Chime

Today, I bought a game off Steam cheaply. I played it for the last 30 minutes or so, and I figured I'd share my experience with you all.

The game is called Chime, and set me back merely $5 - quite cheap for a game. Cheap enough for you to think its an indie title. A thought which is entirely accurate. However, indie games does not always mean cheap and crap games. In fact, quite a lot of indie games reach levels of awesome that the AAA titles can never aspire to, simply because indie developers are more willing to take risks, and do something different than to make generic shooter #357.

I'm looking at YOU, Bungie.

But I digress. This was not to be a tirade defending indie games, this was to bring some attention to Chime. This game is great.

It is slightly confusing to play at first, because it has quite an odd idea behind it. It is a puzzle music game.

I'll let that sink in for a moment. Not a music action game like Beat Hazard, or a rhythm action game like Beatmania, Amplitude, Guitar Hero, DJ Max, etc. A music puzzler.

The idea behind the game is that you are given a large grid, and blocks to fill it. The block are different shapes and sizes, and your job is to arrange them as neatly and quickly as you can to form quads. A quad being a square that is 3x3 or more, or a rectangle of similar minimum size. As you make more quads, your coverage of the grid is increased, which will allow you to complete the level and move on once the timer runs out.

The interesting part here, is that each level is a song, and the amount of the song that you can actually hear is dependant on how much grid coverage you attain.

After a little bit, the square you place get stamped into the grid, and you can place new ones over the top - so if you mess up you can make the coverage work better. When the time runs out, 50% coverage will unlock a new level, while 100% coverage will give you a bonus of some kind. I've not obtained it in my short attempt yet, so I cannot say what happens. Mainly because I don't know.

It's like a demeted, awesome, musical game of tetris, and I love it. That is all.