Here’s part two of a four-part series of videos I produced as a supplement to my book, A Composer’s Guide to Game Music. This video demonstrates concepts that are explored in depth in my book, beginning on page 200. Expanding on Part One’s discussion of the Vertical Layering employed in The Maw video game, this video provides some visual illustration for the interactive music composition techniques that were implemented in the video game LittleBigPlanet 2: Toy Story.
Hello Winnifred,
What is something you are currently missing or feel would greatly increase the cohesion between music and gameplay? I’m looking for a topic to research and am looking at both procedural music as an addition to composed music and ways of providing a better synchronisation between music and gameplay. (e.g. events in game line up perfectly with the music and fit as neatly as a linear soundtrack does with a linear film). Would you say this can still be improved or is the current situation sufficient.
Thanks a lot.
Things can always be improved, Robert — but I’m not sure that procedural music is the best way to provide a better synchronization between music and gameplay. It seems to me that one of the foremost goals of the procedural (or generative) music system is the avoidance of repetition fatigue by virtue of music that randomly or unpredictably varies its content. That differs from other interactive music systems that are designed to always react in direct accord with the state of gameplay, without any random or unpredictable variables. I talk about this quite a bit in my book (in chapters 11 and 12).