Intuition adds one to your maximum number of special moves, and Journal Study adds one to the number of specials with which you begin the level. You can upgrade these abilities to 10. Each level of Preparation adds two minutes to the time limit, and each level of Jewel Board gives you five free gold squares when you begin jewel board puzzles. The cost in jewels for these upgrades increases with each level.
  
  The Jewel Sense upgrade, which can only be purchased once, for 50 jewels, helps you to identify jewels in the hidden object games. A sparkle will appear when your mouse cursor is near a jewel. This upgrade is expensive, but it will help you find more jewels and save time, so save up for it early in the game.