Zuma: a detective case

Comments · 47

• BI

  @BinglesP · 2 years ago (edited)

  As someone with a special interest in world history, culture and mythology, I absolutely love and adore the aesthetic of Zuma. The Mayan and Aztec inspiration is so consistently immersive and great, and pretty much everything throughout the games(besides the graphical references to other PopCap games of course) carry that aesthetic to a theme that makes it stand out from other vaguely &apos;tropical themed&apos; games and media. The character designs, level graphics, location motifs, item and object sprites, down to even the menus, UI, and fonts used, all have a consistent vibe of being ancient technology crafted by hand with tools and chisels, which fits perfectly into the historical inspiration since those cultures are so well-known and celebrated because of how inventive, intelligent, and ahead-of-their-time they were. You can tell the staff behind it actually did their research and references, or at the very least paid attention in world history classes when they were in high school so-to-speak. Zuma&apos;s Revenge in particular looks fantastic in my opinion, with the lighting and the locations of each world being unified enough yet independent in each level to be distinct. Though, I will have to agree with the point you made about the muddy look of some of Zuma Deluxe&apos;s levels, but they can&apos;t all be winners with what they had to probably work with.<br> &nbsp;It&apos;s really easy to make historical time-and-place themes feel tacky— or in extreme cases, cultural appropriation— but I feel like it avoids that by its positive vibe and staying true to the time period at which the civilizations it&apos;s based on actually existed in, with how it clearly takes place in an ancient snapshot of time. I&apos;m white as all Hell, of course, but you don&apos;t have to be a chef to tell when something is burnt, and even if Zuma&apos;s aesthetic could be argued to be patronizing, at least it&apos;s in good faith.<br><br>Games are great too. I played Zuma&apos;s Revenge for half a week non-stop a couple months ago, on my 3DS. It didn&apos;t even matter that it was the DS demake of the game, it still blew me away playing the story mode for the first time then. It was so genuinely fun and the story was engaging as much as it was simplistic in its approach. None of the duology&apos;s major game mechanics feel unfair or unbalanced, as harsh as the overall difficulty curve is. It feels challenging, but not unfair. I even enjoyed the levels where Frog hops between different platforms, or is at a fixed angle while sliding on a fixed track, those were also really fun.<br><br>Though, part of me is still nitpicky that the series adds white colored balls before the orange ones, since orange would&apos;ve completed the rainbow spectrum of colors neatly and look much better visually in my opinion, but again, that&apos;s just a purely-visual nitpick, and I&apos;m sure you could mod the textures to give it an orange blend mode clipping mask somehow to fix that entire issue, or swap out the sprites between orange and white outright. I&apos;m sure it was just for better visual clarity at a glance or something, since I know Dynomite! added orange eggs before white ones which blended in too much, but I feel like that only failed since the color they went with was too lenient on the &apos;dandelion yellow&apos; shade than being an evenly-orange hue.<br><br>I hope Zuma can get the &quot;direct fanmade sequel&quot; treatment that Bejeweled is currently getting. If EA won&apos;t make another Zuma that&apos;s exclusively paid upfront and has the right amount of features and polish, the fans will. Or, at the very least, the existing games get a modding/skin scene like Peggle has.

  11

• ST

  @stormcooper · 2 years ago (edited)

  Absolute missed opportunity to cover the zuma blitz (specifically the beta) assets being found and being made playable again via bluemaxima’s flashpoint but that might have already been talked to death by others in the zuma community at this point lol <br><br>But hey glad to see that people still remember this classic franchise<br><br> Not to mention how much potential you have as a content creator, I really do hope you find more success man

  16

• BA

  @batethan · 2 years ago

  dude i could not stop smiling and laughing the whole video, this one is by far my most favorite. Every new video you improve so much and it’s so awesome to watch your skills increase

  12

• JU

  @JustnamedAce · 2 years ago

  I had bad memories of Zumaic Exodus, Dark Vortex, Snake Pit, Mirror Serpent, Shrine of Quetzalcoatl and Landing Pad.<br>Bad memories aside, I enjoyed your video as much as I remember enjoying the game last year and 6 years ago

  6

• RO

  @robinausbayern1999 · 2 years ago

  I still play Zuma from time to time. But I changed some sounds. I changed the UFO&apos;s sound from that &quot;OOOOOOH!!!&quot; to the whirring noise of a BESAM PowerSwing hydraulic swing door operator that runs on 230V 50Hz, the bomb sound has been replaced with a better sound effect, the slowdown sound with me saying &quot;Langsam!&quot; (=Slow!), the reverse sound with &quot;Andersrum!&quot; (=Other direction!), the accuracy sound with &quot;Ich kann zielen!&quot; (=I can aim!), &quot;IKACHAKAZUMA!&quot; with &quot;Mach dich bereit!&quot; (=Get ready!), the sound when the stars reach the skull (WOAH!) with &quot;Los!&quot; (=Go!), when the bar turns green with me saying &quot;Zuma!&quot;, the &quot;IKAZUMA!&quot; with &quot;Level geschafft!&quot; (=Level complete!), &quot;LAAAHSOBY!&quot; (Stage complete) with &quot;Stufe abgeschlossen!&quot; (=Stage completed!), the temple completion sound with &quot;Tempel abgeschlossen!&quot; (=Temple completed!), the life loss chant with &quot;Leben verloren!&quot; (=Life lost!) and the Game Over sound with me saying &quot;Game over!&quot;.

  6

• CA

  @Carbine64 · 2 years ago

  Unbelievably underrated. Almost criminal how little this video got recommended. Great work 👍

  4

• RA

  @rayganparksmitchell · 1 year ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uvPk6ESEOk&amp;t=708">11:48</a> <b>STRANGE FROG, WHY DO YOU INTRUDE ON US?</b>

  2

• BA

  @batethan · 2 years ago

  batethan seal of approval

  3

• FO

  @fortnitedancechannel8541 · 2 years ago

  yes i remember playing zuma when i was like 7 or 8 at my grandmas and i &nbsp;got my own &nbsp;version on my pc and beat it and hertoic mode is so hard still cant beat it

  2

• AE

  @AetzonXenazon · 2 years ago

  Good stuffs I watch in this one, honestly of course, It is really difficult for the newbies when it comes through its RNG. But there is always time to get used to it to get even faster.<br><br>Even I myself as a 19 Year Zuma Player + 7 Year Zuma Speedrunner, I would still experience the struggles from its RNG.

  1

• JA

  @jame_bunny · 2 years ago

  watching you improve your craft over the past few videos has been an absolute joy. keep up the awesome work &lt;3

  1

• VA

  @vazioestatico · 2 years ago

  This video gets so unhinged at the end i don&apos;t even have the words to describe it ZUMA LIVES FOREVEEEEEER