Gaming in 2022 is a very exciting prospect. In addition to an ever-growing amount of quality in the market, with so much choice, there’s always something new to try. Gamers today have all the traditional types of video games available on consoles, including sports simulators, RPGs, and platformers, but then there are also the innovative options found on VR headsets, casual games for smartphones, and many new ideas from indie developers. What’s more, online casinos offer up thousands of different titles for their players to choose from, ranging from branded slots to classic table games, often with generous bonuses, free bets, and other promotions.
While there is so much choice, there are also some elements that remain consistent across each format and genre. The most notable of these is the use of music.
No matter what type of game you play, you’ll notice music and similar sound effects used in various different ways, helping to add to the overall feel of the content, enhance the storytelling, set the tone, and provide audio clues to the player.
Here are the main ways that game developers deploy music to make their titles really pop.
Setting the Scene
While the basic mechanics might just involve a character jumping from block to block or spraying bullets in the direction of enemies, video games are multimedia works of art. They tell stories in the same way that movies and television shows do, but instead of the viewer sitting on the outside looking in, they get to participate in the action, working their way through the narrative on their own terms.
Just like in movies and on TV, these stories can be set anywhere and at any point in time.
Some, like Red Dead Redemption, might be set in 19th-century Wild West America, others, like Grand Theft Auto Vice City, might be set in 1980s Florida. Others still, like Animal Crossing, are created in entirely fictional worlds.
To help set the scene and immerse the player in it, music plays a big role.
If we take Vice City as an example, Rockstar Games, its creator, licensed an entire library of tracks from a wide variety of genres to help set the scene and the tone of the game.
They were then split up into playlists and accompanied by voiceovers that make it appear the player was listening to a radio station whenever they were in a car or other vehicle.
While it’s still important today, it was even more important in older games where graphics were not at the level they are today. A great example of this is the Game Boy game Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins which had a very small black and white screen, and drew objects using a dot matrix.
This presented a significant challenge to the developers who had few tools at their disposal to set the scene within each level, especially since the game contained very distinct zones, each with its own theme like the “Pumpkin Zone”, “Tree Zone”, and “Space Zone”.
So to do it, they relied heavily on the music to help distinguish between each one.
Alerting the Player to Events
Just like how graphics can help to set the scene for a game, they’re a key part of letting a player know what’s going on.
In the Grand Theft Auto series, a star system is used to alert the player to their “wanted level”, with more stars resulting in an increased police response. On top of that, the map that sits in the corner of the screen will flash blue and red.
That’s not the only clue to alert the player. On top of that, an audio track made up of voice recordings begin to narrate what the player is doing, while non-playable characters make comments on what’s happening.
While not strictly music, it is an part of the game’s audio. However, the Driver series, which was a competitor to GTA in the late 1990s and early 2000s did use music to alert players to a police tail.
The game’s background music would change whenever you were involved in a pursuit, increasing in tempo and volume.
After you had succeeded in evading the cops, the music would slow down again, returning to its original state.
Many platformers, including most of the Super Mario series also use a change in music to alert a player to events.
Firstly, whenever the game ends prematurely due to Mario being killed and running out of lives, the backing track stops and a new jingle plays.
A similar change happens when certain powerups are unlocked, most notably the star which allows Mario (or other characters) to become invincible for a short period of time. As this is happening, the moustachioed plumber flashes multiple colours and the background music increases in tempo to signify a change in the state of the game.
This also happens when the countdown timer begins to edge closer to 0. In most Mario games the threshold is 100 seconds, but it can vary from title to title. In the Mario Kart series the change is activated when the player enters the final lap of the race.
Regardless of the way it’s activated, the background music, again, increases in speed after a short intro jingle to attract the player’s attention.
Celebrating Success
Although games are a form of storytelling, players prefer to win them. Game developers understand this, so often use a mix of tools to signify and “celebrate” this victory.
On-screen graphics, such as fireworks, flashing colours, and text are usually part of this. These are usually accompanied by sounds, often a special jingle created for this occasion.
In the early days, these would often be specially written 8-bit tunes. A famous example being the Victory fanfare from Final Fantasy, and the Great Victory jingle the Legend of Zelda that each ran for about 12-13 seconds after a player completed a level, defeated an opponent or unlocked an item.
More recent titles, like Call of Duty also have different tracks to play after a win when compared to a loss, though they can sometimes be more subtle.
