The slow-down ball slows the speed of the chain of balls for a short length of time. The backwards ball pushes the furthest-out chain (depending on if all of the balls are connected) backwards for a short length of time. Time bonuses are also awarded if a player completes the level within ace time - ranging from thirty seconds to four minutes depending on the level.įour different types of power-ups show up in balls, which can be activated by exploding the ball with the power-up. There are bonuses for collecting coins (usually through gaps), for causing explosions through gaps of other balls, and for having a streak of always causing an explosion with each consecutive ball (coins and chain bonuses are a quick way to fill the bar). The level is completed when after the bar is filled, the player eliminates all of the balls on the screen. When three or more of the same color come in contact, they explode, possibly triggering other explosions as part of a chain reaction.

To prevent the balls reaching the Skull, the player can eliminate the balls by firing a colored ball from the stone frog idol's mouth towards the chain of balls that will continue to push forward until the player fills the yellow bar, which is when the balls will stop producing off-screen.

As soon as one ball reaches the skull, the rest follow and the player loses a life. The player can carry two balls at a time and can switch at any time. The objective of Zuma is to eliminate all of the balls rolling around the screen along a given path, with other balls (the path is clearly visible in all of the levels except the last level), before these balls reach the yellow skull structure, which will open to varying degrees as a warning of oncoming balls. The following section was copied from Wikipedia.

Zuma original game