Video: Creating hyper-adaptive game music on an indie budget

Writing great music for a video game is hard; crafting a compelling musical score that shifts and changes in response to a player's actions is even harder.

Writing great music for a video game is hard; crafting a compelling musical score that shifts and changes in response to a player's actions is even harder. Doing it on an indie budget? That's a bona fide feat.

To pull it off you need to learn from the experts, among them composer C. Andrew Rohrmann, who took to the stage during GDC 2015's Indie Games Summit to deconstruct his modular approach to music writing, production and implementation.

With an overview of his work creating the music for Galak-Z as an example, Rohrmann demonstrated how (with the aid of 17-Bit Games' Unity-based Audio17 music environment) composers can create multi-layered and hyper-adaptive musical elements that react to multiple gameplay variables, and combine to form an arrangement that is unique for each and every play session.

His presentation offered rare insight into the practical realities of designing a game with adaptive music, and its well worth watching for any indie developers and anyone who missed it in person. A full recording of his talk is now available to watch for free over on the GDC Vault.

About the GDC Vault

In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vaultand its new YouTube channeloffers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.

Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC, GDC Europe, and GDC Next already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.

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