Get to know the Importance of Music in Games and the factors influencing the Game Experience.

Music has always been an integral part of human evolvement. It is quite evident from the past history that music is as old as language or even before that. It has a great impact on human psychology hand it has tremendous power to influence human minds. Likewise, it plays a crucial role when it comes to a virtual world. We have all seen the evolvement of sound in the film industry and how it changed the whole scenario, however, this is no different in the Video game industry. In fact, Video Game tends to have more impactful and immersive experience than the Films. It apparently creates an atmosphere that immerses the player into the game environment while giving a real taste of realism.





With the evolving of technology and innovation in the Gaming Industry, Sound has become a leading factor to increase the game feel and retention. Specifically game with Horror genre has a great and impactful soundtrack to immerse and engage the player into the virtual world. With that being said, Music in games could be like, “Developing a game with no words but only feel”. So here are a few factors that depict the role of Music in Games.





Role of Music in Games: Factors Influencing the Game Experience





Player Engagement

Music plays a driving factor for the player engagement, it could potentially increase the mood of the player to stay on the game long. Alternatively, the variation in Music is as essential as the game pace, it can instantly improve the game experience or can affect adversely. It attracts attention and manipulates the thoughts of the player which leads to longer playtime.





Setting Mood in the Game

Music is directly related to set the mood of the game, the tone of the background soundtrack depicts the overall environment and feel of the scene. The music playing in the background could result in mood swings of the player throughout the entire game. At one moment a player can be very attentive while preparing for a fight and in the other moment the player could be relaxing while exploring the environment.





Feel and Game Experience

Playing a Horror Game without Sound is worthless, it is just like food without salt. Music provides a taste to the Game Experience. The quality of the Sound Tracks, Sound Effects enhances the overall gameplay and feel of the game.





Atmosphere

You can both play with the emotions of a player subtly and also directly inform them about what's going on. That ability to deliver emotion to a player through sound didn't start with computer-generated digital audio. For decades, mechanical analogue audio did the same thing.

But in modern games, there are very few holdovers from that old style of sound. The one exception might be the pinball machine. Pinball machines have a great way to let players in a noisy arcade environment. When someone breaks a high score or gets a jackpot it makes a big noise.





Game Immersion

Being a part of Game Engagement, Music plays a vital role in making the players immersed in the game world. However, the Game Designers keep this factor in mind and design the overall gameplay while integrating the perfect sound matching to the moment which leads the player to immerse completely into the game environment.





Navigation through Story

Music is well blended with the story and the game scene to reveal the overall surrounding of the game view. In some games Music is the way how a player gets to know the correct path and upcoming dangers. The tone of the music let the player know the story and play accordingly.





Music revealing Culture

As we all know that this world is evidence of diverse culture and each culture has its own parental music. Games often use this strategy to give the player a feel of the specific theme. If a game is based on Indian Civilisation from the 18th century, then the environment will contain the complete vibe of Indian music at the time of 18th Century. This will boost up the Game Experience and overall boost up the sales of the game.





Now it is quite clear to analyse that, Music has a deep influence on the visual sector and especially when we talk about games. Despite its importance, it can alternatively ruin the entire well-crafted game easily if not done right. Choosing and making right Music for your games is as essential as the design of the game. This gives support to the visual element which determines the overall game experience. Further, we will be covering the Importance of Choosing the Right Music for Games which will primarily focus on case studies and a few tips on making the right music for your games. Don’t miss out to check our freebies Section for completely free content that you can use in your Game Development Projects both personal and commercial.





Here are some useful resources to start Music production for Game Development:-





With Love From VOiD1 Gaming





**Thumbnail photo attributes- Photo by Elviss Railijs Bitāns from Pexels**