The Challenge

There’s already enough challenges in your day.  Meeting deadlines, monitoring budgets, and dealing with the countless emergencies that arrive during development all are challenging in their own right.  However, another fundamental challenge in development is communicating.  Communicating with someone that has the same role as you or background is is one thing, but communicating with someone from a totally different discipline, each with its own vernacular (Programming, Art, Marketing), is another challenge in itself.  We’re going to discuss probably one of the most challenging conversations that a game producer/developer will have, and that’s with a composer. We’ll address the inherent difficulty in the dialogue between a game development team and a composer, but more importantly, we’ll also talk about how to overcome this gap.  By the end of the article, you’ll be well on your way to getting the best fitting music from your game when working with your composer.

Why Talking To A Composer Can Be Difficult

Music, much like programming, is a language in itself with its own notation and vernacular.  Although the notation of music may only be known by those with musical training, music itself is a universal language that conveys emotion.  Regardless of background or musical training, a melancholy piece composed in Berlin will be perceived as a melancholy piece by an African audience.  Despite this universality however, there exists a large amount of subjectivity with music that doesn’t exist in programming.  Whether a song is good or bad is subjective.  Even the attributes used to describe a song can be quite broad.  Take “reggae” for example.  It may sound simple to request a “reggae” song for your track, but do you mean Bob Marley? Sublime?  Shabba Ranks?  Technically, using reggae to describe all these genres is correct in a sense, but where does that get us in terms of actual sound since each of these artists sounds unique in their own right.  However, there is hope…

Purpose

Before even thinking about music for your game, throw out any of your music-genre centric language such as orchestral or rock and challenge yourself to describe music in terms that we’ll mention below.  In fact, before thinking about music, first consider the purpose of music in your game.  Why do you want or need music in your game?  What is the function of the musical piece?  This is not a philosophical question, but rather a very practical one.  In fact, you should be asking this for every instance that you plan to have music:  the menu screen, the various levels, cutscenes, and stingers.  Asking these questions forces you to think of music as another gameplay element in your game, which it is.  A few examples are the following:

Narrative Support:  Your game is plot driven and your game needs music to emotionally tie your gamer to the events occurring in the game (the plot).

Thematic:  You want music to represent certain heroes, villains, or side characters in your game.

Mood Setting:  Your game needs something to help induce a mental state or mood.  Perhaps it’s a puzzle game where you want the music to help the player to concentrate.  Perhaps it’s a fighting game where you want the player to be amped up. Perhaps you are just setting the tone for the game at the menu screen.

Game State:  Your game switches between game modes such as exploration and action and you need the music to communicate this switch to the player.

Reward/Punishment:  Something good has happened to the player (such as victory music), or something bad has happened (they lost).  This is typically done via use of short musical compositions known as stingers.

One of our demo games on this site, Breakout, is a rendition of the classic block smashing arcade game of the same name.  Before we opened up our musical tools to develop music for this fairly simple game, we asked ourselves, what is the purpose of music for this game. We decided music would serve two roles.  First, it was to set the mood throughout gameplay.  Secondly, it was to reward/punish play depending on whether they won or lost the game.

Stay tuned next week as we talk about the remaining pieces of the puzzle: emotion and aesthetics.

Replay Value

Replay value…it’s that magical characteristic sought after by game developers that keeps gamers playing, even after they’ve completed a game before.  Non-linear storylines, secret costumes, and unlock able content are all staple ways of adding to replay value.  However, one aspect that many developers overlook in regards to lengthening a game’s lifespan is audio….yes, we said it…AUDIO.   Audio won’t entice players to play longer in the same manner of secret costumes and unlock able content, but done correctly, audio can support other game elements to enhance replay value numerous hours after the first playthrough.  However, done incorrectly, bad audio will prevent players from playing longer since at it’s worst, bad audio can quickly annoy players. Let’s looks at a few ways that you can enhance replay value through audio.

Sound Variations

Think about a sound that occurs frequently in your game, possibly a footstep sound or a weapon sound.  Now consider how long a gamer will potentially be hearing this sound.  Hearing this exact same sound over and over again when a  certain action is triggered is a sure fire way to annoy your gamer, and the main culprit of this is caused by using one audio sample per action.  Furthermore, having the same sound triggered is unrealistic and unrepresentative of how sound works in the real world and your gamers will pick up on this.  One technique to remedy these static sounds is to use sample variations that give the sound more variety, sounds more natural, and will not annoy the player.  Another nice touch is to add is subtle random pitch adjustments each time the action occurs.  This, combined with varying samples will result in a more dynamic sound that will sound subtly different each time it’s heard.  After hours of hearing the sound being triggered, your gamers will thank you.

Interactive Music

In the same vein that hearing the same audio over and over again can be frustrating, hearing a static music loop over and over again is another sure way to annoy a gamer; especially if a level is played for long periods.  Fortunately, games have a unique advantage versus tv and film, and that is interactive audio.  Interactive music not only enhances the experience (which is another subject in itself), but can extend the replay value of your game tremendously through enhancing other elements.  For example, suppose a game level can be played in multiple ways:  stealthily with a knife or a guns-blazing way with a shotgun.  Now suppose that depending on which weapon you use, the music responds.  With the knife, the music is rather ambient, putting the gamer in stealth mode.  With the shotgun however, war drums, brass, and strings are added.  Each way the gamer plays the game, the music adapts, making it not only a new gameplay experience, but a new audio and emotional experience since the music reflects how the gamer plays the game.

Replay value is a sought after element of many games, but do not overlook the role that audio has in enhancing the replay experience.  At best, it enhances the replay value and at worst, it can negatively impact replay value.  With a few subtle touches to a game, audio can greatly contribute to your game lasting longer.