Collins Chapter 8

Collins talks dynamic music as being more of a requirement for games as production values increase, and players tire of looping playback music. The looping music Mario used for its time is pretty epic. However, if someone tried that today, they would be considered lazy. Collins says why hire a composer if the music isn’t going to play a functional part in the game? The way that the game is designed, length, and how many players playing it, has a critical effect on what is composed. Listener fatigue is when you are stuck on a level and the music loops and makes you mad. Just like the music from the castle levels on Super Mario World.

Games are largely unpredictable in terms of the directions the player may take. This messes composers up, so they create a branching tree, which provides dynamic sound for every relevant event in the story. From there Collins talks about the Ten Approaches to Variability in Game Music.

1   Variable Tempo

2      Variable Pitch

3      Variable Rhythm/Meter

4      Variable Volume/Dynamics

5      Variable DSP/Timbres

6      Variable Melodies

7      Variable Harmony

8     Variable Mixing

9    Variable Form (Open Form)

10. Variable Form (Branching Parameter-based music)

It is cool to think that some composers can make variations of the same music to give it more shelf life. It makes me think how this same approach is used in movies and other digital media. 

Chapter 8

This reading was all about making music in games dynamic. This means not having the music being a static, background noise that just loops over and over. Instead, music in videogames should interact with and even help the immersion along and should respond to the narrative and what the player is doing. This is incredably difficult, though, because songs are supposed to be linear, and games definatly are not. I had never thought about how the many different choices in a game would effect the music but this reading brought up with a lot of different ways to deal with this.

Some of their ideas I recongized imediatly, like varying the tempo. This instantly made me think of Mario, and how the faster paced music could make my heart pound and suddenly the only important thing was getting to that flag. The fast paced music really put the timer in persepective for that game. Others made sense when I thought about them, such as the variable mix option. As I read that section I thought about many games that have many different places and cultures to explore, such as MMO's like World of Warcraft. Each area would have it's own kind of music that would be played. After playing Pokemon for so many years I can tell when I enter a battle because of the battle music. I don't actually have to be looking at the game.

Man, I wish I knew more about music after reading this. Some parts of this reading I had a hard time understanding (for instance I have no clue what DSP is). I'm looking forward to discussing this in class and hearing from people who may have a better understanding of music then me.

SPENT

I saw this game a while ago but recently stumbled across it again. I think it's a good example of using a game to help people better understand a problem in our world. While the game will tell you facts about living in poverty it will also show you plenty by forcing you to make the choices these people will face a lot. It also does things such as stack up all the problems you pile into your life because you don't have the money to make them go away. I wish the game went farther then a month, forcing you to play until you had to give up. All in all though I think it is really interesting.

http://playspent.org/

The importance of music

Music in video games is what drives the internal motives of excitement and the sense of adventure in a player. In everyday life people run to upbeat tempos to keep pace, they calm down listening to instrumentals and even feel a variety of emotions through the music as they share it with other people. The sound can affect the players performance. In the case of dark and mysterious games, a lurking melody can draw out the anxiety in a player and lead to a better surprise when the music stops and a spooky chime is drawn. These sounds bring a sense of reality to the game, and they shouldn't be overlooked.
Also, with music, there is a reflection of the game type. Certainly you wouldn't want to play 8bit music to something like Fallout- lol Annette, thinking of you. Simply because it doesn't suite the context of the situation. As a designer, you're trying to create an environment wether it's a melody or just the normal sounds you'd hear if you were in the situation. There are even games that don't play melodies, such as Golden Eye N64. It was pretty quiet at times, and the only sounds you'd hear the the footsteps and the echos of the surrounding nature. Then there was rapid gun fire, and the adrenaline kicked in.
Sound, whether it is there or whether it is used scarcely, is just one more way to mold the player's experience. Sets up the atmosphere for the player to dive into and tells them, subconsciously  what to expect. Just like the past reading explained how visual cues show the player where to go and what to do, the sound used (or lack of) will set up expectations in the player themselves and is a whole new way to influence game play.

Collins Chapter 5

I liked how this reading gave a bit of an overview of what people working with music do from publishers to producers to developers and so on. I guess I never realized how many people it takes to work on just the music for games. 

Music in games seems like common sense, but Collins makes it sound complicated, because it is. There's lots to think about from sounds with different actions to background music to fight scenes and do on. Mario is a great example of how music changing/speeding up can influence a players experience.

Collins Chap 5

In this reading it started out with looking at how a game gets developed, then narrows it's view to the sound design aspects of the game. Audio production is much like it is in film (since I have no clue how either area works this was quite an enlightening read). I'm excited to be learning about audio in general because it's one of the things I don't think about as much while playing games, but it is defanatly an important area. It looks as if the different composers try to make music for the game with the budget and project size that they have. They try to match the music as best they can to what's going on in the game to set the tone right. They join in at the pre-production stage and work with the developers as the game is created. They look at the major plot points in the game, as well as the major characters and try to create the music that way.

I noticed that there are many more pieces of music in a game then I really thought about. Major battles will get their own music, but apparently so will the main character running. This makes since, because you don't want just dead silence during your game (unless you are trying to do something with that silence) but this makes the task much more monumental the I first thought about. I can't think in musical concepts so I have no clue how they would be able to compose this music art and all these different pieces.

gaming: in and out of Simulation

Thought that you guys might be interested in this use of digital games:

http://www.hitl.washington.edu/projects/vrpain/