As you can see, the balls roll in in two long paths. You need to prepare for long shots as well as close ones, but the keys for scoring big on this week’s Zuma board are fruits and gap shots.

Fruits are usually located in hard-to-reach areas of the board, but this week they are much easier to grab. If you blast the balls quickly out the way, and prevent them from getting too close to you, you can snatch 4-5 fruit each game – which can get you some serious points.

For really mastering the fruit grabbing, you need to learn how to quickly launch two balls, one after the other – one to create the gap in the balls that allows you access to the fruit, and the next one to actually get the fruit – BEFORE the rest of the balls rush in and block the juicy treat. I call it “Tap-Tap” – because you need to do a quick double-click on the mouse in order to get it right. You WILL miss sometimes, but if you master this technique, you can get much more fruit while playing Zuma.

Because of the long, parallel lines in which the balls roll this week, you can get many gap shots if you are smart and quick enough. A great way to make gaps is the inferno frog. Match the balls quickly to gather heat, and when you get the inferno frog (that spits 3 fire balls), make holes in the lines of balls. This way you can get plenty of gap shots until the balls close the gaps.

Recommended powers for this week’s board

For this week, my top choice of powers would be:

• Time (as always)
• Sun Frog
• Epic Fruit (optional)

You can also go with bombs or chain blast, instead of the Epic Fruit, but personally I think that too many blasts make you lose opportunities for combos, which can get you tons of points.

The Sun Frog is wonderful for making gaps in the lines. If you make a big enough gap, you can get great scoring gap shots for quite a few seconds.

If you need more general tips, check out the Zuma Blitz Guide.

Good luck and have fun!

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The original Zuma game was released exactly 7 years ago, on December 2003, and became one of the most popular casual games around. PopCap has created many hits after Zuma, of course, but it remained one of their most famous games.

Following the success of Bejeweled Blitz, PopCap has created Zuma Blitz – a one-minute social game that will take many hours of your spare time.

The purpose of Zuma Blitz is simple – score as many points as you can in one minute. You start out with just a few Lives (represented by hearts), and each time you play – you lose one. When you have finished all your lives, you can wait for them to reload (takes some time) or purchase new ones at the store. This limitation, which doesn’t exist on Bejeweled Blitz, for example, isn’t there because PopCap is worried about your productivity and wasted hours, but because it might tempt you to buy more lives using Facebook coins and/or real money.

Leveling up is meaningful on Zuma Blitz – unlike Bejeweled, where the badges are just for show. When you level up on Zuma Blitz, you get more lives, they recharge faster, you accumulate more Mojo and you get access to more power-ups.

If you need a basic guide for Zuma blitz gameplay, click here. This post is mainly for users who know how to play, and want to better their scores.

Zuma Blitz Tips and High Score Guide

WORK FAST

This may sound obvious, but it isn’t just because you have only one minute on Zuma Blitz. Taking out as many balls as you can, as quickly as you can, will get you the Inferno Frog – 3 shots of balls that blow up, get you many points and give you the bonuses you need (mainly Chrono Balls and Multiplires). Try to get at least two Inferno Frogs in a game.

MULTIPLIERS ARE KEY

Just as they were on Bejeweled Blitz, multipliers are very important on Zuma Blitz, as well. You can get dozens of chains, blow up balls and grab fruit, but if you didn’t catch those multipliers, you won’t get that high score. A good game is usually one when you get at least to X7 or X8. More is the better, of course. If you can get a multiplier without breaking the chain – good. If not, consider braking the chain for it – it’s usually worth it.

TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE

You start out on Zuma Blitz with one minute, but you can substantially extend this time. You do that by taking out Chrono Balls – each one is worth 5 more seconds. When you level up, you can also use the Chrono Ball power up, with which the Chrono Balls give you 6 seconds each. You can easily add 30-40 seconds to your game with the Chrono Balls. A longer game usually means more point.

DON’T LET GREED GET IN THE WAY

Fruit. They are tempting. They look so juicy and pretty, and they can give you a large amount of points. Treasure chests are also very appealing – who knows what kind of bonus you’ll get! Problem is, these fun items may mess up your game – they tend to appear behind ball lines and in many cases you will break chain because of them. Also, they tend to distract you and attract your attention – thus interfering with your concentration and game flow. Take out a fruit or chest only when you are sure you can hit them, and don’t sacrifice the chain for them.

KEEP UP THE CHAIN

With some multipliers, chain score can get very high. Make sure you don’t break the chain and try to get as high as you can – you can get X50 and more when it comes to chains – and that’s a lot of points.

FUCK UP AT THE BEGINNING

A game can start out lamely, but end up in a nice high score. That’s because most of the bigger points are accumulated towards the end of the game – after you got yourself some multipliers and turned on some chains heat. So, if you fuck up or need to sacrifice the chain, do it at the beginning of the game.

A CRISIS IS ALSO AN OPPORTUNITY

You will mess up, of course. We all do. If you missed a ball or hit the wrong spot and broke the chain – use this chance to grab some multipliers and Chrono Balls. Since your chain is gone anyway, the seconds after your mistake can be used to gaining some advantage and maybe salvaging the game.

USE THE POWERS

But sparingly. You don’t want to be dependent on powers for a good game. In fact, I got my best scores without any powers. Still, powers are fun and can help you through the harder boards. There are many possible power combinations, and they change as you level up, too. Mind you – tons of blasts (Canon, Bombs) won’t guarantee high scores on Zuma Blitz – they will most likely break the chain and give you very little in return. Useful (although not as flashy) power-ups include the Multiplier (gives you X2 at the beginning of the game), Chrono Balls (makes your Chrono Balls worth 6 seconds) and Last Hurrah (blows up any remaining bonus balls at the end of the game).

DON’T BE HASTY

Speed is essential, but plowing along without paying attention will get you into trouble. The most common mistake is not failing to compensate for the speed in which the balls move when they close a gap of two same-colored balls. If you aren’t careful, you will miss your next target, because the balls are moving at greater speed, and you might break the chain and lose important points.

CLEAR THE CURVE

Completely clearing a curve will give you many points. Use Inferno Frog or just plain fast work to clear a curve, if you can.

RIGHT CLICK IS YOUR FRIEND

On a perfect game, every ball has a great target and you never break the chain. On an average game, you might not always be happy with your current ball. You can right-click in order to switch to the next ball. It might be very useful – you lose half a second, but you keep the chain and bonuses going. If the balls are the same color, it won’t be very helpful, though.

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The long awaited sequel to Bejeweled 2 will launch on PopCap.com on December 7, 2010.

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Zuma Blitz is expected to roll out gradually via Beta launch in approximately three weeks.

PopCap plans to continue evolving Zuma Blitz over time, in a fashion similar to the ongoing addition of major new features and functionality in Bejeweled Blitz. New features available at the introduction of Zuma Blitz next month are expected to include:

• Weekly tournaments and leader-boards
• New levels introduced regularly
• An “experience points” system to unlock additional features and capabilities
• A “Treasure Chest” virtual currency-based system for obtaining in-game power-ups
• New features such as time extenders, score multipliers and the “Hot Frog” speed mode
• Additional information on friends’ in-game performance and status such as medals won, achievements earned at various point thresholds and experience level

Zuma Blitz joins Bejeweled Blitz as PopCap’s second full-fledged social game on Facebook. Bejeweled Blitz has attracted nearly 30 million users since its introduction 18 months ago, and more than 100 million sessions of the game are played each day by consumers worldwide.

More Addictive Casual Games by PopCap

• Plants VS Zombies
• Peggle Nights
• Chuzzle
• Insaniquarium

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PopCap games announced that a California steel contractor named Mike Leyde played a single round of Bejeweled 2, for 2,205 hours and 51 minutes over the course of three years.

In that time, he collected 4,872,229 gems, earning the game’s highest possible score, 2,147,483,647. Not only that – the score was apparently so high, that the score display got mad and went blank – maybe because it couldn’t take it anymore.

According to PopCap, Leyde is the first person to ever “beat” Bejeweled 2.

Here’s a video displaying his achievement:

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Is there a formula to it? Can you easily create a successful Facebook game? Let’s take a look at the 10 most popular games on Facebook and see what we can find.

#10 – Zoo World by RockYou!

Cute animals are a sure magnet for kids and cute-crazed people. Zoo World has over 18 million monthly active users. This game offers basic, childish graphics and annoying MIDI music. The goal is to manage a successful zoo. The social features are the regular ones – send gifts to friends, boast your zoo achievements and more. The game sends constant status updates about your activity to the profile. You can also buy items and animals using real money – the usual scam. Despite its popularity, the game has a rating of only 3.5 stars.

#9 – PetVille by Zynga

Again with the cute animals. This time – tamagotchi style. In PetVille, you take care of one pet. You need to dress, feed, and decorate its house. The game borrows heavily from PlayFish’s Pet Society. It was launched about 2 months ago, and has over 18 million active users per month.

#8 – Pet Society by PlayFish

This game (again) allows you to grow a virtual pet and interact with it. In Pet Society, you can play games, decorate your house and bring gifts for your friends when you visit them. You can also compete against other pets in the stadium. These are all familiar features if you’ve ever been to NeoPets.com. As we can already see – originality isn’t a required feature when it comes to popular Facebook games. The game has about 18.7 million active users per month.

#7 – Mafia Wars by Zynga

Mafia Wars was more popular in the past, but it seemed to have slid down in the rankings. In the game, you need to start a Mafia family with your friends, do crime jobs for cash, buy weapons and fight – your regular life of crime. Mafia wars leans heavily on its social features – the more members you have in your mafia, the more options you get. This turned the game into a spam machine, where people constantly implore you to join their mafia. Mafia Wars has 24.6 million monthly active users.

#6 – Texas HoldEm Poker by Zynga

This game simply rides on the huge popularity of Texas Holdem, with some added social features, free chips and many announces to remind you that you didn’t play today. There’s also a leveling system to keep it a tad more interesting. Zynga’s Texas Holdem has over 25 million active users per month.

#5 – FishVille by Zynga

Fish are a strong theme among the popular Facebook games. They are, apparently, cute and attractive enough to gain the favor of Facebook users. This game replicates the successful model of FarmVille – raise fish, invite your friends and gather items. FishVille has 25.3 million active users per month.

#4 – Happy Aquarium by CrowdStar

Fish theme, remember? Yet another grow-your-fish game, this time by CrowdStar. Players can purchase tropical fish, teach fish cool tricks, decorate their fish tank, and visit other facebook friends in Happy Aquarium. There are over a 100 levels in this game, which accounts for long playing hours and stickiness. This game has 26.3 million active users every month.

#3 – Café World by Zynga

Café World puts the player in charge of a restaurant where they can serve food, collect money, and decorate their restaurant. Time management game developers already know that restaurant management and food games attract a big crowd. Gameplay is very simple and it’s time-based: dishes take a predefined amount of time to prep, and you have to coordinate your game accordingly. The game has 30.2 million active users per month.

#2 – Birthday Cards by RockYou!

Why is this app considered a game? Don’t ask me. Using this app, you can send cards and gifts to your friends, create a custom card or choose from pre-made card designs. This might be a useful app, but that doesn’t explain its popularity, especially after the security blunder, in which 32 million passwords were compromised by a hacker. Still, this app has over 45 million active users per month – which is rather impressive.

#1 – FarmVille by Zynga

The top of the top of Facebook’s games can hardly be considered a game, really. You are a farm owner – raising crops and gaining money by selling them. You can’t lose or die – only advance. The only challenge is how to design your farm and where to stuff your animals. There are many tips and guides on how to make tons of (virtual) money on FarmVille, but in the end it’s basically the ultimate, easy time-killer. Just point and click, and cute sheep will come to you. The lack of challenges and the easy, mindless gameplay are probably the explanation to the huge popularity of the game, which currently has over 70 million active users per month. Sending ducks to your friends has never been more popular.

So, what have we learned from looking at the top 10 games on Facebook?

1. Not for hardcore gamers – Facebook games are obviously not created for serious gamers. They are even below the average when it comes to casual games – they are easy, you can’t really lose and the main purpose is to keep you around and maybe make a buck or two when you are tempted to use real money to buy virtual products.
2. You don’t need to be original – On the contrary! Take an already popular game and copy it – the users will come. Zynga’s games are all the same one, basically, only with different graphics and “plot”. Even Texas Holdem, which breaks the pattern, isn’t original in any way. Facebook players, it seems, like the familiar.
3. Cute RULEZ – Cute animals, cute fish, cute burgers – whatever. Just form a cute game with cute graphics and cute sounds, and the players will flock over.
4. KIVVSS (Keep It Very Very Simple, Stupid) – Facebook users don’t want challenging levels or mind-flexing games. They want it simple and easy – point, click, get duck. That’s it.
5. Tons of levels – 100+ levels that can be reached is a surefire way of keeping the players playing.
6. Social Features – Invite friends and get a bonus, send gifts, get your neighbors to help you around the farm – all of these are good social features which helps games advance and gain more users.
7. Achievement for every move – You planted your first tree? Achievement! Reward! Invited 3 friends? Bonus! Got a pink fish? Here’s a medal! Well, you get the point – create a huge amount of possible achievements, and make them really easy to achieve.

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A lot of the games are repetitious – things we’ve seen before, played before and got tired of before. On the other hand, games who try something completely new and unknown don’t often succeed, because gamers sometimes prefer the familiar.

Still, you don’t have to re-invent the wheel in order to create a cool new game. Sometimes, it’s enough to give the game a different feel to it – and that’s all you’re going to need.

Check out 4 Differences for example. A new game on Kongregate, that from first look offers nothing new – it’s just another “Find the Differences” game, and it’s even less challenging than the usual ones, because you only need to find four differences, rather than the usual five or six.

Still, 4 Differences is a lovely, different gaming experience. The most prominent feature are the graphics – they are extremely well done and unique, and give a special feel to the game. The surreal music contributes to the soothing effect, making this a fun, relaxing game, with a lot of cool ambiance.

In each stage, the screen is split into two parts – and your mission is to find the differences between the similar-but-different images. For extra comfort, the mouse pointer will move simultaneously in both halves of the screen, making it easier to point out the differences.

The graphics aren’t static, though: airplanes fly in the sky, animals suddenly walk around and the entire scenery moves, reflects and waves with your mouse gestures. A lovely experience which makes this game much more fun to play.

So, we have a simple concept with a unique execution, great graphics and wonderful ambiance. All in all, 4 Differences is a cool game to play!

8 out of 10 points in the Shark Lady scale

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What’s new on Bejeweled Blitz?

Bejeweled Blitz now presents a new big feature – Boosts. These are five different upgrades you can “buy” with virtual coins you collect during gameplay.

The game is still played as we all know it – you have one minute, align the gems, create chain reactions and get special power-up gems.

The new Blitz, though, now presents you with coins – they appear as a yellow gem and have the number 100 written on them. If you align 2 yellow gems and a coin – you get 100 coins for future Boost purchases. These coins appear randomly throughout the game, and at the end of the game you also get 1 coin for each multiplier you’ve collected.

The Boosts

There are 5 different boosts you can buy on the new Bejeweled Blitz. Each gives you different bonuses or upgrades, and each also has a different cost.

Detonator (2,500 coins) – This boost will detonate all power gems on the board – so you don’t have to align them yourself.

Scrambler (3,500 coins) – This boost can be used twice per game, and will scramble the board. Useful for when you have no good moves and need a fresh start.

+5 Seconds (5,000 coins) – Adds 5 seconds to the game, so you get to play 65 seconds.

Mystery Gem (5,500 coins) – A cool boost for gamblers. This gives you a random power gem at the beginning of the game.

Free Multiplier (7,500 coins) – No wonder this boost is the most expensive – it will give you a X2 multiplier right at the start of the game. This greatly increases your chances to get a higher score.

Even More Medals

If you already filled up all your medal bars and reached Gold Level on all scores, the new Bejeweled Blitz presents you with new challenges. There are now medals for 300K points, 350K, 400K, 450K and even 500K points. If you are the competitive type, this is sure to keep you busy for a while. Here you can read a guide for getting a high score in Bejeweled Blitz.

It seems that PopCap assumes that you can reach higher scores in the new Blitz, because of the boosts. So, start clicking away and see if they’re right.

Higher Scores, More Addiction

It’s clear that the new Bejeweled Blitz was designed to make it more addictive. The ability to get upgrades via the coins, will make you come back more often. The new medals are also guaranteed to make the more competitive players try harder and waste more minutes (and hours) in order to get higher scores and all the possible medals.

The New Bejeweled Blitz – Tips, Tricks and Strategy

1. The basics are the same – if you are looking to score big on Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook, you still need to work fast and make use of your 60 (or 65) seconds. Here’s a guide for scoring big on Bejeweled Blitz.
2. Boosts X3 – when you buy a boost, you actually get it for 3 rounds. You can have up to three boosts active at any time.
3. The Best Boost – the Free Multiplier boost is obviously the best one. It gives you a X2 right at the beginning, and if you can activate it right away, you won’t even need the 10 seconds rule.
4. The Best Boost Combo – that would be a Free Multiplier, Mystery Gem and Detonator. You can also switch the Mystery Gem with +5 Seconds.
5. Don’t chase the coins – all the coins that are left on the board are added to your total at the end of the game. If you can get them easily – that’s great, but don’t go out of your way to collect them, even though they can be a bit distracting.
6. Multipliers are still the key – not only for the game itself, but for the boosts as well – each multiplier grants you a coin at the end of the game.

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Get Bejeweled Blitz and Peggle Nights for an amazing price!

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Top 5 Sushi Games

#5

Sushi Serving Game

A cute-yet-crazy Japanese sushi game. The rolls and nigiri are pre-made, and all you have to do is serve the correct combination of sushi. The game is very easy, great for kids and bored sushi lovers.

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#4

Sushi No Suki Game

Another sushi serving game. The game is available in many languages. Your goal is to prepare the different sushi rolls, serve them to the customers and be quick about it. You learn the sushi recipes from the recipe book and you need to memorize them in order to serve the sushi ASAP. There’s a money goal for each day, so you really need to keep up.

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#3

Asami’s Sushi Shop

This BigFish sushi game is free to download. Follow Asami’s grandfather’s recipes to keep your diverse clientele happy and full of delicious sushi. Use your Match 3 and Time Management skills to earn tips and enough money to improve Asami’s Sushi Shop.

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#2

Sushi Go Round

This little MiniClip sushi game might seem quaint, but it’s very addictive and can easily eat up your time. In this sushi game, you are the replacement Chef and you have a 1-week trial to use the correct recipes and serve the customers in the Sushi Restaurant. You have to be quick, memorize the recipes (that get more complicated as the game progresses), clear the plates, order sushi ingredients when they run out and keep your customers happy and satisfied. Can you survive 7 days in this sushi madness?

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#1

Youda Sushi Chef

Probably the best sushi game around at the moment. It’s sort of an upgrade to Sushi Go Round, but it’s much more. The graphics are much more engaging and there are more options to the game, like upgrading the restaurant and entertaining your customers while they wait for their sushi. In this game you have to manage six different restaurants, each with its own menu, and do all the usual stuff in a time management game – serve the clients, make them happy, make sure they don’t leave and prepare the food quickly and accurately.

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Do you have any favorite sushi games? Share them with us in the comments!

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