This book presents an overview of the emerging field of emotion in videogame soundtracking. The
emotional impact of music has been well-documented particularly when used to enhance the
impact of a multimodal experience such as combining images with audio as found in the
videogames industry. Soundtracking videogames presents a unique challenge compared to
traditional composition (for example film music) in that the narrative of gameplay is
non-linear - Player dependent actions can change the narrative and thus the emotional
characteristics required in the soundtrack. Historical approaches to emotion measurement and
the musical feature mapping and music selection that might be used in video game soundtracking
are outlined before a series of cutting edge examples are given. These examples include
algorithmic composition techniques automated emotion matching from biosensors motion capture
techniques emotionally-targeted speech synthesis and signal processing and automated
repurposing of existing music (for example from a players own library). The book concludes with
some possibilities for the future.
