SEATTLE, WA–At first, when PopCap Game’s PR team was contacted by Her Majesty’s Digital Entertainment Secretary, Jocelyn Hyde-Parkington, everybody thought it was a prank.

“I literally told her to quit humping my leg,” laughed Senior PR Manager Alice Goodoll, recalling the fateful day last February, when she took the call. “I mean, who would believe that the Queen has a Digital Entertainment Secretary?”

But as it turned out, the Queen was actually a devoted Bejeweled fan, and she had made a very special request. Once the lines of communication had been sorted out, PopCap found itself in the unique position of fulfilling the Queen’ personal birthday wish.

“She wanted us to replace the standard Bejeweled images with pictures of the Crown Jewels in the game,” related Bejeweled product manager, Liam Flannity, himself an Irishman who was raised to think of the Queen as a symbol of British imperialism and a bit of a cow. Apparently that all changed once the royal invoice had been submitted. “How can you refuse the bloody Queen?” he grinned.

The PopCap team flew to London, where they spent a week inside the Tower photographing, measuring, and occasionally donning the world’s most famous collection of bling. One team member noted snarkily that the crowns were surprisingly small, to which a palace representative wittily observed that perhaps it was more a matter of Americans being fat stupid pigs.

In the end, after thorough baggage searches, the team returned to Seattle to build the special game. On April 21st at Buckingham Palace, Flannity and Goodoll presented the one-of-a-kind Crown Bejeweled: QEII Edition, to Her Majesty during her annual birthday gala. Delighted by the gift, Her Majesty retired to the family quarters, where Prince Charles and Princes William and Harry looked on as the British matriarch launched into a blistering round of Action mode.

“Now we’re considering a whole new line of themed Bejeweled versions, “Flannity revealed to IGNN. “We’re already in talks with singer Jewel and Liz Taylor. Then there’s Jules Verne, of course–we could do a

time machine theme. People could even send us pictures of their own jewelry and stuff, kind of like those customized credit cards, and we could personalize their copy of the game with the pics. We could call that one the Family Bejeweled!”

For now, PopCap Games hasn’t announced any specific release dates for customized Bejeweled theme editions. — Jess Ariella