Extended memory: Music
LEWIS VAUGHAN is music to our ears
No Man’s Sky is right around the corner. It feels like it has been an eternity since we first saw the gameplay preview video. Everywhere you look, the game is getting well deserved attention and why shouldn’t it? It’s an incredibly bold idea. It’s big, it might even be the biggest game universe ever made, which is even more impressive when you consider the fact that the studio developing the game, Hello Games, has only 15 employees. This issue’s cover article is all about the game’s procedurally generated universe and how incredibly near-infinite it is, but you already knew that. What you might not know is that the music for the game is just as interesting, just as daring, and just as close to being infinite. With that in mind, it may be good to take a little look at music and video games.
Music is a huge part of video games. Think about a game like Silent Hill and what it would be without music. Every noise you hear translates to potential death, and you don’t like dying, so you don’t like hearing noises. You can easily notice a creaking door opening behind you, but what you may not be fully aware of is the music. The tension of the strings when you go around a corner or the sudden stab of a deep piano key when something randomly jumps in front of you. In reality, you’re just walking down a hallway. Well actually, in real-reality you’re sitting in a room, sweating on a controller and trying to maintain control over your bladder. That’s the power of music in a nutshell, but it’s also a great example of how important the role that music plays in video games and whether or not a game really sells the world that you’re playing in, or in No Man’s Sky’s case, the universe that you’re playing in. We mentioned before that the game is going to be big, but that term doesn’t explain the extravagance quite right. Near-infinite is probably a better term.
Much like the game world, the music is generated procedurally, reacting to everything from gameplay to changes in terrain or whether or not you’re in danger. That’s not an easy thing to accomplish, it’s obvious how much effort is going into this project musically. Few games really try to push the boundaries when it comes to games these days, which is a shame. It seems like “good enough” is a phrase that describes music in the majority of games lately. Now, that’s not to say that a lot of
in the early 90’s, Michael Land and Peter McConnell developed the iMuse system
game music is bad, not by a long shot, but it’s often nothing different, nothing exciting. When thinking about video game music that breaks the mould, games like de Blob come to mind. The game sees you rolling around a city, painting as you go. As you paint the city, the soundtrack changes depending on what colours you use. An example of this is when you paint the city in red, more saxophone solos get added to the soundtrack. Interactive musical gameplay mechanics like that are great, because they add another layer of immersion to the game. As you slap different colours around, the world changes, so it makes sense that the music should reflect these changes too.
While de Blob was a lot of fun, it wasn’t the first game to try something like this. In fact, way back in the early 90’s, Michael Land and Peter McConnell developed the iMuse system while working at Lucas Arts. The system was developed out of Land’s frustration with the audio system while composing the soundtrack for The Secret of Monkey Island. The idea behind the iMuse system was to synchronize audio with on-screen events and so that the audio transitions seamlessly from one musical theme to another depending on what was happening in the game. This system would go on to be used in a number of classic Star Wars games including the first ever DOS computer game set in the Star Wars universe, Star Wars: X-Wing. With the advent of these interactive music engines, some video games have transitioned to new levels of immersion and now with the rise of VR imminent, good music and sound will be more crucial than ever in those games where the whole point is immersion. More so, in those games music and sound will be under more scrutiny than ever. With companies spending millions of dollars investing in VR hardware, if developers don’t realize the importance of sound, then that’s a huge chunk of the experience thrown away. It’s certain that a lot of VR games will get it wrong, especially while easing into this new age of gaming hardware, but it’s just as certain a lot of games will get it right. That said, not all games require interactive sound, but it’s still a great feature for some games to play around with and add to the experience, especially when done right.
With games like The Secret of Monkey Island and X-Wing already showcasing amazing interactive sound, as well as games like No Man’s Sky right around the corner, it’s clear that music and games with most likely go hand in hand for the rest of time. There are also many examples of games that don’t use interactive music that still achieve a great experience. But most importantly, for us, whatever the future holds, whether it’s interactive music or linear music, it’s just an exciting time to have ears.