OneBigGame: melding charity with creativity

By Andy Burt
November 06, 2009 12:02 PM PST
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Two and a half years in the making, gaming's most ambitious charity gets backing from a plethora of big name developers.

Pet projects are an outlet for many developers to escape from their everyday jobs to do something exciting on their own, but Guerrilla Games co-founder and current director of charity group OneBigGame Martin De Ronde wants to bring these projects into the spotlight for a good cause. "At Guerrilla Games, everyone at our studio would finish their normal work and either work on their own pet project, or go home and play games. It's like that at many studios, there are ideas lying around that aren't seeing the light of day, and we want take that creativity and put it to good use," De Ronde told me on a recent visit to GamePro. During our conversation De Ronde gave me the rundown of what OneBigGame is all about, and how some of the biggest names in gaming are jumping on board to support the charity. I was also able to get some hands-on time with the Zoe Mode-developed music/puzzler Chime, which will be the first game published under the OneBigGame label.

The beginnings of OneBigGame started with De Ronde two and a half years ago, and was originally planned to be a platform for Flash games. Games would be created pro bono by De Ronde's friends in the development community, and the proceeds would go to the Save The Children charity group. As more and more developers took interest, De Ronde realized that the group couldn't be limited to flash games. Developers wanted to work in XNA (Microsoft's Xbox 360 toolset) and the PSN platform, and some of the ideas that have spawned from OneBigGame's limitless creative outlet for developers have surprised even De Ronde. "Charles Cecil [of Beneath a Steel Sky fame] approached us and said he wanted to do an adventure version of Minesweeper, with a backstory as to why the mines are there. I told him to run with it," De Ronde told me. The group has since been approached by PaRappa the Rapper creator Masaya Matsuura, Shiny Entertainment founder David Perry and others, all of whom are creating games in their free time to give to OneBigGame.

Other gaming related charities!

Currently OneBigGame has fifteen titles in the works that will be published by the group, and just announced a winter release for Chime. The group is using a unique model to distribute games, making it possible for developers to monetize their titles after an initial pro bono period. Flash games have a 12 month distribution period, while bigger titles (like Chime, which will be available on XBLA and PC) get a six month distribution period. During the limited distribution period all proceeds will go to the Save The Children organization, and after the period ends all rights revert back to the developers to do with their games what they will. "In a way, developers can use OneBigGame as a launch pad for new IP, and we wanted to give them a monetary incentive to get involved. Though, what we then found out was that about 80 percent of them said 'I'm fine, I just want to do this regardless because it's a great idea,'" De Ronde told me.

Chime tasks players with creating 3x3 (or more) shapes on a grid, which then impact the song of that level.

OneBigGame's first title Chime is a unique music game in the vein of Lumines, but also utilizes a Tetris-style block-building mechanic. Developed by Zoe Mode, who has worked on the SingStar series as well as PSP puzzle game Crush, the game itself is a testament to OneBigGame's influence on people's willingness to give to a good cause; all of the songs in Chime come from big name musicians, and have been donated for use by OneBigGame. De Ronde showed two stages of Chime, one that featured Moby's track "Ooh Yeah" and the other which featured "For Silence" by Paul Hartnoll of Orbital. Placing Tetris-shaped blocks on a grid surface will cue certain elements of the song to take shape, and the sounds will change depending on where you place the shapes on the grid. A vertical beam passes through the grid, and the goal is to create 3x3 or more quadrilaterals, or "quads" which will then turn into giant glowing shapes on the grid. Pieces of shapes that aren't formed into quads will eventually be removed by the beam once it passes through four times. Though any shape placed on the grid will cue elements of the song, the tracks really start to build once multiple quads have been built on the grid. Due to the nature of building the songs up by placing blocks on the grid, the songs never sound exactly the same on repeat playthroughs. The game is a bit hard to describe with words, so check out the below trailer for a taste of Chime.

The full game when released this winter will contain five tracks, and two play modes: Timed and Free Play. If Chime is any indication of what OneBigGame will have to offer in the future, the games-for-charity group may be well on their way to churning out great titles for a great cause.