Henry is a single-player narrative adventure video game with occasional platforming mechanics, being developed by an indie studio called LuLuLu from Zurich. The studio's goal is to produce a playable prototype that can be shown at game conventions in order to attract publishers. To achieve this, the game should feature an adaptive music system, which should serve as a foundation for the further production. The system is supposed to improve the overall gaming experience and it has to be realisable within the given production time of three months.
The aim of this thesis is to develop and explore different types of adaptive music systems in order to gain more knowledge about their implementation techniques but also to understand, which system offers which possibilities and what kind of gameplay mechanics can be linked to the system. Another goal of this work is to distinguish between different dynamic audio terms in the context of game audio. Thus, dynamic, interactive, adaptive, generative and procedural audio are being discussed.
In the main part of the thesis, the various adaptive systems, that have been developed, are introduced. Some of them have been tested with the help of gameplay videos, while others have been implemented directly with FMOD and Unity. Each system is analysed for its future potential and its adaptability. Thereby, the complexity of the individual systems and the game mechanics they can be connected to, are estimated. The work also outlines the feedback from the developers and what kind of improvements to the system could be made.
The resulting adaptive system has, on the one hand, the ability to adapt to the player's progress and, on the other hand, it can adapt to game actions that are detached from any progress. Horizontal and vertical adaptive composing techniques are an integral part of the system and therefore contribute to the variability of the music. Among other over-complex systems, this one has prevailed because both actions are part of the core mechanics of the game. One of the main findings of the thesis is that through this close linkage to the core game mechanics, the system can adapt very well to additional levels in the future.
This thesis can serve as a useful resource if one is interested in learning about adaptive music systems and their implementation with FMOD and Unity. Also, the explanation of the different dynamic audio terminologies, in the theoretical part of the thesis, can be a help to get an overview in this topic.
The project was realized during an exchange at the Sound in New Media department at the Media Lab of Aalto University Finland under supervision of Antti Ikonen.
https://www.aalto.fi/en/aalto-media-lab/sound-in-n…