In 2001, Kapalka said the typical response to his saying that he made Bejeweled was 'So what?' Now he says the response is more along the lines of, 'B******* you did.' The game has achieved an odd sort of ubiquity in our culture, but it started in a pretty humble way. However, he did mention that at his local arcade, someone had spilled soda on the game's trackball, making for a sub-optimal interface. 'No offense to Mark Cerny or anything, but I hate Marble Madness,' Kapalka said. Before settling on gems, Kapalka considered making the game with fruit. However, there was one scheduled postmortem that made him feel a bit better about the situation: Marble Madness. When considering the games and creators involved in the other Game Developers Conference postmortems, he said he felt like Justin Bieber receiving a lifetime achievement award. What they talked about: Kapalka opened with an admission that he was a bit nervous leading up to the session. Who was there: PopCap cofounder and chief creative officer Jason Kapalka delivered a postmortem on his company's original cash cow Bejeweled, which has sold 50 million copies since its debut.

Bejeweled twist fruit gem