Saturday, March 15, 2014
A new breed of music game is about creating, not performing
Kill Screen: When most people think of music games, the ones that come to mind either involve banging on plastic instruments (Guitar Hero, Rock Band), dancing (DDR, Dance Central), or brutally timed button-pressing (Parappa the Rapper, Space Channel 5). But there are a slew of recent and upcoming games out there that use music in ways that eschew memorization trials and occasionally even put players in the role of producer. These games call into question how we define “music games” and whether the label should be expanded or qualified.
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4 comments:
This article reminds me of “Super Mario Paint” or the Gameboy Camera and it’s thermal printer attachment.
Video games frequently provide entertainment, distraction, and sometimes a pretty dramatic and emotional storyline. It’s not very often that a video game provides an actual tangible “output.” The game discussed, Sentris, allows an output of an audio file, similar to how Gameboy Camera was a game that also allowed you to output pictures of the result, or Super Mario Paint, the same thing.
Video games a strange relative to theatre. I wonder how theatre can maybe take the idea of Entertainment combined with this new notion of an “Ouput.” I know I’d personally be excited to go to a show that created an “output” unique to that performance, based on the live quality of the performers and the audience and anything else.
I love how beautifully this article turns video games into art. First the author identifies different genres of video games similar to how different genres of art may be identified. He also shows how video games are evolving and new movements are discovered. To finish off, the author creates an in-depth analysis and critique for video games and treats them each as a work of art. This article is a great example why I believe video games are truly snigger category of art. And one form of art that most directly relates to theatre in that it uses each area of art (writing, fine art, and music) along with performers (film) but adds an audience interaction where the audience member is a key element to the arts existence.
This is really interesting. I wonder if it will make its way to the recording industry; I feel like it actually could. There have been more and more artists arising who use found or field recordings in their music. The effect is that the line between natural and man-made is blurred. Listening to music becomes more of an active experience, and, for me, it's even interesting when background noise mixes in with what I'm listening to. With this very interactive sort of listening in mind, it would not surprise me if a genre emerged where the listener could have physical control over what he or she is listening to.
I've always been interested in video game design and I've been thinking about ways of combining music and video games in a more meaningful way for years now. Some of the games that this article talks about sound like they are really trying out some new and interesting mechanics, others are not. I am surprised that this article did not talk about a few games that I think have taken very new and different approaches to music in video games. Frank Meyer and I both thought of Super Mario Paint, but I also think that Audiosurf and The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time have very important uses of music that were not represented in other games that this article talked about.
I agree with the author that labeling games can often be an easy way to explain some part of a game to people who don't know the game, but that it often leaves out important parts of the game and ends up misrepresenting the game as a whole.
I suspect that in the next three years we will see a radical change in the way that we categorize games. Both in terms of other games and other media.
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