Email: The correlation between awesome music and awesome games

It’s really quite simple Malstrom. Music does create an emotion to the listener. The emotions created are quite universal. For example, someone listening to “Night on Bald Mountain” is likely to get feelings of fear or terror, regardless of the person’s background. All scary music has similarities in compostion — it usually consists of shorter, tenser notes that are ususally unpredictable and are several steps apart from each other. This is quite natural. Chipper or happy music also shares the shorter, zippier notes, but the steps in between are not unpredictable and the chords are perfect (no minor chords). Peaceful music does pretty much the opposite of scary music, and evokes more relaxed emotions. Et cetera.
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Anyway, the point of all this is that music creates definite, tangible emotions in the listener that are pretty universal. Some basic psychology (and I’m not a psychologist!) here will give us the insight as to why there is a correlation between awesome music and awesome games. Basically, emotions are tied to experiences. When we experience an emotion, usually memories of past experiences tied to that emotion pop into the head (unless of course we haven’t experienced that emotion before which usually makes me start sweating hoho). Now, I think it is definitely the case that games take place in the player’s head, just as you have talked about in your blogs. Players experience games more than they do for any other entertainment medium. Reading also takes place in the reader’s head, but the experience is not as tangible, or lucid, as it is for playing the games. Depending on the perspective the reader may not feel like an actual “part” of the reading either. I’ll get to movies in a second.
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Obviously the experience that takes place in the player’s mind will evoke emotions. However, what I’m driving at is that when these experiences are tied with appropriate music, it will help evoke even stronger emotions. The music and the gaming experience together can evoke very strong emotions (which sometimes the emotions evoked by the game music are altered by the game experience, and to a very small degree vice-versa….) which are then a part of the player’s memories. The music then has the memories of the combined emotional effect attached to it. The music doesn’t have to be so good as it does have to be appropriate. That is, the emotions evoked by the music have to mesh at least somewhat with what the player is experiencing in the game.
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Thus, it’s pretty much the case for most player’s (at least for me) that game music becomes awesome because the game played with it is awesome to the player. The game itself doesn’t always have to be “awesome,” but the play experience has to evoke genuinely strong emotions that mesh with the game music…. and hence creates “good” music. I believe this is effect is one of the main factors in how well a game ages in player’s memories. This helps explain why, for example, a player’s first Mega Man games are viewed as having the “best” music while later games the music becomes boing and stale… well, quite honestly, the emotions tied to the music become weaker after playing so many sequels. But I don’t think that it’s any coincidence that most players view MM2 as the best (they experienced the strongest emotions playing Mega Man 2) and that Mega Man 2’s music is often viewed as the best.

Some games, like TMNT 1 for the NES, were pretty awful, when it really came down to it. BUT — the “experience” going on in the player’s head was quite legitimate, the experience was that they were really playing the Turtles universe, and thus strong emotions were tied to it — and to the game music. Thus, the music from these games (TMNT 1 didn’t even have the real Turtles theme song in it did it?) is looked upon fondly and thus TMNT 1 is remembered more as a “good” game even though most players were frustrated the hell out of it and didn’t like it as much because of that during its time.
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The way I see it, there’s no question why nostalgia runs through the gamer more than through any other type of person. Imagine never hearing “The Empire Strikes Back” theme. Now, imagine that one day, you woke up to see government officials outside your house, approaching in ominous attire with their black cadillacs and sunglasses — they were coming to inform you that under eminient domain your house had to be taken away from you, effective immediately. Now, imagine if when these events started occuring all of a sudden in your mind (or pretend that the government had a loudspeaker) started playing “The Empire Strikes Back” theme. If you had never heard that music before — its significance to you would probably be several times stronger than if you had heard it in Star Wars! (Although after that you might hate the music… but it’s impact on your would and your memories would likely be even stronger than music playing during a movie could do). That’s why the link between gaming and music is stronger than other mediums — the experiences are more “real” to gamers than they are in other mediums, and thus the emotions are stronger… which means the music has stronger emotions attached to it.
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Of course, truly good music will tend to be appreciated regardless due to its ability to evoke emotions without an external experience. But, it is the case that for most game music — unless the player has played the game before, the game music usually doesn’t sound as good (although, as an aside… play enough games on a system and you will get used to the “instrumentation” of that system so that any music in that system’s “style” will start to sound good… this is why people make 8-bit or 16-bit remixes). Even if the music sounds decent without having played the game — there’s no question that if the player does play the game and have an enjoyable experience with it, the music will be viewed MUCH more fondly after playing than prior to. Agree?

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Wow sorry this got so long… you’ve just been touching on so many…. emotional… issues lately! I’m a long-time reader, but as you might notice I really haven’t written to you much at all until recently!
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There are many games where I like the music but don’t really care much for the game. I don’t care much for Super Mario Galaxy, but I do love its music. The game of Journey to Silius wasn’t too interesting, but the music was good.

Gaming is the Theater of the Mind. What we experience of gaming, of course, is not the art assets, sound assets, the gameplay, or the disc itself. The game only is half of the equation. The customer provides the other half. Together, they make the game experience.

Games within cards or board games are really nothing, by themselves. They require players in order for the game to exist.

Unfortunately, since gaming does take place in the Theater of the Mind, it is very difficult to ‘analyze’ it. Theater of the Mind cannot be seen, heard, or touched by others except ourselves. Any good artist has to trust their own experiences in the Theater of the Mind in order to create new experiences or replicate what they had before. For example, Miyamoto seeing hidden doors in his childhood, that Theater of the Mind he played in as a child, was replicated in his games (how close he came to what he originally experienced as a kid, only he can say). So it is very difficult to map this Theater of the Mind and what sort of alchemy the game brings.

People say gaming is emotion. What if they are wrong? What if the emotions are merely the symptoms of the person, but not what is going on in the Theater of the Mind? I suspect the experience of gaming, inside the mind, is largely mathematical. Tetris is a good example of this. Your mind can place all the blocks perfect. Unfortunately, the game starts dropping blocks so fast, while your mind can place them perfectly, your fingers cannot! I suspect that is what happens with many games. And this might lead us to the true reason of addictive nature of games where someone wants to do one more turn.

Another simple game: Space Invaders. In my mind, I can clearly and easily see what I am supposed to do. Mathematically, I know to line up my shots to the moving targets. Yet, my hands don’t seem to keep up. Even though I die, I want to do it again because I can already think my way through even though my reactions didn’t.

Of course, it doesn’t just have to be reactions. Strategy games just overwhelm the player with so many options that no one can see them all. The best choices are never seen until hindsight later which makes the player want to play again.

If the Theater of the Mind is mathematical when we ‘play’ the games (all gameplay is mathematical after all), music would surely help the process. Music is math’s sister. The music intensifying as your Tetris blocks near the top of the screen truly matches the state of the player in the Theater of the Mind. The player is scrambling trying to get all these blocks to fit into little lines to move the Tetrad pile down.

As crazy as it sounds, my thoughts keep going to the pre-Socratic plays and songs. In modern times, these very ancient plays and all seem so ‘primitive’ because there aren’t many actors, the talking is very stilted, very monologue, and the music is so ever-present. But the “plot” of these ancient plays and match video games identically. Of course, other mediums see video games as ‘primitive’ in their ‘plot’ and all. But those ancient plays and all were performed for a reason, to satisfy some sort of craving back then. Human nature doesn’t change. I keep suspecting that those ancient ‘tales’ or ‘plays’ are being re-born in video games. And if video-games were not around, they would find some other medium. The ‘thrill’ of reading something like the Illiad or Beowulf is currently being supplied through video-games.

Let me present this hypothesis: the graphics, music, and other production effects draw the player to the game, and make the player want to play in the first place. However, it is that Theater of the Mind, that mathematical wheel spinning around as the player intently concentrates on the game, that keeps the player staying.

Math can be very fun. However, it is a very high minded. It does not appeal to the lower order. Math problems, which so stimulated guys like Benjamin Franklin where he would do it for ‘relaxation’ practically, would bore most people. Math problems do not have a sound track or flashy graphics.

But Benjamin Franklin would have been an avid video game player. That man was addicted to chess. He was also obsessed over electrical experiments. No doubt is there that Benjamin Franklin would love video games.

Music tends to stimulate the ‘lower order’ of man. It fades to the background once the Theater of the Mind takes over.

Aristotle remarked: ‘[audiences] are one of two kinds – free and educated, and the other a vulgar crowd composed of mechanics, labourers and the like – and the music will correspond to their minds; for as their minds are perverted from the natural state, so there are perverted modes and highly strung and unnaturally coloured melodies.’

When starting a game of Ikaruga, I am all about the opera like music and all. However, that tends to shut off, and I begin thinking in purely mathematical terms. Getting good at Ikaruga is like a military exercise in perfect precision. For some, that is OK. But I begin to get bored. It is like my own ‘lower order’ isn’t being stimulated by the mathematical precision anymore.

Are games too ‘hard’ when the Theater of the Mind drowns out the music and everything else?

Anyhow, I suspect that ‘music games’ succeed so well beyond ‘movie games’ or ‘novel games’ because music’s mathematical nature fits naturally in the gameplay and the music performs its role in stimulating the ‘lower order’. Music, unlike graphics and other effects, can provide the mathematical precision necessary for the gameplay and stimulate, killing two birds with one stone.

You see the popularity of games like this that consist of nothing more but music and mathematical (in this case, time) precision. Why is this?

Music has some special relationship to games. Sometimes I don’t know whether I hear music while playing games or that I play games to hear the music.