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Dynamic map music

My game uses an ABS battle system, and there's likely to be a lot going on in each map. Interiors are on the map, with the buildings cutting away as you get near them like The Sims. Battles are on the map, and entering a region that has a particular event happening could invoke another piece of music, like stepping up in beat when you come to a marching troup of soldiers, or getting more serene towards a waterfall, etc.

Question is, is this annoying to the player?

My thought was to use a proximity-to-event plugin, and have the music change when you are near that event. That means if you are within 5 squares of an aggressive enemy you get battle music; if you enter a church you might get church music etc.

In Guild Wars 2 they fade out the main map music and fade in the battle music, with a sort of "jingle" at the start that is subtle but tells you you've entered a battle. (Think of it like the Whoosh in RPG Maker, but much more subtle). Once the battle is over there are a few seconds of silence and then the man map music fades slowly back in, for a few reasons - so it isn't a jarring switch from one song to another, and so that if you encounter another enemy you don't just keep flipping the music every few seconds.

Now that's OK if maps are huge, but huge maps and 2d graphics don't go together as easily. If you have to be within 5 tiles of an enemy to invoke music, then that's actually 10 tiles of the map taken up, which is half a default map or maybe 10% of a reasonably sized large map.

There's also a question of where does the music start or end? Does the map music continue where it left off? Does the battle music continue where it left off, or always start at the beginning (with the jingle of course)?

I'm curious if anybody has implemented such a system and what your players thought of it. I have a feeling it may be just another annoyance.

Going further it would be nice to have sounds such as footsteps, especially if a cutscene with a horse, or a waterfall, etc. This again could be done with proximity-to-events plugins so it's doable, but the question is still, is this just annoying to the player? Is it all too much? If it's subtle there's almost no point in doing it at all.

Appreciate your thoughts, thanks.
 
I think it depends on the harmony (Is that the right word?) between the music you're switching between. Kingdom Hearts cross fades from it's map/field music into battle music and back all the time. But every world/level has it's pair. The melody (I don't know how to use these terms) shifts but the instruments are the same. Hallow Bastion music has a piano/organ, Atlantica uses trumpets/xylophone thing.
I don't think it would sound as nice if you took Hollow Bastion's field theme and cross faded into Atlantica's battle theme, because of the change of instruments.
However it might blend together if Atlantica's battle music was played to the tune of an organ or whatever to match Hollow Bastion. That's my theory anyways.
Matching Instruments.
 
I don't know how doable it would be, but I recall a game (the name escapes me) that had the music itself be dynamic, instead of dynamically changing; where depending on what you were doing, different instruments played and layered on top of the other instruments.

That way, you could have the calm / atmospheric music play as normal, but for when the battle kicks all these instruments would play on top. This way you could potentially go for a gradual fade out, by staggering when the individual instruments would stop playing (or I guess, become muted would be more apt, as they would need to keep in sync with the other instruments and beats).
 
Ellie":1nz672j3 said:
My thought was to use a proximity-to-event plugin, and have the music change when you are near that event. That means if you are within 5 squares of an aggressive enemy you get battle music; if you enter a church you might get church music etc.
I think music for combat can be useful, but I don't think it should be proximity based. It should be activated as soon as you are targetted by enemy aggro. I did this with my old MMO and it definitely became irritating, but it was probably more to do with the fact that the battle music and map music were completely different stylistically and there was no crossfade at all, nor BGM resuming. I think using a crossfade KH style should make it much more bearable. Music can be from the beginning, but you'd probably want map music to continue from where it left off.
 
Personally i recommend doing either the DMC thing of initiating a combat sequence and after all enemies are dead you can resume playing normal music, or just have the stage music also be the music for battle. I personally had to work with this in PFC and I went for either option depending on circumstances.
 

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