By Brad Cook

Deep in a mysterious jungle lie more than a dozen hidden temples full of untold riches. Each one offers you a unique challenge, requiring you to clear a chain of marbles from the screen before it reaches the golden skull at the end of its path. A beam of light indicates where you’re aiming.

Fire red, blue, green, and yellow marbles from a frog’s mouth to create groups of three or more of the same color, eliminating them and shortening the chain. When that action creates another match that also disappears (and possibly yet another match, and so on), you’ve created a chain reaction that earns bonus points. You also receive bonus points by shooting coins that appear periodically.

If you want to earn an even higher score, clear the level as fast as possible. At the end of a level, you also receive a bonus tied to the chain’s final proximity to the golden skull: the farther away it was, the more points you earn.

Power-Ups Provide Support

Some marbles contain power-ups that unleash their special abilities when eliminated. You’ll come across four of them, each with a unique symbol: accuracy (target icon), which creates a tip at the end of the light beam, enabling you to fire marbles with greater precision; backwards (arrow icon), which sends the chain rolling in reverse for a few seconds; bomb (detonation icon), which destroys all marbles in its vicinity; and slowdown (pair of rectangles), which slows the chain to a crawl for a few seconds.

Zuma features over a dozen levels to tackle, with a control scheme perfectly suited to the iPod’s click wheel. A catchy musical theme keeps your feet and fingers tapping while you play, and the engaging sound effects include a satisfying click each time a ball makes contact with the chain.

The premise may seem simple, but mastery surely isn’t, especially when you reach higher levels and multiple chains start rolling toward their targets. The chains also begin the action closer to the golden skulls, keeping you on your toes from the very beginning.

Take care, brave explorer. Report back to us what you have discovered.

Tips and Tricks

• You can aim away from the chain and fire a marble at nothing if you’re better off discarding it than placing it somewhere.
• When you eliminate a series of marbles and break the chain, the front part of it will remain motionless until the back part catches up. Use that opportunity to eliminate even more marbles from the front section.
• When one part of the chain passes in front of another as it winds its way across the screen, your shots will lodge themselves in the section closest to you.
• When a gap opens in the front of the chain, fire marbles through it into the section behind it and earn a gap bonus.
• Click Fast-Forward or Rewind to swap the current ball for the next one, the color of which is indicated by a dot on the frog’s head.
• Set up chain reactions by firing balls into specific spots, rather than always going for the match. For example, let’s say you see two green marbles followed by a pair of yellow ones, and a yellow one sits in the frog’s mouth. Fire that yellow marble in front of the greens. When a green comes up, create a matching set of three, which will create a chain reaction with the three yellows.
• For finer control of the action, try playing the game with your index finger, rather than your thumb, on the click wheel.

iPod Games FAQ

Do you have questions regarding any of the iPod games available from the iTunes Store?

No Relation to Frogger. We see a perfect spot for that red marble.

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