Review Score:

Helping charities through gaming? Awesome

We all try to do our bit for charity from time to time however, when you can help those less fortunate and still get an entertaining experience from it then that’s just a double feel good. This is where I usually add some sort of sentiment of humour but I didn’t feel it was justified in our review of Chime. Let’s clear up some facts about the game, for every purchase of Chime 60% of its proceeds gets donated to OneBigGame initiative. OBG is a non-profit video game publisher that was originally founded by Martin de Ronde, the co-founder of Guerilla Games. Now, just because the a percentage of the proceeds go to charity does not mean this game is sub-par at all, if anything you shouldn’t even approach this title with that in mind, after all as you will read on it stands on its own merits.

Not quite lumines presentation, but good enough

The best way to describe Zoe Mode’s Chime is a musical puzzle based game. It has connotations towards Lumines and Tetris but in essence it stands on its own for being quite unique. The idea is to create quads (large blocks) by putting pieces of puzzle blocks together to create a square or rectangle without any missing blocks in the middle. By doing this, once it’s settled in place it will cause coverage on the game area. To progress through to the next level, 50% of the playing field needs to be covered by the quads. Once the quads are in play you have a set amount of time to build up the quad and make it larger (Lumines). You can then build over existing quads once activated and create new quads to fill in gaps that may appear.

This sounds like a good puzzle game in itself but what makes this game so enjoyable to play, is its musical interaction. Anyone would believe it’s come straight from the Q Entertainment Studios. The further you fill up the grid with activated quads the more sound samples come into play. The music has a timeline that repeats over the grid and once this line passes active blocks in play it creates a rhythm section. In elements this does what Lumines does but with more complicated blocks and the coverage strategy, in hindsight makes it a more technical game than Lumines. I know I’ve mentioned the game that begins with L four times already but the similarities are to be seen.

The game has a handful of tracks to play through and they all seem ambient in nature. Moby makes an appearance and so does Lemon Jelly’s Fred Deakin. The track selection is very appealing and all of the music works well with the game. One thing definitely worth mentioning is the very first achievement you can get in the game, I don’t want to ruin it for you but it will certainly bring a smile to your face and you don’t even need to do anything to get it. The game whilst lacking in tracks will provide a good measure for your 400 Microsoft Points especially as there is a bonus mode for getting 100% coverage on each of the level grids. Once the game is completed there is a free mode, where you can play without the timer on your back or score and in essence it kind of makes it an interactive sound equalizer that you can play around with and get creative. The time mode does have a little variation. You can either take 9 minutes, 6 or if you’re really hardcore, 3 minutes to try and clear each grid. So there is plenty of challenge to be had.

If anything lets down chime, it’s the presentation. It doesn’t have the polish of the game beginning with L and that’s a bit of a shame at the title menu screen you could be forgiven for believing you were about to enter another Jeff Minter tripped out experience, thankfully that doesn’t happen. For 400 Microsoft points this game is definitely worth a punt and it will make you feel warm inside that some of the proceeds are distributed to good causes. The game would stand alone on XBLA as a good alternative to other music puzzlers that arguably started off at a stupid price of 1200 points. Whilst lacking in game modes and tracks Chime offers a more strategic and audible experience and is definitely a nice compliment to two weeks on XBL without releases that don’t require you to blow everything up.

The moving timeline creates samples and rhythmn

I guess the big question then is DLC. There is definitely room here for Zoe Mode to branch out into micro-transactions and like all music based games people will often jump in and buy. I would love to see other music genres explored with these game mechanics and with any luck we may see more from Chime on the horizon. This game then is definitely worth a punt and if bought along with the recent Splosion Man price drop you could be getting some of the best value for your Microsoft Points Xbox Live has offered to date.