Adaptive Music

[GJames]

Last night I was messing around on an old savefile with blasting charges and Santos, my marine, was killed (not exactly accidentally... ).
Just seconds after this happened, I heard some sad music slowly getting louder through my headphones.

After being amazed and impressed for a few seconds at how professional it sounded, I realized that it was coming from Spotify instead. 

This got me thinking anyway, so here's the idea:

The plan is for the AI to be able to figure out how well things are going for your colony, and then adapt accordingly. So how about doing the same for a possible soundtrack? When it's going well you could have more upbeat firefly-esque music, but if someone dies then it could adapt and play sad music accordingly.

You could even take it further and play some kind of victory music after successfully defended raids, but which track is played would depend on the proportion of colonists that you lost.

Just an idea, ideas and criticism are welcome.

(The song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPE9uSFFxrI I realized once the other instruments came in... )

[teph117]

from ludeon.com "studio" tab

Alistair Lindsay â€" Collaborating Audiopath â€" Blog -  Twitter

Alistair did audio on games like DEFCON (haunting!), Darwinina (quirky!), and Prison Architect (engaging!), so he knows how to work with this kind of game and he knows how to handle an indie sound project top to bottom. He’s been working game audio since 1999 when he started with Rare.
Alistair doesn’t just try to make an effect in a game sound like what it represents. He thinks about how his audio will make players feel on a subliminal level. He’s going to be doing magic like adjusting ambience, interface, and game sounds to match the AI Storyteller’s desired mood, to make you feel tense or relaxed or excited just as he wishes. I (Tynan) am almost scared of him.

[Semmy]

At the moment tynan is busy with the audio code.
As soon as that is done i think alistair will start working for audio for the game.
Maybe he evenhas some stuff ready d-;

[Galileus]

Adaptive music... ahhh, this was such a blast, when I read about that being in X-Wing Alliance back in '99. "Wow, this is some high-tech stuff! This is amazing!" I screamed. Sentimental tears in my eyes!

[murlocdummy]

Adaptive music... ahhh, this was such a blast, when I read about that being in X-Wing Alliance back in '99. "Wow, this is some high-tech stuff! This is amazing!" I screamed. Sentimental tears in my eyes!

I'm not only glad that Tynan isn't going the Bethesda lazy-ass cop-out route for the music, but he's planning on using a modern system of game music and ambience.

I'm squeeing so hard right now.

[maxthebeast11]

Adaptive music... ahhh, this was such a blast, when I read about that being in X-Wing Alliance back in '99. "Wow, this is some high-tech stuff! This is amazing!" I screamed. Sentimental tears in my eyes!

I'm not only glad that Tynan isn't going the Bethesda lazy-ass cop-out route for the music, but he's planning on using a modern system of game music and ambience.

I'm squeeing so hard right now.

Bethesda RPGs have some of the best music in video games today nonetheless.

[Galileus]

Bethesda RPGs have some of the best music in video games today nonetheless.

Wow. I guess there's no accounting for taste

At least they sorted their "Head" and "Horse heads" folders apart in their recent devs

[murlocdummy]

Bethesda RPGs have some of the best music in video games today nonetheless.

From a musical composer's standpoint they're flawless.  From a game design standpoint, they're horrid and poorly constructed.  Bethesda games play using a simplistic mp3 player with cues.  The first Sam & Max games advanced far beyond this decades ago with the advent of multitrack systems and adaptive fading.  You can definitely argue that the music was well directed and the instruments went well with one another, but trying to apply that logic to a game is like saying that the visuals in the Harry Potter book series were great.  Even if the text portrayed great scenes, critiquing a single paragraph in a text-based media for visual prowess is like trying to critique a single sprite or musical cue in a game for their artistic merits.  It removes the context that the element came from and attempts to completely construct a new, totally unrelated context that nobody who actually experienced the media can really identify with.

That might be useful in specific instances, such as during design meetings and implementation exercises, but as far as determining the effect it'll have on actual players, it has to remain within the established context.