Zuma Blitz is a game of skill, speed and precision in which players must shoot balls at other like-colored balls with the objective of making clusters, thus making them disappear. Sometimes these balls will have bonuses on them, and eliminating them nets you the specified bonus.
Quick! Get those multipliers!
These bonuses disappear rather fast, which means that you have to act quick if you want to get those extra points. It also means that sometimes you spot a bonus, shoot a ball at it and watch it disappear before the shot reaches it.
So unfair!
Except it’s not. The game has the incredibly good sense of letting the bonus linger invisibly on the ball for a small period of time, so that the player will still get the bonus if it disappears while the shot is in mid-air – or if even if it it disappears just before the player takes the shot. The bonus might not be visible, but the audio and visual feedback remain.
No doubt that the spirit behind this mechanic is to be extremely forgiving with players in the social space. PopCap knows that there is no room in that space for unforgiving mechanics, and they clearly design their games (especially the Facebook versions) with that in mind. In turn the player, instead of feeling cheated, feels a sense of accomplishment for making the shot in the last possible second.
