Interference: Adapting Player-Music Interaction in Games to a Live Performance Context
Interference is a multiplayer music game and generative music system, which is implemented as a Javascript web application and designed for live performance. It is based on the potential for dynamic music generation that exists in video games through player-music interaction. It uses a competitive multiplayer form to sustain a feedback loop in which players construct and change the music at a fine scale, while the music in turn informs players of the game state, affecting how they continue to play and therefore change the music. The design of Interference must also manage conflicts between games and music as contrasting media, such as presentation, length, and complexity, in order to create both a game that is engaging for its players and a musical performance that is compelling to its audience. Towards this objective, it combines elements of games that do not traditionally exist in music, such as an explicit goal-oriented structure, with features that serve strictly musical, performative purposes, allowing players to act simultaneously as performers. To support this design, it utilizes several existing web technologies to achieve tight synchronization, changeable sound synthesis, and networked interaction between players.
@inproceedings{2019_43,
abstract = {Interference is a multiplayer music game and generative music system, which is implemented as a Javascript web application and designed for live performance. It is based on the potential for dynamic music generation that exists in video games through player-music interaction. It uses a competitive multiplayer form to sustain a feedback loop in which players construct and change the music at a fine scale, while the music in turn informs players of the game state, affecting how they continue to play and therefore change the music. The design of Interference must also manage conflicts between games and music as contrasting media, such as presentation, length, and complexity, in order to create both a game that is engaging for its players and a musical performance that is compelling to its audience. Towards this objective, it combines elements of games that do not traditionally exist in music, such as an explicit goal-oriented structure, with features that serve strictly musical, performative purposes, allowing players to act simultaneously as performers. To support this design, it utilizes several existing web technologies to achieve tight synchronization, changeable sound synthesis, and networked interaction between players.},
address = {Trondheim, Norway},
author = {Wang, Matthew},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Web Audio Conference},
editor = {Xambó, Anna and Martín, Sara R. and Roma, Gerard},
month = {December},
pages = {83--86},
publisher = {NTNU},
series = {WAC '19},
title = {Interference: Adapting Player-Music Interaction in Games to a Live Performance Context},
year = {2019},
ISSN = {2663-5844}
}