SXSWORLD

3 2 SXS W O R L D | F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 7 | SXSW.COM Game Designers & Musicians Share Interests & Opportunities By DaN soloMoN opportunities for licensing and syncs. And the exposure to an audi- ence of gamers who may seek out new music primarily through their consoles is no small benefit, either.  Dutch DJ/producer Oliver Heldens knows the power of all of that. He licensed the song "Good Life" to French games devel- oper Ubisoft—the company behind blockbuster franchises like Assassin's Creed and Prince of Persia—for the company's new Watch Dogs 2, and turned the entire project into a large-scale col- laboration, basing the video for the song on the game.  "Producing for projects like that can be a really big step in a DJ's career," Heldens says. "It's not what we usually do, but it's definitely very interesting to get the chance."  It's not just interesting because of the career rewards, either. While Heldens had produced "Good Life" before Ubisoft chose it for the collaboration, he's excited about the creative possibilities of working in games. "I can imagine that when you compose your music around a game, it can definitely be challenging—there are more factors to take into account, it has to fit the overall vibe of the game, those sorts of things," he says. "These challenges keep our work really interesting."  "If a good opportunity arises, there needs to be a sort of instant connection for me," Heldens continues. "With Ubisoft, it was there, because I already play a lot of their games, so it felt right instantly. If that instant connection is there, most of the time the rest will fall into place."  Finding artists who are ready to serve as collaborators, and who are passionate about the project, is the key from the game devel- oper side, too. At Image & Form, that can be anybody—Steam Powered Giraffe, for example, had never done music for a game before signing on to SteamWorld Heist. Meanwhile, Sigurgeirsson says, "For our next game, we're doing the opposite, working with someone who is actually a famous game-music composer."  Ultimately, the mix of music and video games is like any other creative collaboration—it's not so much about a formula as it is finding the right partner for the right project, and trusting the pro- cess. "It's all in the exploration, I guess," Sigurgeirsson muses. "We think it's interesting to try different things. The results will never be the same, but they're usually very good." SXSW Gaming Expo will be March 16–18. SXSW Music Festival runs March 13-19. W hen Brjann Sigurgeirsson, CEO of games studio Image & Form, began work on SteamWorld Heist—the sequel to the wildly successful Nintendo 3DS 2013 platform action/adventure game SteamWorld Dig—he knew that one of the areas in which he wanted to improve the player's experience was the music.  Early in Image & Form's existence, that was an afterthought. The developers would leave the music until the last minute, then add it on the cheap after finding something acceptable on a roy- alty-free website. But as the studio, and the games industry as a whole, have evolved, so has the thinking about how music can help create a more engaging, immersive world for the player to enjoy. Suddenly, music is at the forefront of designing a compelling game.  "These days, we try to think of it in the same way we think about graphics," Sigurgeirsson says. "The right kind of music is really important for our games in order to convey the right mood."  When it comes to SteamWorld Heist, the developer searched for a way to make the music a gameplay element that fans would embrace. Citing inspiration like the role-playing game (RPG) Bastion, Sigurgeirsson's team included bar scenes where players recruit new crew members, buy equipment, and more—and because they're bars, he says, "They're always flooded with music."  When the Swedish studio found the San Diego, California-based band Steam Powered Giraffe, he knew he was onto something spe- cial. "It turned out to be a more integrated part of the game than we had intended at first, since we found the perfect band," he says. "They pretend to be steam-driven robots, so it was a perfect match. We could therefore animate them and have them in the game as the 'constant band' that tours all of the bars in space that our heroes go to visit."  That sort of synergy is rare, of course. There are only so many games about steam-powered robots, and only so many rock bands who perform as steam-powered robots, so the key to finding new creative—and business—opportunities in the comingling of music and games isn't usually so literal. That doesn't mean that music can't still be a huge part of how players interact with, and experi- ence, the game that they're enjoying.  For Image & Form, there are a few different things that music can accomplish. A spooky melody can always set the tone for a spooky scene, but as game developers innovate, and truly collabo- rate with musicians, music is used for broader purposes.  "We try to use music as much as possible for setting moods, but it can also be super useful to indicate movement. Panning the sound can really work well, especially if you're playing with headphones. Other games do a tremendous job of using music in clever ways," Sigurgeiersson says, noting an iOS game called Mini Metro that uses a music algorithm to compose as you play.  From the musician's perspective, the benefits of pursuing work in games are multifold: Financially, it doesn't hurt to have more Oliver Heldens, photo by Piper

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