Adaptive Game Soundtrack Tempo Based on Players’ Actions

A well-designed video game soundtrack can significantly affect human game perception, especially when there is an intuitive link between musical and game features. The soundtrack intuitiveness can be increased by making it adaptive and dependent on players’ actions. The tempo is one of the music characteristics, and this change is relatively easy to distinguish even for non-musicians because it is often interpreted as a speed. This work examines the existence of different correlations between players’ in-game actions and soundtrack tempo. Authors suppose that results of conducted playtesting with humans can improve game development from the musical side, increasing players’ engagement with the game. The playtesting is done based on a simple runner game called MAK, which was developed for scientific purposes. This research aims to find intuitive dependencies between six considered game actions and soundtrack tempo.