Overview: Zuma Blitz is Popcap’s latest attempt to bring their secret sauce to Facebook. As might be expected after the success of Bejeweled Blitz, it works just fine.

Zuma Blitz is a 1-minute-per-game translation of their popular PC title. In general the gameplay is the same – you have a little frog in the middle of the screen, and you use the mouse to aim it at the chains of colored balls that follow tracks towards chomping mouths. Clicking the mouse shoots whatever colored ball the frog is currently holding at the chains, and matching colors removes the balls before they get devoured. It’s very simple and exceedingly addictive.

There are several variations in the Facebook version. The biggest, of course, is that there’s only a single map to play – a two-chain serpentine – and you have only one minute to rack up points. The other interesting variation is the concept of “lives” – you can only play a certain number of times before you run out of lives and have to wait for – or purchase – a refill. In the early game this isn’t a big hindrance, because you get a life refill when you level up, which happens every few games for the first half-dozen or so levels. Later on, however, it could very well be a strong incentive to cough up some cash.

The other major changes are all either based around the real-money items or the tutorial structure. Instead of a complex tutorial, Zuma Blitz starts off as the most basic game, with no power-ups, and gradually introduces them as you level. This is a very clean way to introduce the different kinds of targets on the screen, and it also ensures that when you unlock one of the Mojo-purchaseable items, you’ll have some mojo stored up to buy it. The standard power-ups, like bombs, work like the power-ups in Bejeweled Blitz – they cost a certain amount of mojo per game. They’re also unlocked at various level plateaus, so having a higher level actually does give you an advantage in terms of point-scoring potential.

There is some additional stat tracking, compared to Bejeweled Blitz, that shows promise. There’s a “Tournament medals” category that suggests a more meaningful way to compare yourself against your friends than the one-week leaderboard. And while it’s not clear at this point whether the “totem animals” – the equivalent of Star Medals – have additional functionality, the fact that they are an unlockable feature suggests that they may.

Zuma Blitz is currently in “exclusive beta” so we expect it to change and grow rapidly over the next several weeks. If you need an invite, our first five friends to message us on our Facebook page will get one! However even at this early date, Zuma Blitz looks and plays like a top-notch game. If you like the one-minute arcade game style, or if you liked the original Zuma, this is a can’t-miss game.