Zuma Deluxe is an award-winning puzzle game that takes place in an Aztec universe. You will travel from temple to temple to break and destroy chains of rolling stone balls. The game has quite innovative but straightforward mechanics that make it both accessible and fun for everyone.

Gameplay

Mechanics: You will control an old-rocky frog in the center of a spiral. A chain of colored rocky balls will circularly roll toward a golden skull. Your mission is to stop the chain by throwing colored balls to combine at least three balls that will break the chain and temporarily prevent it from going forward. Finally, break all the balls and get access to the next level.
Lots of replayability: You will gradually experience increasing difficulty throughout the levels. Despite the simplicity of the game's mechanics, you will figure out that it has lots of challenging situations to offer. Additionally, it provides several game modes that will make you hone and challenge your puzzle-solving skills.

Boosters: You will be able to change the game's mechanics by hitting some unique balls that will give you up to four types of boosters or boosts. The boosts will make the chain move backward, slow down the chain, explode a large number of balls simultaneously, and more.
Controls: The game's controls are simple and polished so that the controls are like an extension of your mind.
Levels: Zuma Deluxe offers you many different temples and over 20 levels.

Graphics and sound

Zuma Deluxe has nice-looking graphics, animations, and visual effects. The OST and audio feedback contain tribal overtones, which help to create a cool and coherent experience.

Duration and game modes

Zuma Deluxe offers a solo adventure, but you can compete with your friends to reach the highest score in the global leaderboards. You can complete the game in about 7 hours if you focus on the main objectives and up to 12-15 hours if you want to discover all the secrets and additional levels of the games. The game provides two main game modes called:

Adventure: This is the standard mode where you will have to pass all the levels and the difficulty will increase over time.
Gauntlet: In this endless game mode, you will be able to replay all the levels you unlocked in the Adventure mode. You will also play special modes such as Jaguar, Eagle, and Sun God.

What do the reviews say?

Zuma has received many awards and has several sequels. It has been rated 77/100 on Metacritic.

"The stages get progressively more challenging as more complex layouts and additional ball colors are introduced, and while the underlying gameplay doesn't change much, it's still an engaging way to pass the time." (GameSpot)