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Remember the times of the immensely popular Puzzle Bubble? I recall spending a large part of my pocket money heading down to the arcade and playing Puzzle Bubble, trying to best the score of the previous player. The whole point is to burst all the bubbles by detonating them with three of the same colour before you run out of time. I recently stumbled upon Zuma Deluxe, a game based on the same principle, but more developed but equally addictive.

Zuma Deluxe is an action puzzle game designed by PopCap Games, the studio that brought us BeJeweled. The interface of Zuma is similar to that of Puzzle Bubble. You take control of a ball-spitting frog with your mouse and the objective is to shoot the coloured balls at the rows of balls that will be rotating around you. The line of balls will edge slowly towards an abyss; you will lose the game when the first ball in the line reaches the hole and drops in. Thus the player will have to detonate like-coloured balls in the snaking line by shooting balls of the same colour to them. Three of more same-coloured balls will explode, shortening the line.

There are various power-ups that add some depth to the game. ‘Backwards ball’ causes the line to reverse direction and move backwards for a temporary period of time, hence the name. ‘Accuracy ball’ allows the frog to emit a beam of light from its mouth to allow easier aiming of balls. There are also special explosive balls which detonate on a more massive scale and other bonuses.

This game is easy to understand, easy to play and extremely difficult to stop. The first time I started playing Zuma, I sat there glued to the screen for two whole hours. Stages become progressively harder and levels become more complicated. Also the innumerable levels will keep the average gamer occupied for a significant amount of time. However, since the game mechanics, although impressive compared to other puzzle games, are exactly the same throughout all levels, the gameplay might become monotonous and boring to gamers who crave more excitement.

Zuma Deluxe has given me countless hours of fun and even more hours of hair-yanking frustration and is one of my favourite puzzle games on PC. For a US$20 price tag (you can get it for less than $10 from Amazon), this game is definitely worth the buy.

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