Video game music:?:

[Fogost]

Hello guys, my friends and i are making little game ( yeah, i know you all are tired of indie shit). The matter is i don't know how to compose music to make people believe it really fits game and gameplay, situation, setting etc. Of course it's obvious, the music should be fast and alarming when a character in a battle or it should be calm and backround when he walks and jumps or solving puzzles.
You would say, listen to other games` soundtarcks, yeah it helps, but i still can't get the priciples and the sekleton of track, it's base.
You know, when setting of the game medieval or fanstasy whatever, the music is often orchestra based, acoustic instruments, these kind of things. If it is arcade game, orchesta will sound stupid, won't it? Ok, let's use electronic sounds, and it will sound like a cheap 2000`s house.
Guys, give me some advices, links, lmaybe i should read some books.

[Gonga]

I do game music with a team making custom Tomb Raider levels. Our last game (Dracula's Return) is one of the highest-rated of all time. What I would tell you is don't worry about sounding "too creative." The ONLY thing that matters is this: the music must fit the game. What does not matter is whether it sounds similar to this or that game. Ideally, the game will be nearly finished before you get to play it and do the music - quickly! I work slowly due to disability, so I don't have the luxury of seeing the game nearly finished before starting, but that's how the big studios do it.

So, what do you know about the game? What is the setting, gameplay, and is it finished or not?

[Fogost]

I've even got gameplay video of it, though there are just raw models and textures. It's like a platformer in 3d. For example the level setting is a dusty sand planet with constructions and platforms, and there are some puzzles. The character moves slowly, then runs, then stops to solve puzzles, so the gamplay does not have a steady tempo. So do you advice to wait till game is finished and then make music? It's a time waste, you know.

[Gonga]

Well, that's the best way to do it if the quality of the outcome is most important. With the final game in front of you, you can just let your creative juices really flow and have the best creative outcome you are capable of.

[MadBrain]

Hello guys, my friends and i are making little game ( yeah, i know you all are tired of indie shit). The matter is i don't know how to compose music to make people believe it really fits game and gameplay, situation, setting etc. Of course it's obvious, the music should be fast and alarming when a character in a battle or it should be calm and backround when he walks and jumps or solving puzzles.
You would say, listen to other games` soundtarcks, yeah it helps, but i still can't get the priciples and the sekleton of track, it's base.
You know, when setting of the game medieval or fanstasy whatever, the music is often orchestra based, acoustic instruments, these kind of things. If it is arcade game, orchesta will sound stupid, won't it? Ok, let's use electronic sounds, and it will sound like a cheap 2000`s house.
Guys, give me some advices, links, lmaybe i should read some books.

Making game music is a lot like making other music, except that it loops (so it can have an intro but no ending). It doesn't even have to fit THAT closely to levels actually, it just has to be good.

[nasenmann]

Not only does it have to loop, it may do so a hundred times during a play session. That is most of the challenge i think. You want to make something interesting with personality, but you also wanna make sure it doesn't annoy the hell out of you after the 10th playthrough.

Can't really agree on it being a lot like making any other type of music. Sure, it's music all the same.
But you're not making music that people are seeking out actively and absorbing very consciously. You're making music to enhance an interactive experience, and you design it with replayability in mind.

[Sendy]

It's quite astonishing how short a lot of the classic game music was in the old days, like the theme songs to Sonic levels, they're like 50 seconds long, yet they sound so nice you don't even notice the constant looping.