Video game music is a new and unique challenge in the history of music making. The composer is faced with the unprecedented challenge of organizing musical ideas that play and respond to the ever-changing action and player choices in a game. And due to notoriously tight game development schedules, low (or no) audio research budgets, limited published knowledge on the topic, and communication barriers between programmers and composers the possibility of poor audio development is a serious problem for the industry. Composing Music for Video Games examines the practical challenges of implementing a dynamic video game soundtrack that works, and presents a unified framework for approaching game audio production problems effectively. It shows that no matter how different the demands of various adaptive scoring problems may seem on the surface, they all share certain underlying characteristics. The book demonstrates how the basic principles of game music composition can be applied to the production of increasingly complex creative and effective soundtracks for virtually any imaginable game scenario.

KEY FEATURES
* Provides an insightful, unified framework for approaching game audio production effectively
* Covers the underlying challenges and ideas of the field, and provides solid insights and examples of current technology and its strengths and weaknesses
* Provides a clear, reader-friendly guide to complex technology
* Uses working examples that readers can play with while learning the concepts, providing a tactile experience
* Explores what’s possible with the current generation of technology tools, with an emphasis on Microsoft’s powerful and freely downloadable DirectMusic SDK
* Discusses the issues and differences with midi-based audio and streaming audio
* Includes a companion CD-ROM (Win) with all the demos and tools covered in the book