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Abstract

The goal of this project is to explore the use of music in video games and how music can be used to enhance common gaming mechanics such as low health, item collection, and progression indicators. This is not intended to be a full “music game” like Guitar Hero or Parappa the Rapper; rather, the intent is to find the medium between music as a background element and music as the main mechanic. With that goal in mind I used Unity to create a few small games and took examples from some current games to compare how these mechanics are currently handled musically and provide examples of how they might be enhanced. Additionally, I employed the use of a jazz sextet because I believe the improvisational elements of jazz would be essential. Furthermore, generally small jazz ensembles aren’t used in game music so I wish to explore that as well. During this process I learned a few things about why the current design of game music and sound effects work well. Sometimes my changes were very subtle and the effectiveness was questionable. However, I found places where the design was changed that I think could be useful to the industry overall.

Publication Date

7-1-2022

Campus

Boston Campus

Comments

Project Components: paper (.pdf), presentation (.pdf), audio files (ZIP file contianing 4 .wav files), scores (ZIP file containing 4 .pdf documents).

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