Fun Fact week Video Game Music

Fun Fact #494

LudoMusical Awards

Game music is always evolving and changing but that doesn't mean the old gets thrown away either. Indeed many award shows (12 not counting a section of the Grammys) for Video Game Music have cropped up over the years, such as The Golden Joystick awards with its Video Game Music Hall of Fame (the only franchise with multiple entries is Zelda). There is also a record of genres which spawn from video games such as Bitpop, Nintendocore, and Chiptune, which focuses on recreating the feel of old 16 bit video games for a modern audience. There are also genres over which the Video Game music tech played an important part in shaping such as Hip-hop, Synth-pop, Electro, and Pop Music.

These awards have driven companies to create whole new career paths for people making video game music allowing it to be a growing field even among the widespread videogame layoffs of 2023.

I hope you have enjoyed this week’s Fun Facts and that you have a wonderful day.

(Image is of the titular awards given at The 2023 GOlden Joystick Award in London)

Fun Fact #493

Ambiance

It's time to answer the earlier question of why video game music feels like it's gotten worse. The truth is, it hasn't gotten worse, but rather the goals have changed. When Video game music started it was just a fun side to listen to and –when combined with the physical limitations of the time– thus focused primarily on melodies. Yet it has evolved since then for the goal of video game music to accompany and reinforce the player’s immersion.

 To do this composers will often sacrifice the melody or even traditional song structure entirely to better fit what the game needs. This makes for a worse song when it stands on its own, but that's alright because it was never designed to be on its own. Sort of like using a knife to grate cheese, can you do it? Yeah, but is it worth the effort? No, not really. A wonderful example of this is the Silent Hill franchise which primarily uses notes from a mandolin to generate suspense which the in-game monsters can then break creating for some truly fearful scenes. 

(Image is a free Silent Hill Themed Background of Pyramid Head from MrWallpaper. Com )

 

Fun Fact #492

Adapt or get run over

In 1981, the video game Frogger was released and featured the new innovation of  having abrupt cuts to victory music when the player reached a safe position. This was Adaptive music or the idea of changing music based on interactions from outside the music with different techniques relying on different triggers. Today most companies use a variation of iMUSE Dynamic Music System (commonly referred to as iMUSE) to program this into video games, and was created by Luscas Arts in 1992 for Monkey Island 2 and popularized by its use in 1995’s Star Wars: Dark Forces. Weirdly it's also a growing trend in Italy for theaters and Plays to use blending to increase the immersion felt by crowds.

• Horizontal or Vertical Music

• This is where the music is meant to drive players through a story and is characterized by having one track fade while another builds or make use of dedicated transitions to keep up the pace of music.  Halo 2 is a wonderful example of this style.

• Algorithmic

• Where games sequence or generate new musical works based on rulesets driven by the gameplay, One of the best examples is “Tanks” for the Wii system where the presence of each tank type alters the main theme of the game. 

• Blending

• Blending sound effects into the music so every action the player makes has an impact on the song. Deadspace 2 is the example often used academically and uses a 4-tier version of Blending, altering the tier based on a player’s “Fear Level”.

(image is an ad for Lucasarts’ Grim Fandango game which received multiple awards for its soundtrack which featured the iMUSE software. Although the separate purchasable soundtrack lacks this adaptive element)

Fun Fact #491

The Mighty MIDI

Have you ever thought games used to have better music? If so, then know you’re not alone, and while it's not factually true, there is a reason why to many it feels true. 

When video games first started being made the technical limitations of the hardware proved quite difficult to overcome from Analog, to 8 or 16-bit operating systems. However the chief issue for many years was the inability to play more than 3 notes at a time known as a Chord. This “banished” video games to be operating in the same guidelines as melodies which are those annoying earworms which you often hear repeated in songs. Melodies rely on a simple tune or rhythm that the listener perceives as a single entity making them easy to memorize (Catchy). As time went on some advancements in tech like Programmable Sound generators allowed games to use clips of recorded audio rather than having to synthesize it, but this required far more game memory and took more processing power than many systems could handle –thus limiting the impact of such advancements.

That all changed when MIDI came into play. MIDI (Musical instrument Digital interface) was one of the first attempts to create a Technical standard for digital music and allowed for far less processing power to be needed to replay music. It also happens to be one of the first examples of Open-source technology since it required the adoption of as many companies as possible to make it effective. 40 years later MIDI is still in use from the equipment used in concerts, to forum room speakers, and is a vital tool in digital music creation and composition.

PS: if you're interested in making music, know that it's not as expensive as it seems. One that I stumbled across which receives high praise is “Waveform Free '' which is just the free version of Waveform and has all the perks of the previous year's Paid version –just with the caveat that its outdated by a singular year. Rather fun to play with. In any case thanks for reading and please have a wonderful day!

(Picture is of MIDI Manufacture’s association Logo obtained from Wikimedia commons)

Fun Fact #490

LudoMusicology

In 2008, The University of Waterloo issued a Monograph (Book on a highly specialized topic) on Ludomusicology or the Study Of Video Game Music. The field has been exploding in research ever since and focuses on how the tech, Compositions, and tools used in video game music have impacted the world.

 A good example of this is how Audiologists use videogames to make studying interactions with sound easier to quantify and has led to improvements in Medicine for PTSD, Alzheimer's, ADHD, Depression, and even some forms of Autism. Games can even be part of the treatment prescribed! Just don't expect your Doctor to prescribe Baulder’s Gate as many of these games are designed to help with recognition, Desensitisation (for PTSD), Memory, and Attention keeping. 

Think more like Minecraft whose Modding community has people who can make environments to fit a patient's needs, or Empower which focuses on helping patients to build healthy habits in their daily lives. Other examples include the genre of Puzzle games, or reminder games Like MANGO HEALTH which uses highly addictive skinner box techniques to encourage people to take their medication on time (especially helpful for those suffering from Alzheimer's).