The Year 2010: Looking Back

Fun Fact: Two images were used in this post, and contains some achievements I wouldn't mind sharing. Happy new year, everyone! And a new post will come in on the first day of new year.

Learning to Fly

Learning to fly... a remote control helicopter.

They seem to be getting to be popular this year. At least the hover ability on more expensive ones really help.

Small Note: RC Helicopters (at least the ones sold from Brookstone) have a high failure rate (by failure meaning you can't fix it up using the built in repair kit), though your mileage may vary. Four out of seven people in line were returning helicopters.

Meanwhile On Christmas Eve

So... what did you do on Christmas Eve?

I had a particularly long day and some new experiences, including: Seeing an airport up close for the first time, flying a remote controlled helicoptor, and playing Halo 3 ODST (and losing badly since I wasn't accustomed to the controller scheme). Getting only three hours of sleep got me tired early, but at least it was fun.

I will take a short Christmas break, and not update anything on this blog for this day (25th) (and maybe tomorrow). Happy holidays, everyone.

Eclipse, Start of Winter, New Board

Today: Lunar Eclipse, start of Winter, new Zuma board (with a winter theme).

Makes it easy to do those gap shots, over... and over again. In the end I got over 1.4 million and didn't reach the level to unlock the spirit animal associated with that score so all I got was this angry face.

Zuma Blitz Playthrough: 1200k

Playthrough @ Level 34 with Chrono Balls + Multiplier Boosts. Total score: 1,215,330.

(May re-upload this to youtube if there's enough popularity for this vid)

Gapshots FTW: Questions Part 2

Doing the triple quad gap.

So many questions to answer...

What do the spirit animals do for you if anything, as you upgrade them?

They currently don't do anything (other than producing humorous messages at higher levels when you reach them), but if it does, I'll put it up here. Example: Jackal Chief rank reads "The jackal is the cleverest of beasts, but don't ask him to install your printer."

Also, if you're going for Gap Shots, do you just work on one side till the other fills up? I'm not sure how to set it up properly. My highest score has been just over 500k but that was just by working fast and getting 2 Red Frogs - barely, if any gaps.

Good question. One column works best, as explained below. As for setting up gap shots, there are several ways to do it:

• capping and creating a hole. (see image) Instead of matching the last one at the end, put a different color, which allows you to prepare for a gap shot on the next ball.
• Using explosives to create a hole. This can be a bit difficult, since the explosion radius is 4-5 balls in length, and any gap shots scored at this point would be quite low due to the size of the gap.
• Rapid fire (2) - Firing two (or more shots) at a time, one to create a gap and the second to create the match past the gap. You can get at least one if you don't aim bad. You can get even more if you're lucky.
• 'Near a curve' shot: with a long chain, instead of aiming towards the one closest to you, aim for the one further back.

Going gap shots on both sides can give you more opportunities to make a gap shot, but it's risky as you'll probably end up with times where you're waiting a while in order to get that gap shot, losing out on potential points / powerups. It's best to leave it to one column as while you're waiting for that gap shot with that one ball, you can still get points on the other side using the other ball on hand. (Though getting to red frog once before doing this is recommended as it allows you to build up multipliers first which make these shots all the more valuable.)

Above: (using a red line as a guide) Green and red... could make a match on green... but seeing a possible gapshot, fire red at the end. Blue's next... seeing a possible gap shot, fire green and then blue in quick succession. The green ball clears the way for the blue ball, creating a gapshot (+10k points). Wait any longer and the blue ball would stick.

Questions Part 1

Questions I received regarding the tips section on Zuma Blitz:

What does the potion do? Also, there is a 'dog' that is on the refill screen, after you clear a level...what is that 'dog' for?

Potions - they double XP / Mojo. There's a timer on the bottom right if you have them active. The multiplier factors into your Mojo/XP earned on the final score screen.

Oh, and the dog? Similar to a star medal in Bejeweled blitz, this indicates the spirit animal earned associated with your score.

Have you figured out what the ZUMA in the upper center of the screen does? It randomly starts getting full. Also I don't know what to make of the blue bar on top of the frog.

ZUMA - similar to the progress bar in other Zuma games, it will light up 'Z','U','M', and 'A' at 45, 30, 15, and 0 seconds on the timer respectively.

Blue bar - determines how close you are to red frog mode, will fire faster the closer to red it gets. Will reset if matches aren't made fast enough (around 2 matches in 3 seconds?)

This is probably really stupid. But I can't seem to get the Last Hurrah or the Bombs to work when I play. How do I make them work?

After the end of the game (or on the title screen), click on the button labeled 'powers'. Click on a powerup to activate / deactivate it (send it to the top). If it's on the top, it's active the next game (given enough mojo to do this).