Designing musical games for electroacoustic improvisation Christos Michalakos This article has been published in a revised form in Organised Sound DOI: http://doi.org/10.1017/S1355771821000078. This version is published under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND. No commercial re-distribution or re-use allowed. Derivative works cannot be distributed. © Christos Michalakos Christos Michalakos School of Design and Informatics, Abertay University, Bell St, Dundee, DD1 1HG E-mail:
[email protected] Designing Musical Games for Electroacoustic Improvisation Abstract This paper describes the background and motivations behind the author’s electroacoustic game-pieces Pathfinder (2016) and ICARUS (2019), designed specifically for his performance practice with the augmented drum-kit. The use of game structures in music is outlined, while musical expression in the context of commercial musical games using conventional game controllers is discussed. Notions such as agility, agency and authorship in music composition and improvisation are parallelised with game design and play, where players are asked to develop skills through affordances within a digital game-space. It is argued that the recent democratisation of game engines opens a wide range of expressive opportunities for real-time game-based improvisation and performance. Some of the design decisions and performance strategies for the two instrument-controlled games are presented to illustrate the discussion; this is done in terms of game design, physical control through the augmented instrument, live electronics and overall artistic goals of the pieces. Finally, future directions for instrument-controlled electroacoustic game pieces are suggested. 1. INTRODUCTION Aesthetically, the return of the composer/performer demands new ways to ‘play’ music.