Features

Popcap Games and Astraware did it again. This time in the form of cute little fuzzballs known as Chuzzle. Most of the games on my handheld devices come from Popcap — Astraware adopts them for handheld devices. You can tickle the furballs by repeatedly tapping (or clicking) them. Eventually, something happens after a few tickles — including the big Chuzzles. If you leave your mouse over a chuzzle(non-fat), it will get angry.

Darn game is eating into my reading time!

The game comes with Zen Mode. This version can go on and on as there are no locks, no running out of moves. It was boring at first, but then I earned a charm and that motivated me to keep playing to earn more charms.

The instructions for the game don’t say much. So I went to Astraware’s forums and learned more about the game. The instructions come from the forum and my experience. Some are specific to the PC version and others to the handheld version.

You can get one scramble at at 150,000, 300,000 and 600,000 points. But you can’t have more than three scrambles. You need double score in Expert mode.

Trophies:

If you go into the scores menu, and go into trophies, you will see all the trophies that are possible (NOTE: there is an arrow at the top to go to the next screen), if you tap on each of the un-hilighted trophies, it shows you what you need to do to get the trophy.

Page 1 of Trophy Screen (handheld version has two pages)

Seven At Once - for popping seven Chuzzles as one group (you need 7 Chuzzles of the same color (different sizes are OK) all connected.
Eleven At Once - V1.0 for popping eleven or more Chuzzles as one group
Eight At Once - V1.10 for popping eight or more Chuzzles as one group (To get 8-at-once you need 8 Chuzzles of the same color all connected.)
Chuzzle Bingo - for popping across the whole board with one color
Hundred Grand - for popping 100,000 Chuzzles
Ten Grand - for popping 10,000 Chuzzles
Big Boy - for sparing all fat Chuzzles in a game. I play Speed Expert to get the Fat Boy trophy. Once a fat chuzzle appears on the screen I just let the time run out.
Million Chuzzel Man - for popping 1,000,000 Chuzzles
Reactor - for causing a seven-step cascade
Brainiac - for playing an entire game without using hints
Trophy Collector - for obtaining every other trophy
Puzzler - for reaching level 10 in Mind Binder
Flawless - for playing one level without a bad move. Use speed expert and let time run out.
Quad Combo - for making a quadruple combo
Triple Combo - for making a triple combo

Page 2 of Trophy Screen

Lockmaster - for removing three or more locks in one sweep
Chuzz 10 - For reaching level 10 in Classic or Speed Chuzzel
Mentalist Master - for reachingg level 20 in Mind Bender
Fat Blaster - for popping 1,000 fat Chuzzles.
Mentalist Supremo - for solving all Mind Bender puzzles
Psychic - for solving all puzzles through level 10 in mindbender
Chuzzlebomer - for popping 1,000 Super Chuzzles
Speed Freak - for clearing two Speed Levels without getting a lock
Quad Boomer - for exploding four supper Chuzzels at once
Speed Demon - for passin speed level 5 without getting a lock
Speed Master - for clearing two Speed Levels without a warning
Triple Boomer - for exploding three Super Chuzzles at once

BeChuzzled

It’s the special mode of Chuzzle that you can unlock; it’s different from the other Chuzzle modes (Speed, Zen, etc.). Not going to spoil the surprise.

To get BeChuzzled, first be sure to get the following five trophies so that they appear in the trophy room.

Triple Combo
Brainiac
Puzzler
Ten Grand
7 at Once

Then click them following the above sequence, from top to bottom. You can see a yellow star appears each time you click on a trophy on the upper left corner. So when you get 5 yellow stars. TADA! BeChuzzled unlocks. It’s accessible via a small round button on the Astraware logo at the main game screen. You only need one Mind Bender trophy: "Puzzler" and that’s achieved by reaching level 10 in Mind Bender.

Scoring

The more Chuzzles you can pop at once, the higher the score - combinations and cascades are best, every subsequent match in a cascade gains you higher points for the same number of Chuzzles - you’ll see a 2x, 3x etc..

Rainbow chuzzles are worth more, if you can get those to pop during a cascade you can get some serious points on that. I wonder if that’s how you got your 300,000…

Try to set them up so you can get 2 sets to match at once, or a cascade - it’s not easy, but you get the hang of it after a while.

General Notes

In Mind Bender, you only need to solve three of the puzzles on any given level to unlock the next level.

Mind Bender Mode doesn’t count since you don’t pop any Chuzzles. But Zen, Classic or Speed Modes count towards your total popped Chuzzle count.

For fun, tickle the Chuzzles by tapping or clicking on them multiple times including the fat ones. Repeated taps on the Chuzzles and their funny faces and sounds are just for fun and don’t affect game play (unless you’re doing it in Time mode while time is running out). Same for those with sunglasses.

If you pop a Chuzzle in Zen Mode it counts the same as if you pop them in Classic Mode…

Hint on the Speed Level 5 trophy for Chuzzle PC users… Go to:

C:\Program Files\PopCap Games\Chuzzle Deluxe\Profiles\[your profile name]

Find the file named SAVEGAME-SPEEDCHUZZLE.DAT (if, of course, you have a saved game in this mode). When you pass level 4, copy this file on your desktop for example, and then overwrite it. This way you’ll play only level 5, you won’t need to pass the other levels. It’s easier.

So I’ve figured out how to check your Chuzzle count for those working towards a million Chuzzle. Go into the Chuzzle Directory in the c drive. There is a folder named profiles. Open up your profile and there will be a file called INFO.CFG. Open that file up with notepad or word and the first 3 lines will tell you how many Chuzzles, fat Chuzzles and super Chuzzles you have popped. Also all charms up top have become gold, they turn into rainbow.

Big Chuzzles Formed: If you pop 4 Chuzzles in a square then you get a big Chuzzles. There are some exceptions to this rule, so it doesn’t always happen.

Glowing Chuzzles Formed: If you pop 5 Chuzzles of one color in a single group, one of them turns into a glowing Chuzzle instead of disappearing.

When Locked Chuzzles Appear: In speed mode, they appear when the bar at the bottom fills. In classic mode, they appear randomly, but more often as you progress up the levels.

Only one secret mode: BeChuzzled.

Flawless Trophy: I used Speed Chuzzle [Expert] and did a minimum number of moves to finish the first level. If you get a few cascades the first level can be over quickly. Then once the 2nd level started, I cleared out a few bottom ones to get a Fat Chuzzle (cuz someone said in another forum that you need to see a fat chuzzle, so I figured it was worth a shot), then I just let it scramble out the rest of the game and I got the Flawless Trophy.

Zen Mode:

Charms appear in the upper right-hand corner after so many points beginning with the heart followed by star, moon, shamrock, musical note, and horseshoe. Each had its own color (blue, green, red, and so on) and then one by one, they turned gold (over a long period of time). Then they turn multi-colored, and reportedly don’t do anything else after this.

I checked the original PC version of the game, and the Astraware version is indeed slightly different. When you get all the rainbow charms they should all turn gold instead of not doing anything. Basically, you don’t get anything at the end of Zen mode, which confuses people because doing the same for Bejeweled 2 unlocked a secret mode. You have to find the secret mode for Chuzzle another way!

There are 20 levels in Mindbender, each containing 5 puzzles. If you don’t seem to be able to get any further, some people have not spotted the arrow buttons in the bottom left. These navigate between levels.

Eyeballs lining up in Zen mode from bottom left to right measure how far you have gotten. If you get enough eyes (or Chuzzles on Pocket PC) then you get a stripe. Get enough stripes, and you get a charm.