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Zuma Blitz Weekly Board: Gap Shots and Fruit

Shark Lady Games — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 22:02:03 +0000

It’s a new week of Zuma Blitz, boys and girls, and we have a new board. This week’s board is rather fun, and has a great potential for high scoring (I already scored 1 million points on it). Here’s how it looks:

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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Zuma Blitz Tips, Tricks and a High-Score Guide

Shark Lady Games — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 12:02:48 +0000

After a few weeks in closed Beta, PopCap has finally released Zuma Blitz on Facebook to the general public.

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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Scams in Facebook Games

Shark Lady Games — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 14:10:58 +0000

An interesting post in TechCrunch about scams in Facebook games:

“Here’s the really insidious part: game developers who monetize the best (and that’s Zynga) make the most money and can spend the most on advertising. Those that won’t touch this stuff (Slide and others) fall further and further behind. Other game developers have to either get in on the monetization or fall behind as well. Companies like Playdom and Playfish seem to be struggling with their conscience and are constantly shifting their policies on lead gen…”

[Continue Reading]

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Farmville Tips, Tricks and Strategy Guide

Shark Lady Games — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 16:21:51 +0000

All your friends play it. Your mother might even be in on it. That’s right – it’s Farmville, the hottest game of Facebook at the moment, with over 61 million monthly players.

Farmville isn’t very complicated or challenging. It’s a game you play to pass some time, have some fun and connect with your friends. Still, if you want to better your Farmville gameplay, there a few things you can do about that.

Here are Farmville tips, tricks, cheats and guides

#1
Log on daily – Logging on to Farmville every day will help you win raffles and get random events, that give you XP and coins.

#2
Visit friends and help them on their farm for some easy XP and coins.

#3
Give free gifts to friends, so they will gift you back. It’s even better if you have high-level friends, because they’ll give you gifts that you can’t even buy yet.

#4
Get 8 neighbors as fast as possible, so you can start saving for farm expansion.

#5
Top ten crops to plant on Farmville

Peas
Asparagus
Onions
Grapes
Sugar Cane
Tomatoes
Sunflowers
Ghost Chili
Green Tea
Coffee/Blackberries

As you can see, peas are the best seed to plant. You can harvest them in 1 day and make a profit of 176 coins for each patch.

#6
How to level fast on Farmville? Plant berries. By planting strawberries you get 288 Experience every 4 hours if you have a 12X12 farm.

#7
Schedule Smartly: Plant seeds you know you can collect on time, so they won’t whither. For example, don’t plant strawberries if you can’t log on to Farmville at least every 8 hours. Remember – Crops will start to wilt after a period of time equal to their growth, so a 1 day crop will start wilting after 2 days have passed since planting.

#8
Farmville profit calculator: this spreadsheet, on Google Docs, will help you estimate the profit you can make from different crops.

#9
If you have enough money, buy hay bales. They will give you 5 XP each. Buy as many as you have room for, delete and buy more.

#10
Best Farmville Animals: Horses, Goats, Ducks and Rabbits give the biggest amount of coins.

#11
Best Farmville Trees: The best trees on Farmville are Pomegranate, Banana and Passion fruit tree’s (100 coins each).

#12
Farmville speed trick: Plow, harvest and plant real quickly. All you have to do is put 4 notes around yourself. Check out this video for a demonstration:

#13
Stacking Hay Bales: Watch this video to learn how to stack Hay Bales and earn more XP using less space.

#14
Complete the Farmville achievements. There are many achievements you can obtain bycompleting various tasks within the game. Completing achievements on Farmville will give you experience, decorations for your farm and coins.

More Farmville Guides, tips and tricks:

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5 Hottest Games on Facebook

Shark Lady Games — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:12:42 +0000

Hardcore gamers might snicker at Facebook’s ultra-casual games, but they do serve one important cause – wasting a lot of time. All those bored kids, bored high-tech workers and bored unemployed people are very happy to pass big portions of their day with the simple games of Facebook.

Here are 5 of the currently hottest games on Facebook:

Texas Hold’em Poker

Hold’em has become one of the most popular games on the net – not only on Facebook. This Facebook version of the engaging card game allows you to play against your friends and waste tons of time while you’re at it.

Paf Le Chien

This silly little game requires almost no skills at all, but still manages to be addictive and slightly amusing. Your job is to kick Paf as far as possible. Your kick launches the creatures, and things along the way either help it fly further or slow it down. You can post your high scores to your profile and annoy your friends because you broke THEIR record by two meters.

Mafia Wars

If you have always dreamed of becoming Don Corleone, here’s a chance to practice – the Mafia Wars game on Facebook enables you to start your own Mafia, with the help of family and friends. The goal is to become the most powerful familia, while annoying as many as your friends with stupid Twitter updates and direct messages.

Bejeweled Blitz

The guys at PopCap sure know their jobs – even when it comes to Facebook games. The all-too-addictive game of Bejeweled Blitz is a huge hit among ladies. It’s simple – you have one minute to score as many points as you can. True to PopCap tradition, the game is full of colors, fun and cool sound. There’s also a ranking system with medals, which keeps you going and going, in order to get them all.

FarmVille

Currently the most popular game on Facebook, with 55,268,478 monthly active users, FarmVille has spread like diseased crops in every corner of social media sites. The goal is to build and maintain your own farm, and develop it over time. The game continues even when you are not around. If you are into crops, cows and sheep – this is the game for you.