~ New Facebook Game: Zuma Blitz ~

I just love Popcap Games!  I have been addicted to their games for almost 10 years!  Ever since they introduced Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook, I have been playing every week, trying to score higher than my friends.  A few days ago, I was playing Bejeweled and noticed an ad for Zuma Blitz.  I have played Zuma before and it's a good game, so I clicked on it and my addiction began!

Zuma is a simple game.  Color balls come out of 2 holes in the rock and follow tracks toward the golden skull at the end of the tracks.  You have to shoot color balls from the frog's mouth at the center.  The balls you shoot will squeeze between the balls on the track and if your ball create a group of 3 or more of the same color then they disappear.

This game is pretty much the same as Magnetica on Nintendo DS.  It's a pretty addictive game.  My mom actually broke her DS screen playing this game.  Zuma Blitz has a lot of other add ons though.  The add on are similar to the ones you see playing Bejeweled Blitz.  You have the score multipliers (x2) and you have these "fruits" that you can shoot at for bonus points.

 

And similar to Bejeweled Blitz's coins and powerups, in Zuma Blitz you get Mojos depending on the number of balls you hit and you can use those for powerups.  The difference is that you need to earn XP (which you earn per game) to level up and unlock these powerups.  You can also get Idols when you are lucky, which you can use to purchase Mojo and other items. 

 

 They also have spirit animals that represent the number of times you get a certain score.  Whenever you "level up" a score level, you gain a "new circle".  Note the words near the bottom, they are kinda funny.

 Now, the most interesting thing about this game is that you get Life, which are the little hearts at the top of the screen.  When you first play, you get 5 hearts that are all filled.  Every time you play a game, a heart goes away.  When you don't have any more hearts, you can't play anymore.  You can either wait for the Next Life or buy more hearts with real money.  This is pretty ingenious!  You can play for free, but if you really want to play a lot, you have to pay!  What a great system!   I love it 'cause it's a way to control my addiction.  Sometimes though, they may be nice and give you a chance to flip a coin and refill your life gauge.

 

Don't worry, you get your hearts refilled when you level up using your XP.  And you get idols and Mojos too.   I think this is a very well thought out game and they learned a lot from Bejeweled.  I always thought that there's no point to level up for Bejeweled.  Now, there's a reason to level up for Zuma and I just want to unlock more and more features!  Ok, after writing all this, my life bar has refilled.  Time to play!