How much music

[Phil Steinmeyer]

What do you all think is about the right amount (or range) of music for a traditional casual game?

There's a tradeoff between variety and cost/disk space. I'm wondering what folks think the sweet spot is, or even better, if anyone has surveyed various games and has a list/average of how much music is typically in them...

I'm thinking of X minutes of unique MP3/OGG sounds - not MOD style stuff where the same riffs can be woven/looped in lots of different ways.

[Grey Alien]

For Oz we had title music (which played on the map screen and book screen also) about 1 min. Level complete music, about 30 secs. (If there was a game over state, I'd have wanted music for that, about 30 secs). There a short piece for game complete that hardly anyone will hear, shame. Then 5 level pieces 1-2 mins long (1Mb @ 96Kbps ogg). I personally find it disappointing when a game only has one in-game piece of music and no variation, same as no variation on the game background. Oz changes music/background every 5 levels, and my Xmas/Easter Bonus games change *every* level and so will my next one.


Variety is good I think. But yeah it sure boost the file size, the oz music folder is nearly 7Mb, bigger than some whole games!

[Indiepath]

Do some proper market research - I bet you'll find most of your customers either have the music off or the volume turned down.

[Grey Alien]

depends how good it is. One thing I found when testing Easter Bonus is that when people went to turn the music down, because Sound was before Music on the options page, they turn the sound down! So I swapped them round as music is most likely to be reduced/turned off.

[Christian]

Depends of what kind of casual game it is, if its a game that focuses on content than play, then i think more music would be better, if its a game that focuses on play, then less music would be better, you know, you cant pay attention to music while beeing concentrated on playing... i love ambient music in games :D

[svero]

7-10 songs of varying length from 30-45 seconds per piece with smaller 5-15 second mini pieces for special events. I think the real trick is getting a composer who's good enough to pull off a 30-45 second loop that doesnt sound too repetative. That length can be torture with the wrong composition or unoticeable with the right.

[oNyx]

@Grey Alien

Ah yea... of course. Good that you mentioned it. :)
---
>I think the real trick is getting a composer who's good enough to pull off a
>30-45 second loop that doesnt sound too repetative.

Yea, doing loops is very challenging and completely different than doing usual songs. You need to cram in lots of changes into a very short piece of music... without making it sound too weird.

The change density over in those old NSFs (nintendo sound format, from the NES) is unusually high by today's standards. Well, the loops are very short and they had to compensate that a bit. Sorta excessive really, but I think its a nice source of inspiration, if you're new to loops.

[soniCron]

I decided to dump the licensed music I was using and write a soundtrack for Jeweltopia. Space was a big consideration because I'm entirely limited to MP3 playback. As Steve and oNyx said, it's critical to make sure the piece isn't too repetetive. I've written a ton of music in my day, but I've never had to squish 4.5 minutes of song into 45 seconds. I knew music from gaming's heyday exploited techniques to fit gobs of music into tight spaces, so I spent 2 weeks studying Koji Kondo's music. I took note of the techniques he employed to keep the music fresh after even hours of gameplay and applied them to my own music. Whether or not I succeeded remains to be seen (http://jeweltopia.solaristudios.com), but I've already gotten a lot of really positive feedback, so I think it's a reasonable course of study. It's a great way to retain a highly professional sound while cutting down the file sizes.

[svero]

If the song is really great you can get away with one longer tune and dynamic changes as the level plays out. There's really a lot of variety to what you can do music wise. No clear formula. A number of short pieces that change with the levels or take on the theme of the level, or one song that changes over the course of the level etc...

[LilGames]

What about in "thinking" puzzle games, like sudoku. Is music still recommended or is it something a customer would not even expect?

[oNyx]

I also wondered about that. If you play those match3 games with optional thinking, a funky pushy tune is certainly nice. But it gets pretty annoying in logic maze games (or other puzzles which require a lot of thinking).

So the logical options are:
-no music (yay! free!)
-ambient stuff
-slow music, with beats matching a relaxed heartbeat (~60bpm)

I think I prefer very toned down ambientical stuff myself. Something which sets the mood, but doesn't offer any "hooks". A nice side effect is that the loops can be rather short then, because its very hard to spot any patterns. Additionally you can reduce the ogg quality a lot, because it lacks complexity.

How convenient. :)

Using slow music doesn't look all that appealing from my pov. There aren't many people who like classic - even if it could help em to concentrate... well, that is if they manage to not get annoyed by it.

There aren't many styles to chose from in that range, I guess.

[janwinnicki]

Do some proper market research - I bet you'll find most of your customers either have the music off or the volume turned down.

This is good idea. But I think it depends of target group that you are pointing with your product. I think, for younger kids it's good to make an multimedia enviroment fulfilled with with sounds and stupid notes ;). Older kids, teenies (and adults) can take it as annoying thing, so sooner or later they will be looking for Music/Sound Off button and back to listening to Britney (or whatever else...) in Winamp (or what...).


- Slow music? I'm not sure that this is a clue. You know, there can be many down-tempo and annoying music pieces, and faster tunes that complement game/video or whatever in good way. It depends of composition/arrangement itself so I don't agree with this rule in general but ofcourse you know what is best for your game.

[janwinnicki]

Using slow music doesn't look all that appealing from my pov. There aren't many people who like classic - even if it could help em to concentrate... well, that is if they manage to not get annoyed by it.

There aren't many styles to chose from in that range, I guess.


It's difficult to make all people pleased. Classic? People like classic melodies which can recognize by themselves. If you mean orchestral stuff... Personally I don't like this but some sublime (or pathetic) sounds can gives positive impression at the first look because it seems massive, expensive or professional or... I don't know. ;)

[Vaipen]

What about in "thinking" puzzle games, like sudoku. Is music still recommended or is it something a customer would not even expect?

it is not so much a matter of what a player expects as what you surprise him with.

[sound app]

Something which sets the mood, but doesn't offer any "hooks".

that's well described i think: it has to be remarkable while not interfering with the game...the composer can let go and be midly bombastic in the theme but he (or she) has to tone down during the ingames...

i personally love the challenge, but you need a strong team you totally trust and be ready to work and rework your pieces, containing your ego while doing all this, and have total confidence in the decisions that are made by the team and you.

[Anthony Flack]

Making a successful short music loop is a lot like making a good tile texture. But with sound.

If that's an analogy that takes your fancy; I thought it wasn't bad...

[Brian A. Knudsen]

I noticed i always turn off music on my windows mobile games. ITs good music, but its annoying for other people to listen to.