Chime is going through changes. If it’s time in The Lab here at Zoe was it’s birth and the foray onto Xbox LIVE Arcade it’s first day at school, then it’s safe to say that the game has officially entered it’s angsty teenage phase with the recent release on Steam. It all started back at [...]
Our Project who art in production, Chime by thy name. Gold master come. Thy will be done On time as it is in planning. Give us this day our daily scrum, And forgive us our blockages As we forgive those who block tasks against us And lead us not into overtime But deliver us from [...]
Releasing Chime onto an unsuspecting PC gaming public was a fantastic opportunity and what better platform is there to release it on than Valve’s digital distribution service Steam. We do what we must… One of the first issues we had to overcome with when porting the game to the Steam platform was the mixture of [...]
Okay, you got me, I admit it, I am addicted to Chime. So try and guess my excitement when we were given the news that PC fans would finally be able to play Chime and that they would get a new grid and a new song to go with it. Then we found out that [...]
Developing the music systems for Chime was an interesting assignment. In the early versions of the game the music system was based around a simple drum beat, and everything the player does adds musical components. The gameplay rules worked differently and the player had almost total freedom to build music. Timing was controlled by horizontal [...]
In this last section, I’m going to talk about getting the game on to Xbox LIVE, and then I’m going to say my fond farewells and issue a challenge to those of you brave enough to accept. Ooooh. As we made the game as fun as possible, we also had to make sure it was [...]
So we’ve been talking about the gameplay tweaks we made to Chime to get it ready for release after its long journey through the creative ether. We’ve dealt with the two biggest changes – to timers and to multipliers. Now we’ll cover all the other bits and bobs – we’ve got a lot to get [...]
The Prototyping phase of Chime was great. I think fondly of my time in “the lab” (Zoe Mode’s prototyping department), working in the pinnacle of Zoe Towers, harnessing lightning and cosmic rays, surrounded by test tubes and half built doomsday devices … A very small team of brilliant mad professors. It was clear that having [...]
Last time, we talked about some of the changes we made to the prototype version of Chime to make it ready for release. Hopefully, we’ll give you an insight into some of the design processes we go through in the life-cycle of a game. Or maybe you were just reading something to pass the time [...]
Gameplay. Designers love it. It makes us wobble like blancmanges and burst out in song for no apparent reason. This part of the blog’s all about what gameplay changes we made for the final version of Chime and why. As mentioned in previous blogs, the core mechanics were fantastic. However, the Lab – the experimental [...]
Chime © 2009 Zoë Mode Entertainment Ltd. | All Rights Reserved
Chime Super Deluxe © 2011 Zoë Mode Entertainment Ltd. | All Rights Reserved
An exclusive Zoë Mode production for OneBigGame, the videogames industry-wide charity initiative.
XBLA version published by Easy Tiger & Valcon Games under license from Zoë Mode. Microsoft, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox LIVE, and the Xbox logos are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies and are used under license from Microsoft.
PC version published by OneBigGame under license from Zoë Mode.
By purchasing the Xbox LIVE title, you will donate a minimum of 5% of the purchase price to charity.
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