Zuma Walkthrough and Guide

Zuma Walkthrough and Guide

Basic Game Play

Veterans of Puzzle Bobble (sometimes known as Bust-A-Move) should feel right at home with Zuma. The premise is simple: there is a string of different coloured balls with a frog situated in the middle. The frog shoots balls out from its mouth, and if you complete a string of three (or more) of the same coloured balls, they disappear and the game continues. After clearing out a certain number of these bubbles, the game will announce that you've achieved "Zuma", and no new balls will be added to the string. The key to victory is to eliminate the entire string before it reaches the deadly skull at the end of the path that the balls travel on.

Sound simple enough? Well, it is. Zuma is one of those games that only takes a few moments to understand, but can take a very long time to master. Just like Tetris, Dr. Mario, or any number of other classic puzzle games.

What this walkthrough and guide is designed to do is not teach you basics, but instead to help you master this game. Interested? Then, keep reading.

General Strategy and Tips

• Special Balls: There are at least two special balls involved in this game. One of these has a "pause" symbol on it. When it is burst, the string of balls temporarily slows down to a crawl, giving you more time to clear out as many bubbles as you can. The other one has a glowing circle in the center. When this is cleared, it explodes, taking several balls in its direct vicinity with it.

• Changing Colors: The left mouse button is used to shoot the ball from the frog's mouth, whereas the right mouse button can be used to swap the next ball to be shot. When it is changed, it cannot be changed back. While this function can come in useful sometimes, try not to get too caught up changing colors as it can prove time consuming, and could leave you with a difficult string (because you are leaving several "singles").

• Combinations: Bonus points are awarded for creating combinations. In other words, by destroying one set of balls, you create a new string of 3 or more balls of the same color, they will also burst, and so on. Use this to your advantage.

Four Stages

These are the four stages in the basic web version of Zuma found on the Popcap Games website. These four stage layouts loop each time you complete them, with each successive level increasing in speed and difficulty, sometimes throwing an additional color into the mix. These four stages may or may not be the same as the Yahoo! rendition of Zuma.

These names are not official, and have simply been added to this guide for ease of discussion and reference.

• Simple Spiral: There isn't anything particularly strange or difficult about this first stage. The spiral starts from the outside, and slowly works its way toward the center. There is no "blocking" involved, or any other wrench thrown into the machine to make it difficult. With this stage, as well as with the next three, the best strategy is to always focus your attention on the "front" of the line of balls and these will reach the center first. Other than that, you'll need quick reflexes and good aim.

• Double Wishbone: As you can tell by the image provided to the right, the path on which the balls travel is a little more complicated than the simple spiral found on the first layout. Like above, it is imperative to focus the majority of your attention on the "head of the snake", if you will. Because of the "u-turn" nature of this course, there are several opportunities to shoot in the gaps that you produce and gain yourself bonus points, but beware of accidentally missing and getting yourself in more trouble. Also, be careful when you are aiming to shoot at a specific ball while it is in one of those turns, as missed shots are quite common.

• Tunnel and Blockade: There are two "tunnels" that the balls travel through in this course, making it impossible for you to shoot at them while they are underground. Furthermore, because of these tunnels, the "head of the snake" is typically not available to you until they are nearly at the menacing skull. It is absolutely paramount to reach "Zuma" as soon as you possibly can, and while you will likely not be able to aim at the front of the line of balls most of the time, you should bear in mind how close it is to getting to the center. This is arguably the most difficult layout.

• Two-Headed Snake: While the first three stages only had one string of balls heading toward the skull, this final stage (before moving on to the next level) has two. Try not to focus too much on one string over the other, as it will be difficult to recover if you do. The row that terminates near the bottom is blocked by the other string for at least half of its path, but don't forget that it is there.