We caught up with Richard Jacques, a multiple award winning composer who works in video games, film and television, having penned themes for Sonic 3D, Jet Set Radio, Samba De Amigo and Headhunter, to discuss music’s growing importance in videogames, the challenges of writing for a non-linear medium and the artistry in creating interactive scores.
What additional challenges do you face when composing music for a game, a format which players are likely to spend a lot more time with than a film??
The main challenge is the fact that videogames is an interactive and non-linear medium, and film is linear. So for example, when scoring an action movie, the composer can create a score with various ‘hit points’, where the music impacts a scene in a carefully controlled and timed way. This is because the film always plays the same, no matter how many times you watch it, it is a passive experience.
In games we don’t know what the player is going to do at any given time. Player A may take 10 minutes to play through a level, Player B may take 30 minutes. They may go in completely different routes, meet different characters, it is almost impossible to say. Therefore, we have to create interactive music that seamlessly blends and transitions between different musical cues, all in a naturally musical way. We have to think ahead and score each appropriate mood and sequence for what the player may do at any given time.? ?
Can you go into more detail about how you go about doing that?
I would first of all look at the overall story arc of the game, from beginning to end. This would ensure I am very familiar with the emotional highs and lows of the story, along with the associated characters and locations. Usually I would work closely with the designers and scriptwriters to ensure that we were all on the same page, and agree where we will feature music heavily, to emotionally back up a scene or a particular story moment, and where we are going to have a sparse music cue, and focus more on dialogue and sound design.
Once this has been established I would get to know the background to the story and characters, and decide if it is appropriate to use thematic content. Each game is different and does not necessarily warrant this approach, however.
I would then start to compose cues for the main story driven sections of the game, and then write appropriate underscore cues around these larger, music heavy sections. By this time I would have planned out, usually with the audio programmer, how we can change the music and transition between music cues and scenes. This could be as straight forward of having a low and high intensity of a cue, or as complex as having multiple branching segments of music. It really depends on the style of game and how much choice the player has. The greater the choice, the greater the complexity of the score.? ?
Can you apply the same principles to completely narrative-free nature of multiplayer games?
It's up to the composer to second-guess what the player may, or can, do, whether playing a singleplayer experience or a multiplayer experience. In a multiplayer situation, sometimes music is only used very subtly, and the focus is put more on sound design. In co-op games, the composer has to ensure that the players co-operating through a game have the same experience even if they are playing with someone on the other side of the globe.?
Do you think all this risks diluting the potential artistry of a musical composition?
No, I don’t believe it does. In fact, it could be said that the opposite is true. When creating music for potential events, a composer would have to score all these events so the music matches the on screen action and emotion perfectly. So long as the music reacts dynamically to whatever choices the player makes, it will provide a cohesive experience.? ?