Jewel Quest

An extra life is given out for every 50,000 points scored. Get within a few hundred points of the next extra life (49,960; 99,460; 149,460, etc) and then let yourself die. On your next life, quickly make a combo or two to get your extra life and then restart the level. When you restart, they'll let you keep the extra life but your points will be set back. You can repeat this until you have a maximum of 20 lives.

The more you progress through the game, the harder the levels get. If you only have, say 4 lives remaining, and you start to fail some levels, you're going to come up short of the score. By having the most lives or near the most, you have a better chance at getting to 500,000 points.

First off, this must be completed in one sitting.

Secondly, if you are like me and had already completed all the difficulty levels before doing this it can be a little confusing on how to start back on the Explorer setting (Easy difficulty). Using Level Select from the main menu does not work when working towards this achievement, because it will return you to the main menu after you complete the chosen level. Here's how to fix that. Start a game from the main menu and it will take you to the last level you played. Make 3-4 moves and then quit out to the main menu. You should be warned that doing so will cost 1 life. Start the game again and you will be prompted by a new window to continue your previous game. From here press "Y" to start a new game. Confirm in the next dialog box and you should now be on level 1-1 on the Explorer difficulty.

When going for this achievement starting on this difficulty you will do one full playthrough on Explorer and then the game will cycle back to level 1-1 on Researcher difficulty (Normal difficulty, this adds the challenge of buried pieces). The achievement should unlock near the end of the 4th area or beginning of the 5th.

Now as for gaining extra lives to help you with this. Extra lives are awarded for every 50,000 points. You can set yourself up to start earning extra lives within the first few levels as you approach 50,000. To do this it is important to NOT go over 50K. Instead get within a few hundred without going over. Next let your timer run out (you will lose one life). On the next turn make a quick combo to give you the points to go over 50k. This must be done in 1-2 moves. When you get your new life quit and restart the game. You now have your extra life and still be under the 50k mark. It is important that you do no more than 2 moves as any more and the game will penalize you for quitting. This process can be repeated until you reach the maximum of 20 lives. I highly suggest doing this at the first 50K to set yourself up for the later levels and that way if you mess up you can quickly play through the first few levels again.