A puzzle game with a musical element, Chime is reminiscent of Lumines but feels a lot like flOw. With its sublime techno tracks, provided by some noteworthy artists, Chime is basically audio visual cannabis.  Developed by Zoë Mode and published by Valcon Games, it is  currently available on XBox Live for 400 Microsoft Points and, per usual, has a timed playable trial.

Gameplay

Chime itself handles as you would expect of a genre that has had three decades to perfect. The controls are solid and intuitive. Simply position your block with the left stick, rotate it with either the shoulder buttons or the right stick, and drop it with the “A” button or by pressing the right stick.

The game seems intentionally devoid of the opportunity for failure and elects to focus more on allowing the player to simply cut loose and be creative. The blocks themselves, when placed, will trigger small notes to be sounded as the bar sweeps across the screen. Once the blocks combine to form rectangles of three by three squares or more they become “quads” and then are triggered as special rhythmic or vocal bits depending on their size. These quads can be continually expanded as long as they are kept alive by adding blocks to them before the sweeping bar finalizes their size. Once the quads are finalized they become part of the completed area of the map and cam be played on again to complete new quads. There is an element of scoring and time limits, however, once you are really grooving along all of these things seem to sort of melt away.

With regard to modes, the game has two Free Play and Timed. The modes are exactly as they sound, Free mode lets you play until you have 100% coverage of a map and Timed lets you play until the clock runs out. Both modes are necessary for 100% achievements.

Audio Visual

As you may expect the audio is quite good, seeing as how the music is the primary objective of the game. It is pretty lean on actual tracks unfortunately featuring only 5 sets. I say sets, rather than songs, mainly because the structure of the music is ultimately defined by you and your block placements.

Artists

• Philip Glass, Brazil
• Moby, Ooh Yeah
• Paul Hartnoll, For Silence
• Markus Schulz, Spilled Cranberries
• Fred Deakin, Disco Ghosts

The visuals are simplistic, easy on the eyes, and fit the mood of the game nicely. The only real complaint I have within this particular facet of the game relates to a fairly infrequent occurrence. There are occasions when you are struggling to get that last block placed as the sweeping bar gets close and can sometimes cause a bit too much bloom to really get the job done resulting in stunted quad growth.

Summary

Chime is a great “mellow out” low key game that allows you to stretch your creative muscles without leaving the couch. It rings in at a palatable five real people dollars and as a puzzle game it has a good deal of replay value. The availability of a demo really takes the guess work out of this one, the game is exactly what the demo gives you a taste of, so check it out.