Zuma, also known as Zuma Classic, is an online alternative to the Zuma bubble shooter originally released in 2003. In a jungle near temples and other locales, the player uses a frog shooter to pop clusters of three or more matching marble bubbles in trains that roll on tracks in a spiral or other shapes.
The player's goals are to earn points, fill a Zuma bar, and stop the marbles from reaching one or more metal skull plates that cover deep holes. If they fail, the game separates a plate at the jaws and pulls the marbles into the dark underground. The player then loses one of only three lives in the upper-left area.
The game stops adding balls to the train of marbles when the player fills a horizontal bar to the right of the upper-center score area with a gold color. The player knows when they've completed this task because the Zuma bar turns green. They then end the level by targeting and popping the remaining bubble marbles.
Zuma helps the player speed up the bar fill action by tying it to their score. When the player pops clusters in a streak or shoots a floating coin, they receive bonus points that rapidly increase the score and fill the Zuma bar. They also earn points faster when they activate boosters that appear inside some bubbles by popping adjacent bubbles in matching clusters.
