Format: Facebook
Release: TBA - currently in closed beta
Publisher: PopCap
Developer: In-house

Playing Zuma Blitz, you could be forgiven for thinking Facebook apps were a phenomenon with decades of developer experience behind them already. One game in and PopCap already speaks the language like a natural, paying out frantic minute-to-minute action alongside a chewy meta-game, while the scarlet thread of an entire microtransactions economy runs through the whole thing so effortlessly that you won’t even notice the way it works until you’re halfway through adding your payment details. Once again, the so-called masters of casual gaming make it look easy. It surely isn’t.

Zuma Blitz and its network of orbiting systems unfurl like the Eames’ famous Powers Of Ten film, which took audiences from the spinning mass of a single atom, out through the atmosphere and deep into intergalactic space. Up close, Zuma’s the same fast-paced twitch game as it ever was, with a frog fixed to the centre of a wriggly map firing coloured beads to match three as dozens of the little baubles roll down past. The kitsch '50s Tiki flavour is wonderfully observed, the sound effects have just the right hollow thwack and escalating chimes to them as your combos grow, and aiming is sufficiently tuned to work as well on a trackpad as it does with a mouse. You could debate the extent of the assists PopCap may or may not be applying behind the scenes, but it’s a lovely slice of action nonetheless.

Move outwards and things start to get really clever, however. Zuma works every bit as well as Bejeweled does as a time-limit game, but the systems that surround it have benefited from even more refinement on this outing. As ever, each round you play gives you XP, but now as you level up you’ll slowly amass a range of new power-ups and active slots to juggle them in and out of. At the same time, you’re being rewarded with generous bursts of Mojo, the first of the game’s two currencies, which can be used to keep these powers ticking over. Idols, meanwhile, are the paid-for currency, and can be traded in for more Mojo or to bypass the levelling and unlock new treats early.

And it’s with the power-ups themselves that PopCap has really learned from the rolling iterative development of Bejeweled Blitz. As expected, you can choose between a range of perks that push new bead types onto the board – beads that explode, perhaps, or beads that add crucial seconds to the meter. In Bejeweled, this kind of boost had to be refreshed every three turns; this time around, they’ll stay active until you remove them, slowly eating away at your Mojo as you play, but giving you the chance to reach for increasingly lofty scores at the same time. The nature of the powers you choose between have become more extreme, too, starting with the simplest of perks before scaling up to take in the spectacle of an Inferno Frog setting off chain reactions that can practically clear the entire board. They’re also more fundamental: Last Hurrah may have been an essential part of the core experience with Bejeweled Blitz – here, you’re going to have to pay for it.

Tweaks to the economy are interesting, and also hardly offensive. Zuma Blitz remains a fiercely generous game, handing out Mojo in gobs at every juncture. Like Bejeweled, what’s really striking about it is how uncompromised it feels on its new platform. With their snail’s pacing and overt jonesing for regular microtransaction infusions, so many Facebook titles wheeze around in a manner that suggests traditional games recovering from a nasty surgery. PopCap, meanwhile, has deftly used the shorter attention span of the social networker to make its casual offerings even more arcadey and robust. All told, it’s a staggering achievement - and, if the evolving roadmap of Bejeweled is anything to go by, for Zuma this is probably just the beginning.