Game Republic talk: exploring methodologies to assess the effects of procedural music on the gaming experience

A lot of us are familiar with procedural music, where a composition is manipulated and rearranged in reaction to gameplay. We have all experienced a game in which new layers of an orchestra enter or leave a mix when we are low on health, near danger, or using a power up.

Generative music takes things a step further, using algorithms to create whole new musical phrases in real-time gameplay. In the case of Spore that meant Brian Eno creating a cornucopia of samples which were loaded into an engine which was given a set of rules determining what could be played, in response to how players interacted with the game. Think of these types of music systems as sheet music and the player as a jazz band. 

It has been observed that a world reacting to a player’s actions increases enjoyment and chance of immersion (Holl et al., 2020; Lazzaro, 2009; Samantha, 2022). And a 2011 study found the promise of a unique experience every play through to contribute to replayability  (Frattesi et al., 2011, p.21). At least, those are my claims and I intend to go some way to prove them over the next few months.

This is still a relatively new field of study and, despite being incredibly cool, there is not a great deal of research assessing the value of such music systems on the gaming experience, or even standardised methods for going about such a task. Given that I am building such a music system as part of my Masters course, it feels right to amend this.

I started by looking at a 2022 study on how we imagine narratives in response to musical stimuli, which allowed participants to give responses completely freely, and found an unexpected consistency in the images people from different cultures imagine when listening to music. Then I looked at a 2025 study on the success of an algorithmic music program based on narrative and tension, in which participants were given statements and could respond on a scale of one to six how strongly they agreed (Braga et al, 2025; Canossa et al, 2011; Margulis et al, 2022). So now I have ways to measure subjective responses to music, allowing me to demonstrate whether the technology to create procedural scores can match up to the sound we are used to from studio recordings as well as whether music implemented in this way contributes to factors that lead to immersion.

It seems to me I need to create two versions of a game, one that uses a procedural score and an exact copy with a linear score, as well as a group of participants to play it. Going to a university and being on a lot of gaming discords makes participants quite easy to find, especially when you add the chance of winning a gift card.

In addition to a questionnaire the game engine will be instructed to record metrics from gameplay (Canossa et al, 2011). To get a grasp of how these metrics relate to the emotional state of players, the study will begin with a small group of in person participant so signs of frustration or enjoyment can be observed and mapped to in-game metrics (Canossa et al., 2011).

You are perhaps wondering about this game? I am building one at the moment in which players act as a God slowly growing a cult on a desert island, keeping follower alive, well and, most importantly, devoted (imagine some of Black and White, Tropico and Cult of the Lamb). Players can choose actions that are benevolent or malevolent which feeds certain parameters which affect a score that is generated during gameplay through a combination of granular, additive and subtractive synthesis techniques and sampling. If you are interested in where the music has got to so far, check out the video below, and if the game sounds up your street, keep an eye on this page.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNyQHjZg7GI

Bibliography

1. Braga, F., Bernardes, G., Dannenberg, R.B., Correia, N., 2025. Algorithmic Composition Using Narrative Structure and Tension. 

2. Canossa, A., Drachen, A., Sorensen, J.R.M., 2011. Arrrgghh!!! - Blending Quantitative and QualitativeMethods to Detect Player Frustration. Proc. 6th Int. Conf. Found. Digit. Games 61–68. 

3. Cutting, J., Aung, M., Perrett, F., Cairns, P., 2025. The development and validation of the Immersion Experience Questionnaire Short Form (IEQ-SF). Int. J. Hum.-Comput. Stud. 203, 103580. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2025.103580 

4. Frattesi, T., Shaffer, T., Leith, J., Griesbach, D., 2011. Replayability of Video Games. 

5. Hart, P., 2025. 

6. Holl, E., Bernard, S., Melzer, A., 2020. Moral decision‐making in video games: A focus group study on player perceptions. Hum. Behav. Emerg. Technol. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbe2.189 

7. Lazzaro, N., 2009. Why We Play: Affect and the fun of game: designing emotions for games, entertainment interfaces and interactive products, in: Human-Computer Interaction: Designing for Diverse Users and Domains. pp. 155–175. 

8. Margulis, E.H., Wong, P.C.M., Turnball, C., Kubit, B.M., McAuley, J. devin, 2022. Narratives imagined in response to instrumental music reveal culture-bounded intersubjectivity. Proc. Natl. Acaemy Sci. Vol. 119. 

9. Samantha, S., 2022. Altercharacter and identity: The practice of choice-making in narrative video games (Doctoral). University of Southampton, Southampton. 

10. Skeurid, 2025. Rat’s Nest, Rat’s Nest.