At this year’s GameCity Squared festival, OneBigGame announced their first title in a series of mini-games for charity. The first release is Chime, a music-based Tetris-esq Xbox Live Arcade title, created by Zoë Mode, which will hit XBL this Winter.

The first look was presented by OneBigGame’s founder: Martin de Ronde. Formerly of Guerrilla Games, de Ronde set up OneBigGame back in 2006 in order to raise money for charity. ‘I was influenced by Live Aid. I was watching a documentary on the 20th anniversary of Band Aid and I was puzzled by the gaming industry dwarfing industry rivals but not helping the world’ explained de Ronde. ‘This is our way of giving something back.’

Before revealing any gameplay of Chime, de Ronde game some information on what other projects were on the way. ‘We originally wanted to make this one big game with lots of great developers, but it didn’t seem to be happening. So we got some developers on board and starting making these mini games’ explained de Ronde. Included in this super group of developers are David Perry, who is creating a remake of a Spectrum classic for Wii, Masaya Matsuura working on music game WINtA for the iPhone, and point ‘n’ click veteran Charles Cecil, who is remaking Minesweeper as an adventure.

de Ronde passed his audiences over to Steve Curran of Zoë Mode to demonstrate the first game on OneBigGame’s release schedule: Chime. Curran describes Chime as a Puzzle Actioner, and as he boots up the title the visual aesthetic is very much a less explosive Geometry Wars, the vibrant colours here much more soothing than retina burning. As he navigates through the crisp menus we catch a list of artists including Moby and Paul Hartnoll; some of the most exciting movers in the music industry. Selecting his favourite track, Curran selects a difficulty (here being time spans, 9 minutes being the easiest, 6 minutes medium and 3 the hardest setting) and starts a game. A grid fills the screen and Curran’s cursor displays a Tetris-esq shape, which he can move and set as he pleases. As he places the shape, the music playing in the background (at the start an almost generic hum) gains a note. It soon becomes clear that the more the board is covered by the blocks, the more notes are added to the composition. ‘It’s a nice, compulsive and elegant game mechanic’ explains Curran, as he fits some blocks together to make a box shape, which gains him a points multiplier. As he does so, he covers 10% of the grid and gains a time bonus, stopping the ticking clock for a few more precious seconds.

Curran soon gave up his controller to the audience, and as other players started placing blocks in the bottom corner, Curran was prompted to explain about the various play styles. ‘It’s definitely a game that promotes back-seat driving. But that’s the beauty of the game I think; there is no right way to play Chime.’

As more people try out the game, more of the mechanics are revealed. There are 15 different blocks, but only 5 are used per grid. Some grids prove more problematic than others, as on more difficult tracks the grids are split and have odd shapes that require getting the right block shape to fit into the corners. Yet there’s still something simple to it that clearly emphasises the potential for addictive gameplay. ‘We did try changing the game, but the more you add to it the more problematic it becomes’ said Curran, justifying Chime’s polished simplicity.

Post-demonstration, de Ronde discussed the release schedule, which hopes to see Chime released to XBLA in the Winter, priced at either 400MSP or 800MPS. 80% of the takings will be donated to OneBigGame’s charties: Save The Children and Starlight.