Adam J SporkaWarhorse Studios

Czech Technical University in PragueGDS 2015 Prague

@adam_sporkaJAN VALTAADAM SPORKA

Photo Credits: Pavel Dobrovský

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Purpose of Music• Tradition

– Present in most of the released titles– Why not in yours?

• Declaration / Affirmation of genre– “Yes, this is an 8bit retro.”– “1870s, North America”

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Purpose of Music• Presentation of emotion

– Valence of emotion (happy, joyful, depressing…)– Actor-based vs. world-based

• Suppression of ratio– People are less analytic

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Purpose of Music• Setting the expectations

– Difficulty– Game pace

• “Sonification” of the game status– Changes of music over time indicate

changes in game

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Game Music Characteristics• Theme music is feature

– Recognizable theme– Elaborate– Genre announcer– Everyone will hear this

• Underscore is background– Mood setter– Does not distract– Can be listened to throughout the gameplay

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Game Music Characteristics• Silence

– Dosage of music• Used to emphasize music

– Keep the ambient sounds present– Complete silence “something wrong”

• “Are-my-speakers-on Problem”

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Music Design• Genre• Purpose of music

– Responsive vs anticipatory• Music space

– Contexts of game• Exploration, stealth, combat, minigames …

– Variables characterizing the state of game• Health status, imminent loss, expected victory, …

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Static vs Interactive Soundtrack• Static soundtrack

– Predefined– Not changing– Loops– Assigned to specific screens / levels

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Static Soundtrack• Early and simpler games• Level-based games

• Pengon (1984, Atari 800XL)– One music loop– Game over stinger

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Nimble Quest

• 2013; NimbleBit; iOS, Android• Arcade / RPG• Early 2000s pixel art graphics

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Static vs Interactive Soundtrack• Adaptive Music = Dynamic Music

– More complex control of the music playback– Engine “aware” of the state of the game

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KC:D Music Design• Film-like score

• Live orchestral recordings• Production from samples

– Realistic orchestration!

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KC:D Music Design• 1400s• “dungeons, no dragons”• open world, sandbox RPG

• Typical for open-world RPGs:– Multiple contexts

• Landscape exploration• Combats, battles• Dialogs

– Unknown order of those contexts

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KC:D Music Design• Villages / Towns

– Period music• Nature

– “Timeless”

• Consistent vocabulary of themes• Consistent instrumentation

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KC:D Music Design• Exploration

– Location-based– Weather– Recent crime

– Ambient, slow-paced– Landscape– Environment

• Action– Stealth– Combat– Chase

– Fast-paced– Player vs enemy– Player’s health

KC:D Music Design• Alternating between silence and music

– Combat always has music– Villages alternate between music and silence– Forests will be mostly without music

• Sparse usage of themes• Usage counters• Timeouts and Priorities

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KC:D Music Design• Is “combat” always more important than “exploration”?

• Should music always follow the player’s activity?• Rigid responses – consistency• Loose responses – interestingness

• When does a piece of music become unsuitable?• “Karma” of a place• Weather

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KC:D Music Design• Traditional adaptive music techniques:

– Resequencing– Reorchestration– Modulation– Generative art

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Transition Handling• Genre: Symphonic music

– Continuous harmonic progressions / voicing– Crossfade not an option– One track at the time– (Unlike techno / electronica)

Resequencing

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Standard Resequencing Example

(too complex and impractical)

Transition Handling• “Seamless transitions”

– Exploration music– No hurry– 15 seconds

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“Railroad Switches meet Teleports”

Seamless Music Transitionsin KC:D

Design by Adam Sporka and Jan Valta

Seamless Music Transitionsin KC:D

• Each scene (track) has its own start and end• Each scene has a number of branches leading to one of the

three music configurations = Alephs• aleph is the state of music: Tonality, instrumentation,

voicing tendency, etc.• Three global alephs throught the soundtrack• If change is requested, the playback reaches an aleph via

the nearest branch. A compatible intro of the destination scene starts, sync’d with the end of the branch.

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Transition Handling• “Transition via cinels”

– Exploration Action– ASAP!– 1 second

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Design by Adam Sporka and Jan Valta

Transitions via “cinels”

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Tricks• Destination (“Pattern B”) synchronized with the bar lines of

the Origin (“Pattern A”)• We let the Origin finish (decay) even after the playback of

the Destination started

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“Oomph”

Tricks

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Further Tricks• Traditional scoring• Creative freedom• Musicians involved early in the game

development• Close link between the devs and musicians (= we

are devs ourselves)• Own adaptive music middleware

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