News

San Francisco, Calif. – June 30, in the year of our Lord 2010 – Microsoft has chosen OneBigGame’s popular music puzzler Chime a Critic’s Choice title, to be part of the special Xbox LIVE® Arcade for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft Deal of the Week promotion.  This week, Xbox LIVE Gold subscribers can purchase Chime along with other critically-acclaimed titles, at discounted rates.  Chime is available now for 240 Microsoft Points ($3 USD), and OneBigGame will donate all net proceeds to charity partners Save the Children and Starlight Children’s Foundation.

“We are honoured to be included in the Critic’s Choice line-up of Xbox LIVE Arcade for Xbox 360 games,” said Martin de Ronde, director, OneBigGame. “Chime’s commercial and critical success is the result of creative minds in the entertainment industry coming together to create an enjoyable, immersive and interactive experience.”

Developed by music game protégé Zoë Mode, Chime is the flagship title in OneBigGame’s exciting and inspiring catalog of games.  OneBigGame currently has more than 15 games in development to raise money for its children’s charities.

A creative twist on both music and block puzzle games, Chime tasks players with covering the playing field with irregular shapes, each connected to a sound effect from the background music track, to form rectangular blocks, called quads.  Gamers control a single shape at a time, and can move, rotate, and then place it on the grid.  A beatline moves across the grid in time with the music, and sets off events when it hits placed shapes.  Quads are created by placing shapes in solid blocks of 3x3 or more. When a quad is completed and the beat line hits, different musical samples are triggered dependent on its shape.  The size of the quad denotes the score, and multipliers can be achieved by having several quads on the screen at once.  Chime’s innovative game mechanics enables players to create a unique remix of each song every time they play a level as the building of larger quads unlock more elements of the underlying song.  Working their way to 100 percent coverage of the grid, players will unlock the song in full.

World renowned artists Philip Glass, Moby, Markus Schulz, Paul Hartnoll of Orbital and Fred Deakin of Lemon Jelly have donated their music tracks pro bono to Chime.

Chime is rated “E” for Everyone by the Entertainment Software Rating Board and is available on Xbox LIVE® Arcade for Xbox 360 for 240 Microsoft Points.  For more information about Chime, please visit www.chimegame.com.