{"id":573,"date":"2009-08-05T00:12:48","date_gmt":"2009-08-05T05:12:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/archives\/573"},"modified":"2016-10-18T18:02:07","modified_gmt":"2016-10-19T01:02:07","slug":"zuma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/archives\/573","title":{"rendered":"Zuma"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>And while we&#8217;re on this end of the alphabet, I might as well look in on <em>Zuma<\/em>.  Or, to give it its full title, <em>Zuma Deluxe<\/em> &#8212; this was made back when PopCap released most of their titles in two versions, a free web-based one and a downloadable Windows-native shareware version with additional features.  I think <em>Zuma<\/em> was the first &#8220;deluxe&#8221; PopCap game that I actually registered, rather than just playing the demo for the hour allowed and then deleting it.  <span class=\"footnote_referrer\"><a role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" onclick=\"footnote_moveToReference_573_1('footnote_plugin_reference_573_1_1');\" onkeypress=\"footnote_moveToReference_573_1('footnote_plugin_reference_573_1_1');\" ><sup id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_573_1_1\" class=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text\">1<\/sup><\/a><span id=\"footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_573_1_1\" class=\"footnote_tooltip\">Or possibly that was <em>Dynomite<\/em>.  Heck, maybe I did them both at once.<\/span><\/span><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_573_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_573_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top right', relative: true, offset: [10, 10], });<\/script><\/p>\n<p>This is because it was their first game that really seemed original, rather than a slight variation on things I had seen before.  I mean, look at their catalog up to 2003.  <em>Dynomite<\/em> is essentially the same game as <em>Puzzle Bobble\/Bust-A-Move<\/em>, albeit with an interesting puzzle mode added on.  <em>Big Money<\/em> is the same game as, er, <em>Samegame<\/em>.  <em>Alchemy<\/em> is a variant of <em>Ishido<\/em>. <em>Bookworm<\/em> was admitted to be a cross between <em>Scrabble<\/em> and <em>Bejeweled<\/em> (although it always seemed to me that <em>Boggle<\/em> and <em>Bejeweled<\/em> is an apter description).  Even <em>Bejeweled<\/em> itself, their flagship title, seemed to me at the time to be a mere variant of <em>Columns<\/em>.  (I was quite surprised when it became a cultural touchstone, much like I was when the same thing happened with <em>The Matrix<\/em>.)<\/p>\n<p>Whereas with <em>Zuma<\/em>, the most I could identify is where it stole various specific elements from.  Its closest precedent is probably <em>Dynomite<\/em>, with its match-3 and explosions and gradually advancing doom, and, most particularly, with its swivelling ball-gun that fires in the direction of the mouse cursor.  This mouse-based aiming, which would go on to be used in <em>Peggle<\/em>, is very important to the feel, and is the reason why I identify it as a descendant of <em>Dynomite<\/em> rather than of <em>Puzzle Bobble<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>There was a time when I thought I could see distinctive elements from other PopCap games in <em>Zuma<\/em>, but frankly, looking at it again now, all that stands out is the &#8220;match 3&#8221; aspect.  Maybe I&#8217;ll remember what I was thinking of by the time I write my next post.<\/p>\n<p><strong>[UPDATE: Turns out that <em>Zuma<\/em> is no more original than the rest of PopCap&#8217;s early titles &#8212; see the comments for details.  My statement that it&#8217;s not &#8220;a slight variant on something I had seen before&#8221; stands, but only because I hadn&#8217;t seen the game it was based on.]<\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"speaker-mute footnotes_reference_container\"> <div class=\"footnote_container_prepare\"><p><span role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" class=\"footnote_reference_container_label pointer\" onclick=\"footnote_expand_collapse_reference_container_573_1();\">&#x202F;<\/span><span role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" class=\"footnote_reference_container_collapse_button\" style=\"display: none;\" onclick=\"footnote_expand_collapse_reference_container_573_1();\">[<a id=\"footnote_reference_container_collapse_button_573_1\">+<\/a>]<\/span><\/p><\/div> <div id=\"footnote_references_container_573_1\" style=\"\"><table class=\"footnotes_table footnote-reference-container\"><caption class=\"accessibility\">References<\/caption> <tbody> \r\n\r\n<tr class=\"footnotes_plugin_reference_row\"> <th scope=\"row\" class=\"footnote_plugin_index_combi pointer\"  onclick=\"footnote_moveToAnchor_573_1('footnote_plugin_tooltip_573_1_1');\"><a id=\"footnote_plugin_reference_573_1_1\" class=\"footnote_backlink\"><span class=\"footnote_index_arrow\">&#8593;<\/span>1<\/a><\/th> <td class=\"footnote_plugin_text\">Or possibly that was <em>Dynomite<\/em>.  Heck, maybe I did them both at once.<\/td><\/tr>\r\n\r\n <\/tbody> <\/table> <\/div><\/div><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> function footnote_expand_reference_container_573_1() { jQuery('#footnote_references_container_573_1').show(); jQuery('#footnote_reference_container_collapse_button_573_1').text('\u2212'); } function footnote_collapse_reference_container_573_1() { jQuery('#footnote_references_container_573_1').hide(); jQuery('#footnote_reference_container_collapse_button_573_1').text('+'); } function footnote_expand_collapse_reference_container_573_1() { if (jQuery('#footnote_references_container_573_1').is(':hidden')) { footnote_expand_reference_container_573_1(); } else { footnote_collapse_reference_container_573_1(); } } function footnote_moveToReference_573_1(p_str_TargetID) { footnote_expand_reference_container_573_1(); var l_obj_Target = jQuery('#' + p_str_TargetID); if (l_obj_Target.length) { jQuery( 'html, body' ).delay( 0 ); jQuery('html, body').animate({ scrollTop: l_obj_Target.offset().top - window.innerHeight * 0.2 }, 380); } } function footnote_moveToAnchor_573_1(p_str_TargetID) { footnote_expand_reference_container_573_1(); var l_obj_Target = jQuery('#' + p_str_TargetID); if (l_obj_Target.length) { jQuery( 'html, body' ).delay( 0 ); jQuery('html, body').animate({ scrollTop: l_obj_Target.offset().top - window.innerHeight * 0.2 }, 380); } }<\/script>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>And while we&#8217;re on this end of the alphabet, I might as well look in on Zuma. Or, to give it its full title, Zuma Deluxe &#8212; this was made back when PopCap released most of their titles in two versions, a free web-based one and a downloadable Windows-native shareware version with additional features. I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[287],"class_list":["post-573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arcade","tag-zuma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4164,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573\/revisions\/4164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}