It’s no accident that music and games share the verb “to play.” Both music and games are semi-structured forms of social learning. As far as I’m concerned, the most exciting thing happening in the video game world is the explosion of music-based games like Dance Dance Revolution.
The tube setting reminds me of my favorite old-school arcade game, STUN Runner.
More traditional video game genres like platformers and shmups are beginning to take on music game qualities, not too surprising since these games already had a musical aspect to begin with. When you play Super Mario Bros or Galaga, you need to push specific sequences of keys at specific times with precise timing. From the wrists down it’s not so different from playing the piano. Rez is a rail shooter that uses trance music in place of sound effects, and all actions are quantized to the beat, so the game generates electronica while you play. Donkey Kong Jungle Beat is a platform/action game you control on bongos with a built-in microphone. You move and jump Donkey Kong by hitting the congas and attack enemies by clapping your hands.
Electronic music sequencers and computer games are both software that arrays sound recordings in a particular order. There have been some fitful attempts at making this conceptual connection more explicit. A few brave publishers have released generative music systems disguised as games, like SimTunes and Electroplankton. SimTunes gives you some “bugs” that crawl across the screen, each one producing a different sound when it encounters a colored square. By placing the colored squares and controlling the paths of the bugs, you can produce music, sort of. Electroplankton is a little more sophisticated, but the idea is the same. The problem is that these things make for klutzy sequencers, and have no particular game value. They’re intriguing toys, though, rich with possibility for future interface designers.
There are a few non-game pieces of software that using game controllers as electronic music interfaces, like the Korg DS-10, enabling you to play a synth with a Game Boy. The idea has spread to hardware, too, like the Tenori-on, a MIDI sequencer with an intentionally game-controller-like simplicity. My own musical output for the past few years has relied heavily on my own game controller MIDI setup.
For music games to fulfill their potential, I think they need to strike a balance between the railroad track linearity of the rhythm games and the total open-endedness of the generative sequencers. I would wish for a constrained system that still allows for improvisation. I can’t think of a musical video game that fits these criteria, but there’s a perfect example in the non-electronic world: jazz.
Jazz might be the most game-like musical form, especially in its improvisation aspect. You can think of a jazz tune as a system of rules. Take “So What” by Miles Davis.
To solo on one chorus of “So What”, you play sixteen measures of D dorian mode (the white keys on the piano), eight measures of E flat dorian (shift one piano key to the right) and another eight measures of D dorian. You can solo for as many choruses as you want. The rules for the bassist are: play mostly quarter notes chosen from the scale, emphasizing the roots and other basic chord tones. The rules for the drummer are: play mostly a “spang, spang-a-lang” pattern on the ride cymbal with occasional accents on the snare, kick drum and crash. These rules aren’t totally rigid. You’re free to play outside the scales and metrical schemes, as long as what you’re playing is still musical. What exactly constitutes “musical” will depend on who’s playing and who’s listening.
How could music games be made more like jazz? I’m imagining something like FreQuency, but with more freedom of choice by the player. Still speculating as to how to bring this about.