Brain and Nerd have teamed up with Ziggidybang to develop adaptive music systems for the Unity game engine, the ubiquitous video game developing software. The R&D project addresses limits to static or level/zone-based music disrupting otherwise immersive open-world games, a game mechanic where the player can explore and approach objectives freely. The adaptive music system will keep track of where the player is in the game world relative to nearby emotional stimuli and continuously calculate indices for Threat, Adventure, and Wonder. To this end, Brain and Nerd are developing a sandbox game Hortalius to test the music system. The adaptive music system will improve immersion in games built in the Unity game engine by continuously adapting its soundscape to the player’s predicted emotional response to onscreen gameplay, forming a real-time, player-responsive music system not seen before in indie games, thus enhancing, rather than impeding the immersive experience with the soundtrack.
Brain and Nerd is a growing independent games development studio that has worked on its own IPs in Northern Ireland for over eight years. It specialises in procedural generation, engine and tool development, and customer-led development.
For more information on Brain and Nerd visit: https://brainandnerd.com
Industry Partner: Richard Campbell, Bmus (Hons), Creative Director, Ziggidybang.
Co-Investigator: Prof Michael Alcorn, Dean of Internationalisation, School of Arts, English and Languages, Sonic Arts, Queen’s University Belfast.
This project is funded by a Future Screens NI Research & Development award.