Hey, hey!
After looking at nostalgic, old games and ones that have failed in previous weeks, I have decided for my Digital Artifact I will be discussing and looking at the music for games.
EXAMPLES AND RESEARCH
Examples of popular video game music that comes to mind almost instantly is the die hard love for Nintendo’s game scores. Often uploaded and shared via social platforms like Youtube in “relaxing”, “study” playlists with thousands of views.
And it’s not just claming Nintendo scores that are popular, even though they come to mind so quickly.
Simon Wood’s “Video Game Music, High Scores: Making Sense of Music and Video Games” – goes into the connection between games and popular culture and how “the video game has now become a ubiquitous part of the domestic landscape.” Along with how fastly growing in importance it seems to be. “In the United States, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Science now includes music from video games in the ‘Score: Soundtrack Album For a Motion Picture, Television or other Visual Media’ category in its annual Grammy Awards.”
THE DA
For this Digital Artifact, dissecting music by understanding the formal elements of games. Formal elements include the basic rules of the game (you know, setting, theme, narrative and genre.) However, it also includes things such as features, controls, software/hardware requirements, difficulty settings, its goals/challenges, as well as its sound design.
I will be writing about and analysing popular soundtracks, scores and sounds from video games to uncover the reasoning for this. I will be conducting textual analysis of games, exploring the love and hype around their musical attributes, and questioning why that is. For example, what makes this soundtrack stand out? How does it make you feel? I will be using this blog to publish posts doing as such, along with my content based Instagram, Simply Taylorlani, where I will be sharing more casual content about game music.
Here is a visual display of my outlined plan for this Digital Artifact for the course of the semester.
OVERALL
In whole, this Digital Artifact has the aim of providing a deeper analysis and understanding of game music for not only myself but my audience. I hope to gain insight and knowledge into the way game music production is created, its importance and why we as players hold such love and connection to scores.
REFERENCES
(2020). dream land || nintendo ost + thunderstorm ambience.
(2021). Little Nightmares 2 – Ambient Soundtrack Mix (Depth Of Field Mix).
KeithByrne. (n.d.). Retrieved August 20, 2021, from Deviantart.com website: https://www.deviantart.com/keithbyrne
Wood, S. (2009). Video Game Music: High Scores: Making Sense of Music and Video Games. In G. Harper, R. Doughty & J. Eisentraut (Eds.). Sound and Music in Film and Visual Media: A Critical Overview (pp. 129–148). London: Bloomsbury Academic. Retrieved August 20, 2021, from http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781628928969.ch-007
Tangled In The Great Escape 
Firstly, I wanted to start by saying that I myself am very interested in your area of study, to the extent that I have even devoted my Digital Artifact to explore a similar concept of sound design within game development. I enjoyed how you have embedded particular soundtracks throughout your pitch blog post in order to captivate your audience and show examples of what you’re truly looking into. Another key aspect of your blog post was the fact that you reiterated what your goal was and how you would work at achieving it over the duration of this subject. You identified the platforms you would be using to conduct your research and how you intended to conduct said research over these platforms. Moving on to your DA pitch video itself, your task was very clear and easy for your audience to understand, I also love that you related your topic back to your own personal interest and experiences. My only negative comment would be that your video itself could’ve been a little more engaging for your audience, also I’m unsure if you had resolved this after publication, but your video audio seems to overlap at around a minute twenty, becoming a bit confusing and hard to understand.. If I can suggest anything at all I’ve found there is a lot of interest in this subject, therefore leading to an abundance of scholarly articles and just general conversation about this topic, one that I personally enjoyed was by Rebecca Roberts, who delved further into and sound design in psychological horror games. Link here: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315882697-13/fear-unknown-music-sound-design-psychological-horror-games-rebecca-roberts
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Hi Taylor Lani,
I love the idea of your DA and how you will be focusing on the soundtrack and scores of games to conduct a textual analysis. As sounds can either make or break a game experience, this DA will be extremely informative! Your pitch was also well presented and was so calming to watch, I really enjoyed it. The inclusion of academic sources and subject materials is also great as it demonstrates your understanding of the task and its requirements.
Since you will be exploring the effect of sounds on the gaming experience, I found a source that I think would be super helpful to your research: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15213269.2018.1507827 The findings of the research within this source highlights how the soundtrack of games can have a large effect on the player, especially the soundtrack of horror games. Perhaps you could compare your own textual analysis of games to this source to see if there are any differences or similarities.
In addition, I believe it would’ve been useful for you to describe who your target audience is and how you will be creating a feedback loop to improve your DA during your research process. Other than that, I can’t wait to see what your findings are!
Thy
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Hi Taylor,
Wow! what a great DA idea. Using your blog to dive into music through video games will really engage an audience. I love the youtube video you posted called ‘Dreamland”, listening to songs I’m so familiar with but from a different take is so cool, especially loved the versions of Animal crossing songs.
For me, music in video games, especially old games is so nostalgic and memorable. I found a scholarly article that can help in your studies called “THE EFFECTS OF BACKGROUND MUSIC ON VIDEO GAMEPLAY PERFORMANCE, BEHAVIOR AND EXPERIENCE IN EXTRAVERTS AND
INTROVERTS” the journal looks into how music in gaming both positively and negatively effects our gaming experiences, looking into both the psychological and physical effects it has on individuals, a really interesting read. https://smartech.gatech.edu/bitstream/handle/1853/54462/LEVY-THESIS-2015.pdf
In conveying your work, blog posts are great but you could even advance on that and maybe make short clips of you or friends/family reacting to old video game music? and how you feel in response. Keep up the amazing work, it’s such a cool concept and I can’t wait to see where it goes!!
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Music in video games is an extremely important part and for many, it’s one of the most memorable aspects of a game may it be a song from FIFA, the building or character creation soundtrack from Sims 2, or even just the shop menu from the WII, Music shapes the way we behave and change our mood. So it’s really cool that you’ll be exploring this topic for your DA.
However I have found some issues with your Pitch, Firstly, the structure of the assignment had the video aspect as the centrepiece of your Digital Artefact pitch while your blog “can include any material that you cannot fit into the two-minute video and should not repeat information presented in the pitch.” I recommend for future assignments to take a few more minutes to make sure you’re doing the right thing. Along with this unless I missed it a big part of your analytical framework was missing or not touched on in great detail, in future you should dedicate a paragraph or slide in which you go into detail about the aspects of music and games you will explore to build your Digital artefact along with the textual analysis lense you will be using like psychoanalysis or content analysis for example.
Here is a good resource on why we feel notalgia and why it is good for you, this may help you with your Digital Artefact as you try to understand this connection! https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/09/science/what-is-nostalgia-good-for-quite-a-bit-research-shows.html
I hope this helps, and best of luck with your project!
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Hey, firstly I’d like to say good on you for doing something interesting and looking at a sound aspect of the game rather than focusing on gameplay like everybody else. I actually enjoyed reading your blog post more than the pitch video itself as it is well-structured and included beautiful embedded content that is handy and fits the aesthetic well as I can see an artistic nature in it. Something I struggled with was my lack of academic sources which luckily for you, you have not. They are relevant and intriguing, especially that of Wood’s analysis of music in video games. As a FIFA fan myself I have always come to appreciate the soundtrack they implement every year giving me heavy nostalgia every time I hear that song again from previous editions of the game. Here is an interesting link if you were keen to check out the history of some of the best FIFA songs over the years and what it means to the players: https://mixdownmag.com.au/features/the-15-greatest-fifa-soundtrack-songs-from-2006-2020/
But again, good job and thank you for doing something so unique compared to what most other people wouldn’t do. My ONLY critique would be the pitch video could be a little more entertaining but I understand the aesthetic you were trying to go for there.
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Hey Taylor-Lani
I highly commend you for choosing the sound aspect of video games it is something new and completely different to what everyone else has been doing. Sound is an extremely important aspect of our overall experiences as it adds emotion, builds tension and creates immersion within a video game.
I have found some points within your pitch you could have improved on or added in. Firstly I understand your pitch is in relation to the sound design within games but I didn’t think there was much need for the gaps in your pitch video of just sound. This could have been filled in with you talking more about your research .What I suggest doing next time is making the sound so it is in the background and adding in more relevant information that is stated in the subject criteria.
The next point was with your analytical framework. I am unsure if it was stated in the pitch and i missed it or it was unclear. Some suggestions for your analytical framework could be to look into nostalgia, sound design, aesthetics etc. Giving the audience a paragraph in your blog post could have given us an idea into what framework your research will be around.
I have found a book that might be of use in aiding your research in sound design. It is by Karen Collins called “Game Sound: An Introduction to the History, Theory, and Practice of Video”. It has a chapter on aesthetics and another on the rise on popular music in video games, this might be useful for your research. It is available on the UOW library website.
I know this is a lot of information but i hope it helps you with your DA. I look forward to seeing where this ends up.
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