Writing Interactive Music for Video Games: A Composer’s Guide

Chapter 12. Music as a Gameplay Element

Many modern games use music for diegetic or gameplay purposes. For instance, in music games, the gameplay mechanics directly affect and influence the music. In other games, musical events may occur when the player enters the proximity of an object in the game world or captures an object. These musical cues must be considered in the context of the entire musical landscape and the ways this audio might interact with any non-diegetic music in the scene. This chapter focuses on creating a strategy for unifying all the musical elements that might be part of a scene and discusses gameplay mechanics based on musical or rhythmic events.

Engaging Players with Music

Modern games employ many different ways of using ...