002 | crafting the music for tabletop games in HitPlay

The start of another Journey

In the last blog, I gave you a sneak peek of HitPlay, our tabletop music and sound app. In this post, we’re going to talk about the music of HitPlay.

What makes HitPlay music special?

To do that, we first need to understand what makes video game music different from film and TV music.

A film or TV show is a linear progression of events. This progression has a set pacing and runtime. When film composers write music for their films, they have to precisely match the pacing and rhythm of the film, perfectly mirroring the action and events onscreen. Music tracks, or “cues,” are often written to be highly thematic. Cues are also fixed in length and linear in nature.

A video game differs from film and TV in that it is interactive in nature. The events that happen onscreen occur at a pace exclusively determined by the player. When composers write for video games, their priority is not to hit specific gameplay moments, but instead to address the situation at hand, whether exploratory or combative. Cues are written to be cyclical or loopable to match the amount of time a player takes to clear a certain situation or level. Cues are sometimes even dynamic, often scaling with factors like combat intensity.

For HitPlay, we’re writing music for tabletop games that combines elements from both film and video game scores. Our music is designed to be infinitely loopable and feature dynamic scaling for different combat intensities, just like in a video game. Our music is catchy and memorable, and it shares a musical language with melodies and motifs that reappear across tracks as part of the same thematic collection, much like a film score.

What do we call HitPlay music?

Writing music for tabletop games is a relatively recent and undocumented phenomenon. When an artist or band releases a thematic collection of music, it is called an “album.” When such a collection is released with a video game, it is called a “soundtrack.” When we were brainstorming the implementation of the app, we realized that, given the dynamic nature of our music, calling our music “tracks,” “cues,” “albums,” or “soundtracks” did not make much sense.

This is a different class of product, after all.

First, we’re dividing our music into different types. Exploratory music will be called “Paths,” while combat music will be called “Encounters.” We plan to bundle multiple Paths and Encounters into musically themed collections. And just like your tabletop adventures, these collections tell a story. So we’re calling them “Journeys.”

Hold on a second. Dynamic music? That sounds complicated. If the music is indeed dynamic, how does it respond to your very analog gameplay?

This was a question we wrestled with for the longest time. In video games, music scales dynamically based on predefined parameters. If the number of enemies onscreen increases or a boss suddenly appears, the music scales up to match the intensity of what’s happening. Remember: intensity, not volume. That means the music changes to include more instrumentation, sound more aggressive, or feel denser as combat difficulty increases.

In HitPlay, we hand off the controls of this dynamic music scaling to the Game Master.

The implementation is quite simple. Encounters will have three intensity layers: Easy, Hard, and Epic. When you want to play a specific Encounter, pick the track from your playlist that best represents the battle at hand, select your combat intensity from the three options, and hit play. If combat becomes more or less intense, you can tap one of the other intensity buttons and the music will dynamically increase or decrease in intensity, as if the orchestra is performing to your direction.

Winning the battle causes the music to transition into a musical ending that reflects the final selected intensity, allowing everyone to celebrate and exchange high-fives all around. Losing the battle fades the music into silence, giving players a moment to reflect on their failures.

Paths, on the other hand, will have two layers: one for daytime or most situations, and another for nighttime or quieter situations, with a gentle slow fade differentiating the two.

For Settlements, we also have “Chaotic” and “Orderly” options. Tavern music will contain elements of both Paths and Encounters in ways that we are still exploring.

So far, as far as we know, each Journey will consist of seven Paths and three Encounters.

At launch, we’re planning to have three Journeys ready: Fantasy, Horror, and Sci-Fi, as we’ve determined that these will cover most tabletop games. As our user base grows, we will use community feedback to create additional Journeys that address more niches. We’re planning future Journeys based around Wild West, Dystopian, Cyberpunk, Steampunk, War, and Noir settings.

By lifting individual Paths and Encounters from default Journeys, users will also be able to create custom Journeys for their own adventures.

In the next post, we’ll talk about design and all the choices going into making HitPlay a gorgeous and beautifully designed app. We’ll also give an exclusive sneak peek at the actual app itself.

If you’re interested in following our journey, make sure you subscribe and stay tuned for more updates from [Tickle Engine](https://tickleengine.com?utm_source=chatgpt.com).