Music Design for Game Development Studios

"The river was there first, the music only followed."

"Approximately every 15 seconds it is possible to terminate the playback of the given piece of music by seamlessly switching to its branch."

"If you are layering, make sure melody is in the layer that always stays on. Not doing that might result in a glitch, where the melody fades in and later fades out, while the rest of the music continues."

"Let's assign each context a priority. There may be multiple active contexts but the one with the highest priority wins and its music should play."

"Combat is one of the musical contexts which can be characterized by real-time parameters."

"If the crossfade is slow and will happen while one of the marked notes is playing, the note from the other layer will sound too and there will be an audible dissonance."

"The map lists numerous locations. It would make sense to consider each of them a musical context. This means, we need 9 different playlists of location music."

"In general, short segments are harder to produce than long segments simply because there needs to be many more of them."

"Some instruments, such as those in the low brass section, need to start producing the sound a moment before the actual tone is supposed to begin."

"This book fills the void that has long been the weak point of games: music design (as the book's title clearly says). Gone are the days when games with great visuals only win the market. Games with great music are increasingly sought after and talked about. This book is a great first step for music designers/composers to understand what game designers want in terms of the ambience, emotional tones and engagement they wish their games to convey. It is also a great book for game designers to start deciphering what music design is really about."

—Sri H. Kurniawan
Professor at UC Santa Cruz

"This book is a must-read for composers who want to understand both basics of adaptive game audio and game development team dynamics. I would also recommend it to those game studios that want to try implementing better audio than simple playlists. While it will not help readers to compose better music, it will teach them to think about videogame music dramaturgy and helps with understanding some basic principles of adaptive audio. Unlike some of the books out there, this one is deeply rooted in the author's personal experience, where he provided his expertise as both composer and adaptive audio engine creator in the game Kingdom Come: Deliverance. The practical, down-to-Earth approach is where the game shines the most."

—Jan Kavan
Creator of award-winning video games
Lecturer at Janacek Academy of Music and Performing Arts, Brno

"This book is for you whether you are already a video game music designer or just starting with music design for games. I have been working with Adam on several video game projects and I can tell tell Adam found clever solutions to numerous music design problems."

—Vojta Nedvěd
Audio lead at Warhorse Studios

"Clear, consise, and to the point, this course will help you develop a consistent and effective strategy for your game music. The practical tips (by an industry pro) contained in this course will help you avoid roadblocks before they happen. A worthy investment for any game developer."

—Steve Kay
Independent professional music producer