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The Number One Educational Resource for the Game Industry

Session Name: Where Does the Game End and the Instrument Begin?
Speaker(s): Matt Boch, Jon Moldover, Nick Bonardi, David Young, Brian Schmidt
Company Name(s): Harmonix Music Systems, Smule Inc., Ubisoft, Smule Inc., Brian Schmidt Studios
Track / Format: Audio

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Overview: Where does the game end and the instrument begin? Music games Post-Tap Tap Revenge. Music games have moved beyond simple beat matching. It's now evolved into portals of creativity, where people of all skill levels can have fun making music that express their individuality. Designing expressive, interactive music for the masses, however, poses a down-to-earth challenge for engineers -- how do they give players ample opportunity to be expressive (as actual instruments do) while providing the "musical training wheels" that help make music novices sound good, no matter how they choose to play (as games do). This presentation, moderated by game audio pioneer Brian Schmidt, will discuss specific case studies from Harmonix's "Fantasia," Ubisoft's "Rocksmith 2" and Smule's "Magic Piano" and "Sing! Karaoke" -- describing in detail how each attempted to balance those two seemingly competing goals, the tradeoffs and the insights gleaned from each example.

GDC 2015

Matt Boch

Harmonix Music Systems

Jon Moldover

Smule Inc.

Nick Bonardi

Ubisoft

David Young

Smule Inc.

Brian Schmidt

Brian Schmidt Studios

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Audio

Audio