Trigger Mapping
The following table aims to clarify the needed triggers that create a change in the music, as well as what these changes consist of in a musical matter.
| Location | Theme | Trigger | Trigger Details | Musical Changes |
| Iridir Forest | 1st Theme | Tension | When the first three soldiers appear. | Musical elements sound slightly more synthesised, increased cutoff frequencies, more grit and slight detuning. |
| 2nd Theme | Tension | When approaching the “rug” that leads to the prison, and the first beast figure appears. | Increased volume and cutoff frequency of the bass, elements sound more metallic. | |
| Location | Transitioning to the prison side. | New background melody layer. | ||
| Iridir Prison | 1st Theme | Tension | When beasts appear after the friend is released. | Added orchestral percussion and bass elements. |
| Location | Transitioning to the second zone. | Added smooth drum layer. | ||
| Location | Transitioning to a new, undefined zone (to be determined by the programmer). | Added melody. |
7. Technical Implementation
Creating adaptive music for Mechanical God Saga requires audio middleware to connect the music to the game, reacting to triggers sent from the game engine. As mentioned before, Fmod was used for this purpose, as it is a standard tool in the game industry. Unfortunately the integration with RPG Maker, the game’s programming software, was not successful as there is no direct connectivity between this two programs. Fmod has direct integration for Unity, Unreal Engine and others, but not RPG Maker. This requires additional programming through JavaScript to establish a functional link. Daniel Malhadas, the game’s creator and programmer, is currently researching and developing this connection, which by this time has already been able to connect some of the elements.
Within the adaptive system, there are branching and layering needs. As a starting point to understand these systems, the next figure shows an example of a system designed for the first prison theme, “Iridir Prison I”, which consists of two location and one tension triggers. A, B and C refer to the three different locations, the white forms represent a normal state and the grey ones representing the tension states. The arrows represent the possible transitions that can happen, which was designed after understanding what is possible to happens within this section of the game.
For the layering approach, instead of exporting individual layers, I exported each version as a full mix and whenever a trigger happens, there is a smooth and quick transition between segments, which was possible to tailor within Fmod.
Fig. 3 Adaptive mapping system for Iridir first theme (Iridir Prison I).
Regarding fights, Fmod’s built-in parameters were used to create the dulling effect when the player is injured, enhancing immersion with equalization curves, which can be heard in the Fmod file attached to the documentation. All the other adaptive songs are also included in the project.
