The Game Composer’s Blog

Game music, a matter of life and death.

Thou Shalt Not neglect silence. (#7)

neglect silence.

Music is of course an integral part of any video game experience. But while other components of video games (like graphics and user interface) are absolutely necessary throughout the entire game, music isn’t always necessary and in fact sometimes should be left out. If a game has wall-to-wall music, one important possibility of musical contrast is left out: the simple and effective contrast between sound and no sound.

Nothing encourages a player to reflect or see a new perspective like eliminating music for a while. It doesn’t have to be long. One common way to use silence is to place it right after finishing a level on the score screen. When the music stops, the player is free to breathe to their own tempo which helps them take control of their own thoughts and regroup. If the game immediately launches into new music without that break, the player is left at the mercy of the music’s beat and remains mentally at the surface of the game experience. ..no reflection, just an urge to launch into the next level. Never underestimate the power of silence to help deepen the player’s experience.

To take a couple of examples spanning a couple decades, think about Super Mario Brothers and Grand Theft Auto 4. In SMB, at the end of a level after jumping up to get a flag or kill the final baddy, a short victory piece is played and then there is a brief period of silence. The player can catch their breath and think back on their hard earned victory. If new music started immediately, the player would naturally be in “anticipation” mode rather than “satisfaction” mode. Sure, even with silence they’ll still anticipate a little but it’s important for the player to get that reward. Music’s not totally left out of the end of SMB levels… they do get the victory music. But silence is an important way to help make the player look back and feel satisfied about their accomplishment.

Grand Theft Auto 4 has a ton of musical content, but it isn’t constantly bombarding the player. You’ll commonly only find the music when you’re driving around or inside buildings. Often, you’ll finish a mission in your car listening to some heart-pumping rock. As soon as you park and step out of your car, you’re greeted with the quiet of a park or the bustle of a city street. Either way, the player is encouraged to reflect on their accomplishment to their own rhythm. The player doesn’t need to be baby-fed their emotion through music. They can find it within themselves with the help of silence. And you can’t always predict how they’ll feel. After mowing down half a dozen baddies, you can feel a little weird then walking around a quiet park with the sounds of the battle still echoing in your own head.

So, be sure and get plenty of musical content for your game. But remember to leave some space for silence. Trust the player to generate their own emotion sometimes. I did write about this in an earlier blog but, sure enough, I found it in the good game music rule book (the long lost and now found Ludus Sonitus Decretum).

October 13, 2008 Posted by | Developer Music Tips, Thou Shalt Not | , , | Leave a Comment

Silence.

No, this isn’t about the book by John Cage (and if you get that reference, nice job!). It’s about the importance of silence in your game. When people think about game music, they usually think back to something along the lines of the Super Mario Bros loop. It’s a great tune, instantly recognizable, and almost never gets old thanks to enough variation.

Music implementation, especially in boxed games, has gotten a lot more sophisticated since then. With CD-ROM and DVD games, you can have a lot more music in your game. So music gets stale at a much slower pace. However, the colossal casual games market is plagued by generally less sophisticated music implementation. It hasn’t really progressed much past the old Super Mario Bros style of loop, loop, loop, win music.

Of course download size is the limiting factor here. As broadband internet spreads and gets faster, this will be less of a hindrance to providing good music in your game, but what to do until then? Well, beef up your music system! Don’t just do loops. With the limited megabytes you have to play with, loops will still be integral. But consider going a little further and adding things like layers and starts/endings.

For an example, here is something we did in Solitaire Pop. Have a basic loop consisting of just drums and harmony. Then have a layer that can fit right on top of that that spices things up. It could add a melody or extra rhythms to make things more interesting. Also, have a short piece ready that can plug right into the end of the loop that can end the music. Then have a similar short piece that can start the loop up again. Then you have many more sonic possibilities without that much more compositional work, though it does create a little more work for the programmers in order to implement such a system. Make the layers and starts and stops all happen randomly. For a casual game, that’s usually good enough. But you can go deeper and incorporate another idea from Solitaire Pop. We also had a “danger” layer that could play over the loop when things started looking bad for the player. The possibilities are endless! You just have to make them happen.

But back to the topic of silence, it’s amazing what a little silence will do for a game. Suddenly you can hear things you may not have noticed before. Maybe you’ll notice your heartbeat. Whenever there is a change, sonically or visually, it’s human nature to take notice. And there’s no bigger change than music becoming silence. The player will take notice. And that’s what we want, the player to be sucked into your game even more.

No matter how brilliant a one or two minute loop is, it will eventually get old. We need to keep things as fresh as possible for as long as possible. Consider different ways to build a music system for your game. It really does bring some more life to the experience. And sometimes the best addition is done by subtraction.

July 21, 2008 Posted by | Developer Music Tips, Music Nitty Gritty | , , | Leave a Comment

   

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