Snakes on a Plain

The snakes gap shot board returns again. This time, I've had it with those *** snakes on this *** plain! So step back 'cause imma pull off some triple gaps.

I suppose you watched the movie related to the title of this board. Or at least, this clip.

TIP: You have two powerups each with a different strat for a high score: Warp Ball or Epic Fruit.

Warp Ball: Go for a large first opening double/triple gap. Balls roll in quick near the opening, giving you a nice opportunity to double tap.* Keep note that doing this is rewarding but reaction-time heavy on this board unless you can find a way to slow the balls down via combos. At normal speed, you need to notice a double tap opportunity and fire both balls - all within three quarters of a second, and at fast speed (2+ minutes in), you have almost no chance for triple gaps when they're going at full speed because your frog (or spirit animal) can't fire balls fast enough.

Epic Fruit: Wait until halfway through the intro before starting (it causes fruit to appear immediately after balls roll out). Once you grab a fruit, try to keep fruit locations open (or a double tap away) around 7 seconds after you grabbed the last fruit so that you can get it within a few seconds of it appearing. Don't forget to hit multipliers and time balls as well. At late-game when balls go faster, you may want to set up double/triple gaps.

*(source: The Other Zuma Blitz Guide, rev. 1.1, pg. 17)

The Other Zuma Blitz Guide

The Other Zuma Blitz Guide: Providing a comprehensive illustrated guide of the best tips from a Top 50 Zuma Blitz player and then some.

Download The Other Zuma Blitz Guide (v. 7/1/11, 3.41 MB) (right click link > save link as to save to computer) or you can view it online.

My first version of my (free) Zuma Blitz guide has been completed. It contains all of the general tips on this blog, and then some. Let me know what you think about it.

The guide will be updated each time a new major feature is introduced (such as level cap increases, daily spin, etc.)

VERSION HISTORY:

v 1.0 (Jun 5 2011)
 - Preview release

v 1.1 (Jun 7 2011) 
 - Inital Release

v 1.2 (Jun 20) - Fun in the Sun Solstice Party*
 - Title screen volcano animation, potion layout change
 - Fixed Mojo Table which didn’t show correct values.
 - Added screen recording guide
 - Added share mojo amounts for posting various stuff.
 - Food (area just above the time to next tournament)
 - Added Promotional Items
 - Added Version History

v 1.3 (Jul 1) 
 - Daily Spin
 - Fixed mojo harvesting tip factoring in free powers from happy hour
 - Visual example of the consequences of chain blast
 - Real life example of double gap close to end of track
 - Clarification in disadvantages in gap shots.
 - Repeat gap shots for three ball gaps (the gap that gets created when you match three balls) 
   shows you how many points you get compared to a gap from double tapping.
 - Improved the visual quality of powers in the guide.
 - Added note about golden frog being preserved after mastery (previously it wasn’t the case)

v 1.4 (release date unknown - drive containing this guide crashed)
 - Fixed Hoppy Hour bonuses (it's now 3-7PM PST Mondays)
 - Daily Spin multiplier fixed (max of 7x multiplier at lvl 80)
   - lvl 1-24: x1
        25-34: x2
        35-44: x3
        45-54: x4
        55-64: x5
        65-74: x6
        75-80: x7

   - NOTE: On August 18, spinner multiplier has been hidden and your actual mojo payout is displayed. 
   (ex. if you get three frogs and you're level 80, payout will say 700,000 instead of 100,000 x7, and daily 
  bonus is 100 / 200 / 400 / 800 / 2000 (unaffected by multiplier).
   - Sept 8 significantly raises the mojo earned per spin (multiplier around 16-20x). 

 - Fixed lvl 50 EXP to next level, it was 29800 XP to next level not 30000
   
 - July 19-21: Free 2x XP potion.
 - Fruit section added, beginning with Coconut. It takes five shakes of the tree 
   (five lifes) to get a fruit. NOTE: You can't shake if you have a 24h life active.
   - Fruit can give you life or additional mojo.
   . Coconuts can be used to refill one life.
 - Spirit Animal Showdown (Vote on your favorite spirit animal with its respective bonus.)
   - On Saturday, depending on which spirit animal wins, you get either a 24h life, 
     24h mojo potion, 24h xp potion, or 20 idols.

v1.x (any other updates)
 - Sept 27 - Power Play (powers cost no mojo)
 - Note on fortune cookies: If you have a 24h life active, you may not get one at random after a game.  
 - Spirit Animal Monument (effects and costs covered on level up table)
 - Nov 17 - planning to do a new study on time ball appearances - after testing on 5+ minute games, time ball 
   appearances decrease considerably after the 3 minute mark. 

Aweful Visage

Google Search for this board: Did you mean: awful visage*

Known high scores for this board: 2.8m (no powers), 7m (all powers), 7.65m (all powers + monument)

Welcome to Aweful Visage, the board that results when that Hand Drawn Lava board dries up. Or not. Acutally, it's one of the first few boards when Zuma Blitz was first released.

In the works: I plan to maintain a small eBook (later released here) on all of the tips I put on this board, and explained in more detail, as well as a few other things not mentioned here. It will cover all versions of the game since December.

I intend to release the guide for no charge, though you may donate if you find the guide helpful.

In the meantime, it looks like they might re-use older boards for future weeks, so this will be my last post in regards to Zuma Blitz until a new unique board shows up.

TIP: Use the above image a guide for placing double gaps. When you reach hot frog, you should aim carefully to completely remove the middle layer of balls while not causing the 2nd layer to slide back.

Question of the Day: I like this new layout better. Do you? (Essentially widens the game screen, moves the fruit score value to top-right, moves chain to top-left, hot frog meter moved to just above the frog.)

Another Social Experiment

MCHS Class of 2011 graduates today. (It's the last class who I know students, since I was a senior and they were freshman) Rewind four years back, and we (Class of 2008) performed The Social Experiment. I was given the option to perform in this play, but decided not to...

(And then there's two social icons on the navigation bar... how many people do you think will actually click on them?)

Fun Fact: My high school likes to pull lots of parodies and spinoffs, however I got slightly docked for submitting a parody as a production idea to Mr. K. (Yes, that was an assignment). Oh, and I was supposed to post this vid up exactly four years after it happened, but it seemed that my timing was off a little.

EDIT: There used to be a video file, but after looking at the content, I've determined it wasn't fit for everybody to view it.

Multiplier Powerup Study

Time to put some of my applied stats skills to work here.

Multiplier Study: Assuming you hit every single multiplier ball and no multiplier powerup is used, each one will roll out at the following times (in-game time, not the timer on the top-left). Note the timer may run out before you even get to multiplier 9, hence some of the later values's time results are skewed a bit.

Games tested: 29 - Leaping Lava
    Range           Median           #     Time
x2: 4.35 - 9.55s   (median:  7.10s)  (29)  0:07
x3: 13.0 - 27.6s   (median: 19.85s)  (29)  0:20
x4: 21.3 - 45.25s  (median: 32.00s)  (29)  0:32
x5: 31.7 - 64.75s  (median: 48.85s)  (29)  0:49
x6: 45.2 - 83.65s  (median: 65.30s)  (29)  1:05
x7: 58.5 - 100.95s (median: 81.00s)  (25)  1:21
x8: 72.9 - 106.15s (median: 89.83s)  (12)  1:29
x9: 91.5 - 101.35s (median: 97.75s)  (3)   1:38
xe: Not enough data  (0)
xe: Not enough data  (0)

Where 'xe' is other multiplier balls that pop up if you didn't hit other ones. 

Conclusion:

• In a 60 second game if you didn't collect timer powerups, best case = can get up to a x7 multiplier, worst case, up to x5.
• Typically, five multiplier balls will show up on a regular no-power game, but there was one instance where eight showed up in a 1m40s game.
• The first multiplier ball comes out within 4-10 seconds.
• The higher the multiplier, the longer it takes on average before another multiplier comes out. (an x9 takes 20% longer than an x2)
• Multipliers love to spawn near ball starting points.
• On average, it takes 15 seconds between multiplier balls coming out and another. You can get lucky and wait around 5 seconds before another one comes out, or bad luck waiting around a half a minute. Theoretically, you can reach your x9 within 30 seconds with multi-multiplier, but the pseudorandom number generator that determines how long it takes for another ball to appear will make it very unlikely for that to happen.

Note: Something for me to think about via randomness of powerup appearances.

Leaping Lava

So this week's board is called Leaping Lava. It's not a new board, but instead, it's been introduced last December, and a flip version called Life's a Beach was made back in March as well. To avoid repetition, use that link for tips on this week's board.

In the meantime, I've updated my low level 2 million run with a new record: 60 -> 33. Additionally it uses the same board as that well known 2 mil video.

(Unrelated) Fun Fact: Waste from North America / Japan is forming a huge trash island the size of Texas, called The Pacific Trash Vortex. The person in charge of this page needs 500 likes to pass her class. (which ends in a few weeks)

10M Benchmarks: n/a (concentrate on curve clears) (dead by 3:18), 5:35 (Double Tap method - single gap), 4:32 (Double Gap Strat)

Triple Rollout?

Board with triple rollout? Don't mind if I do! :D

Note: Version 2. Top left curve needs optimizing as well as starting points.