Place blocks, build quads, get coverage, make music
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 the grid [...]
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 releasable [...]
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 a [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
You’ll recall last time we talked about how Chime had matured into something beautiful, like a fine, full-flavored cheese. Oh cheese, beautiful cheese. This time round, we’ll talk about OneBigGame and take a peek at the challenges we’d face to make the game ready for release.
So Zoë had a game that they really wanted people [...]
Welcome back to the Chime designer blog. In this installment, you’ll learn about Chime’s formative adventures through Zoёland, the magical world where all of us game elves live and work.
To recap, Chime had started life as Cascade, a fun musical puzzler on the PSP. It was the first project of the Lab, Zoë Mode’s experimental, [...]
Puzzle games have enjoyed a long tradition, and have been entertaining people and stretching minds for centuries. There are many different types of puzzle game, but they all share similar traits that make them attractive and enduring.
Games like Chess and Draughts rely on moving different pieces to a proscribed set of rules, which result in [...]
