I'm currently implementing and overseeing all of the music in a game called Salt. The theme of the game is unique and so the music needed to be as such. It's a game where you fight pirates, bosses, and experience mysterious things in a big island and ocean type world. When I approached the music design aspect of the game, I had to think about two main aspects. 

1. What theme/sound of music is going to be in the game? 
2. How often should the music play?

As I started to play other games and do some research, I realized something. I found that most games I played had too much music for my liking. In so many games I found the music be overstimulating and constantly layered on top of my experience. Even if I was just wandering around aimlessly, there was music playing. While I see the benefit of having music play often, I found that in general it made the curve of emotions pretty flat. Instead of feeling a low of quiet and peace, followed by intense action moments with epic music, I was in the middle most of the time. Never really feeling like I got a break from the music. 

In addition to over-stimulation, I found that the music sometimes took away from my immersion in the world. Instead of being able to walk around a forest, listening to the birds and the leaves rustle, I was listening to non-existent violins in the background. Now, while this can sometimes enhance your experience, I found for the most part it took me out of the game. When I would turn the music off, I would feel more engrossed into the world and the sounds of the environment replaced the music in a more immersive way. 

After doing some research and testing, I realized that I did not want music to be playing constantly in Salt. I needed to pick places where music would enhance the experience, making you feel epic, but also allow downtime for you to take in the environment. With this in mind, I opted for music to be in two main aspects of the game. Sailing and bosses. 

A large portion of the game features you sailing across a big ocean. Since there isn't much going on at sea, it felt like a fitting place to have epic music playing. This turned out to work very well. There's nothing like being behind the wheel of a massive ship, riding huge waves while listening to the thundering sound of drums and strings. Not only did I implement music at sea, but I also implemented exclusive daytime and night time music. If you were sailing at night, the music would be much more peaceful and mysterious. However if you were sailing the day, the music would be more thunderous and epic. 

In addition to sailing music, I also knew there needed to be music for bosses. Without music, boss fights just don't feel as epic. With this in mind I chose to give each boss in the game a unique theme to their music. I feel that this is a great way to get creative with music and enhance the player experience far more than if there were no music. 

All that being said, music in video games is a fairly subjective area. There are going to be a lot of different likes/dislikes depending on the player. This is why I think it's important to allow players to control the volume of the music in the game to suit their needs. When implementing game music, you want to think about the type of game and what works best. If you are going for a large amount of immersion, consider putting more emphasis on the ambient environment. If you're game is full of action and boss battles, consider keeping it more music heavy. The design behind this will always heavily depend on the game you are making and your personal preferences. 

At the very least, I hope this helps you gain some insight and get ideas for different ways to implement game audio, and create a nice balance of immersion and music.


If you're interested, you can stream a lot of the music from Salt here - https://soundcloud.com/willsterling/sets/salt-music-1