I have to write a journal entry (in the form of a blog) twice a week for english class, and I decided to post them here. I wrote and posted these a few days ago, but I think it can't hurt to put them on newgrounds also.

Entry 1

------------------------

Seeing as the first section of the book is about identity, what better way to write about identity than to just write whatever I feel like writing, showing who I actually am and expressing my opinion on things. I will be writing 2 entries a week for this whole semester, so anyone visiting this site who doesn't really know who I am should get a good picture of me by the time this ordeal is over.

In this first entry, I feel like writing about music and how it relates to games. In game class at school (which I feel, until we get to the projects, is the most useless class so far), they made the point that music is usually tacked on to games at the end, and is rarely an element that is woven into the the game from the beginning. I understand, but frankly I think it's a shame. Music has the ability to transform the mood of a game, sometimes even more than graphics can. It's the same thing with movies too. Look at Star Wars. That movie wouldn't have been nearly as good it if weren't for it's amazing soundtrack. However, games allow for a much more unique use of music than movies, and it's disappointing that so very few games have managed to create unique uses of music.

Many games have memorable, fitting soundtracks, but it's really tough to come up with a game that has a memorable, fitting soundtrack AND uses that music in a different way than simply playing it in the background, then playing a new song in a new area. In a game, the characters are interactive and dynamic, the graphics have become interactive and dynamic, the stories are on their way to becoming interactive and dynamic, but music has remained pretty static. There's a few games that stand out though. Braid is an amazing example. The music ties into the theme very nicely. The time control mechanic actually controls fast forwarding and rewinding background music too, which was an extremely nice touch. It's not a hard thing to implement by any means, but the problem is that so few companies care enough about music to put the effort into designing ways to work the music into the gameplay, and would rather just tack it on at the end.

If you noticed, my latest flash game makes an interesting use of the music by changing tracks on different planets, but all the tracks are part of the same song, so by playing through the game, you basically assemble this song together, turning it from a calming simple empty-feeling background track to a much busier but still emotional pile of sounds. And this brings me to my next point.

I don't want to put the work into the sound only to have people turn it off with a mute button and listen to their rap or metal or emo music. It'd be like trying to play a game with the window minimized and watching a movie instead of looking at the game's built in graphics. The music is a major part of a game, and I really don't think people should be able to opt out of experiencing it (no offense to the deaf). Some people are accustomed to listening to their own tracks simply because the music in most games is simply tacked on, so it makes no real difference whether or not they swap out tracks. However, in a game where the music is a central feature (for example, Guitar Hero or Rock band to be obvious), people really should listen to the music the game provides for them.

I don't like putting mute buttons into my games, but most of the time I do it because people want it. Well, in my latest one, I decided from the beginning that I was not going to add a mute button into the game. I felt that the music was such an important feature to the game that adding a mute button would essentially kill the experience. I want the player to experience the game a certain way, and the music is part of it. I care what fans have to say, in fact I really want suggestions for Aether. But as far as I'm concerned, you can comment on the music, but don't tell me that it needs a mute button, cause you won't get it. If you really don't want sound, turn your speakers off, but you are only depriving yourself, just as if you watched a movie on mute.