"Scared to death?"
Chris's vision went dark.
I couldn’t help but think of my past experiences playing games.
Don't tell me.
I did have a similar experience.
Game producers sometimes have a lot of bad intentions and will scare players in certain places from time to time.
Especially open world RPG games.
Since it is an open world, there must be surprises, and of course there will be scares.
Take, for example, the last Assassin's Creed game, Odyssey.
If you are in a bounty state, and you accidentally walk to some place close to the mercenary with a bounty on it.
It will blow the horn directly, make a buzzing sound, and then a red-headed figure will jump out halfway and directly draw a knife to chop you.
Don't say it.
This monster may not be terrible.
But if there is a sudden buzz, if it is when the number is wandering, it will indeed be aroused.
"Yes, it scares players to death."
Li Jinglin nodded.
"for example"
"Conscious in-game mechanics or stage countdowns!"
"reciprocal?"
Chris always felt as if he had grasped something important.
But it still felt like there was a wall between them.
I want to realize it, it hurts so much, my brain is about to grow.
But it only grew a little bit and didn't finish growing at all.
"Yes."
Listen to the students' questions.
Li Jinglin nodded.
He couldn't help but have a smirk on his face.
In fact, when he first came into contact with game soundtracks in "The Witcher 3", Li Jinglin discovered more fun of soundtracks.
Instill "negative" emotions into players through the gaming experience.
Really cool.
"Through the form of reading notes, players are vaguely aware of some problems. From this point on, it has actually begun to increase players' tension from all aspects and pave the way for subsequent content."
"In this way, although the players know that something big will definitely happen after the countdown is over, it is the knowledge that makes them the most uncomfortable. You must understand that the sword hanging above your head is the scariest thing."
Speaking of which.
Li Jinglin told the students several mechanisms commonly seen in games.
"For example, the terrain of the boss battle is not normal. Could it be an ice sheet, ocean, magma, or poisonous fog?"
"Or the boss is relatively easy to defeat during a fixed time. When the fixed time is up, it will be crazy strengthened."
"Or the other way around."
"For example, based on the game plot, the boss is invincible, but in order to challenge the boss, the NPC helps the player, or the player creates some negative status for the boss through other tasks."
"But because the boss is really powerful, it requires a fixed time countdown to break through the defense. During this process, the boss will release skills crazily, and the combat power will be full. When the time is up, it is time for the players to show off."
Speaking of which.
Chris and the others already understood.
It is also a relatively "rigid" cooperation.
But if used well.
It can completely make this part of the game very interesting.
really!
"Some bosses will enter a certain reading mode at the moment the game opens. After the reading mode ends, they may be forced to use a full-screen instant-kill ultimate move, or transform into a performance."
"This is intended to put huge psychological pressure on players. Since this method is easy to be cracked by gamers and used as a way to clear levels, it is better to take it out directly and use it with performance animations and fixed skill modules to let Players can feel the pressure of the boss."
Listening to Li Jinglin's introduction.
Several people looked at each other with expressions of great interest.
"At this time, the leader is not the music itself."
Li Jinglin spoke seriously.
After introducing some relevant knowledge about the game.
Then switch back to the perspective of music production.
"Producers will ask for some opinions from music producers, and music producers will also give a rough [emotion guidance] time range based on music psychology and examples."
"But it is impossible for games to completely compromise with music. The reason why games are the ninth art is precisely because music, art, and game content cooperate and organically combine with each other instead of restricting each other."
"In this case, the producer who designs the boss mechanism will sometimes talk to the scorer about this aspect and give each other a basic line. An excellent scorer will flexibly adjust his own style based on these things. Music loop.”
"for example?"
Chris got excited.
Tell the truth.
As a composer.
Use the art form you are good at.
Collaborate with artists from other fields.
Together we build a wonderful and huge world for the game, and together we give birth to this "ninth art".
Such a sense of achievement and satisfaction is unimaginable.
"With the development of game soundtracks to this point, a soundtrack model has been born that reads instructions together with the boss. That is, the game producer designs the next behavioral logic based on the boss's blood volume, and the music also changes accordingly."
Listen to Li Jinglin's words.
Chris understood immediately.
When the game and the soundtrack work together to build the gaming experience at the beginning.
It's rather dull.
For example, I fixed what changes the boss would make at what time, and the music would also change accordingly.
This can be seen as a parallel.
Although this routine is still useful, it is impossible for everyone to use this method in a large game.
【Interaction】
This is the most important concept of a game.
The interaction between literature and music, the interaction between music and game mechanics, the interaction between game mechanics and art, etc.
In the game world itself, a highly intertwined interaction is formed, and it becomes an organic whole. In this way, the players' sense of experience is enhanced, and interactions with various factors in the game are also formed.
For example, a certain music, a certain plot, a certain boss, a certain skill, a certain scene
Can leave a deep impression on players.
This all comes through interaction.
Only when the sense of interaction is full will it feel fun.
It is not impossible for music and games to be parallel, but once something goes wrong, it can easily lead to a sense of separation. Therefore, in the field of modern games, these elements need to strengthen their interactive connections.
as expected.
When Li Jinglin said this, he chuckled.
"Have you ever thought that the progress of game players against bosses is completely different? Some are very fast, but some take a long time. In this case, will the former not be able to feel the emotion of the soundtrack, and then But when the person was most nervous, he listened to the most exciting music in a very inconsistent way, which greatly reduced the sense of experience?"
Several students were suddenly shocked.
I really never thought about this question originally.
Everyone understands the situation according to their own imagination.
Take it for granted.
But after Li Jinglin introduced these contents and quickly digested them.
Chris and the others began to understand why the interaction needed to be strengthened and why there was music and the boss reading instructions together.
because
There are thousands of players, some with handicapped hands, some with no hands, some with very quick brains, and some with sharp operations. There may also be quite a few shoe-teacher playing methods that I have never seen before.
How could the speed of clearance be the same?
Obviously, there are other solutions to avoid this problem.
"Yes, in the next step, the producer will transfer the basic logic of reading instructions from time to the monster's blood volume."
Li Jinglin knocked on the whiteboard again.
Let’s get to the point.
"Since the fixed time is too dull, then be more flexible and adjust it to be above the blood volume."
"When the monster reaches a certain blood volume, it will increase its rage in stages, or release some special powerful skills."
“Music production, in this model, requires separation.”
"For example, the boss that players see is in two stages, with a CG animation performance in between."
"When designers design logic, they may divide it into four or five stages."
"For example, the first stage is full health, the first stage is half health, the first stage is residual health, then death, CG cutscene, the second stage repeats this concept, and then the level is cleared."
Li Jinglin changed the subject.
It really comes to one of the real difficulties in game soundtrack production.
While maintaining the whole, you also need to be able to segment!
"When making music, you need to control the entire main music structure while dividing it into different stages of phrases, and allowing these phrases to be looped."
"For example, the entire music, according to different stages, is divided into opening A, foreshadowing B, the first wave of climax when the health is remaining, C, cutscenes, the second stage, different opening phrases D, and then the complete explosion E "
"If it's normal music production, this is a whole."
"But in soundtrack production, this needs to be looped separately, so we encountered a difficult problem."
Li Jinglin wrote a row of words on the whiteboard.
[Players have a limited tolerance threshold for repetition]
"You have also studied music psychology, and you should know that if a paragraph is repeated too many times, it is very easy to break through the tolerance threshold of human psychology."
"So, after extracting these passages, while making this loop, there needs to be differences."
"For example, for a paragraph that opens with A, you need to write A1, A2, and A3, so that when the paragraph is cycled, the players will not be annoyed."
"In this way, if the fade-in and fade-out connections are made well, this is the gold content of the soundtrack."
Chris suddenly realized!
Li Jinglin’s teachings really opened the door to a new world for Chris.
This is a completely different world compared to other types of music.
really.
In-game music, and the game's original soundtrack.
It's really not the same thing.
The game's original soundtrack is a complete piece of music.
It may be that the development and continuation of the ABCD paragraph ends.
But actually, in a real game.
It is necessary to add flowers.
If you stay in stage B, you may sometimes find that the music in stage B is a fill-in loop of B1, B2, and B3.
It's okay for speedrunners, they don't listen to music, they just do it for the thrill of beating the boss.
But if you are an ordinary player, the soundtrack is not good, and halfway through the boss fight, the music will suddenly climax in place.
The experience was really like being in jail.
(End of chapter)
