This document discusses several topics related to game music and ludomusicology. It addresses frame analysis and diegesis in games. It also discusses interactive music games like Guitar Hero and how they can encourage physical and musical engagement from players. The document notes that each player's experience of a game's music will be unique based on their individual path through the game. It introduces the ALI model of video game music immersion and discusses concepts like disjunctive-conjunctive relationships and transmedia connections between game music and other media like film soundtracks. Research methods like analytical play are described for analyzing game music. Game mechanics and taxonomical investigations of grouping games by mechanics are also mentioned.

1. Online Gaming Culture 5

2. Frame Analysis
Diegesis
What originates in the frame

3. Exercise
Semiotic analysis of a game
Dennotation - Connotation/ Sign - signifier

4. Game Design
Music

5. Wagner - Total Theatre
Leitmotif -
Background Music

6. Ludomusicology
Ludomusicology not only deals with music in games and music games as its subject matter, but is also
interested in the ways in which games and their music have become subjects of playful engagement
themselves, e.g. within the frame of fancultural practices. Additionally and more generally, game music
challenges the ways in which we think about music, and subsequently how we study it

7. Interactive games with
music
Guitar hero - dance mat
Kiri Miller writes that music video games feature a smaller disparity between the actions of player and avatar than is usually present in
video games, and that this can encourage heightened levels of physical and musical engagement.[19] David Roesner, Anna Paisley, and
Gianna Cassidy have examined these phenomena within the classroom context, observing that music video games can inspire not only
musical creativity, but the positive self-perception of musicality in students; they suggest that such effects can be used to encourage
student engagement and development within both musical and non-musical curricula

8. Chance - Uncertainty

9. Because each player takes an independently-chosen path through the game, any player's
experience of a game's music will be different (considered as a whole) to any other player's
experience from the same game, even though constructed from the same basic elements.
Therefore, the intent and output of the composer and the music's effect on the player (which
similarly varies from player to player) must both be considered during analysis.[13]
A related concept to that of interactivity is that of immersion, which considers the ability of a
video game to draw the player into a deep engagement with the game's diegetic space. Isabella
van Elferen has developed a model of video game music immersion called "the ALI model",
which understands player immersion to be a confluence of "musical affect, musical literacy and
musical interaction":
● Affect: "personal investment in a given situation through memory, emotion and
identification"
● Literacy: "fluency in hearing and interpreting... music through the fact of our frequent
exposure to [it]", which builds on such literacy from other musical media
● Interaction: the player's reactions to music, and vice versa.

10. Disjunctive-Conjunctive

11. TransMedia
For example, Neil Lerner notes a relationship between music in early/silent cinema and game
music aesthetics from the 1970s onwards, on the basis of "largely nonverbal communication
system[s]" and "continuous musical accompaniment".[22] Similarly, Gregor Herzfeld compares
the use of high energy music in Gran Turismo to the use of rock music in action films like The
Fast and the Furious, due to associations with risky and/or exciting behavior.

12. Research Methods
Analytical play:
Tim Summers's book Understanding Video Game Music,[24] in which Summers describes the process of "analytical
play", wherein the analyst is "deliberately subverting the game's expectations of the player's actions.... At moments
when game rules are tested, the architecture is often clearest. By playing experimentally (or using 'analytical play')
to investigate the musical system in the game and comparing multiple play sessions, the musical mechanics of the
game programming can be divined"

13. Slides part of Josh Williams training

14. GAME MECHANICS
Miguel Sicart defines game mechanics,(using concepts from object-oriented programming) as
methods(actions) invoked by agents, designed for interaction with the game state.
Game mechanics is also defined in relation to elements of the game system, game hardware and
player experience, mapping mechanics to input procedures and player emotions.
Bjork etal
We present a model to support the design, analysis, and comparison of games through the use of game design patterns, descriptions of reoccurring interaction
relevant to game play. The model consists of a structural framework to describe the components of games, and patterns of interaction that describes how
components are used by players (or a computer) to affect various aspects of the game play. Focusing on the patterns and identified methods for using them, we
describe the development of the model and how we are currently working to enlarge and validate the collection of patterns.

15. Taxonomical investigation of games
Put up game mechanics, and group games by them. Maybe some kind of ven
diagram

46. Assignment Mid Point
An original presentation on an aspect of Esports of you choice
5 slides at least lasting up to 8 minutes
Referenced
800 word written report, referenced.
28th Develop in class with others etc.
7th March Show
14th March report
Report leads into and is included in your final assessment.