I'm trying to implement an interactive sound system into my top-down side-scrolling shooter game: Harmotion. Similar to games like Lumines, Rez, and Electroplankton.... I want the 2 players to feel like they are both contributing/collaborating to the overall track. My plan is to play different versions of a simple beat in the background (depending on the intensity of the game at the time). There will be 4 ships to choose from; each with their own sound scheme/style. The two players (Harmotion is strictly 2 players) will each choose a ship, and each time the player moves, shoots, uses an item, etc..., a sound effect will be triggered to add to the composition of the track. I know that I will need to play the sound effects at the right time steps (I'm thinking 16ths). I've also been told that I may want to un-mute an already repeating a sound effect when it is triggered (instead of playing it). So here are my questions: 1a) If each ship has totally different sound schemes (e.g reggae, turntablism, dance pop, industrial) how possible would it be to make them sound correct together (any pair within the four)? 1b) What type of background beat should I be looking that would suit all four of these sound effect styles? 1c) What type of things can I do to make the background beat variate? I was thinking of randomly choosing 2 layers among a bunch of layers to do this... 2) How should I be going about the sampling for the different genres? 3) Is there anything else I should be thinking about? - Erik - ~ http://blog.doublejumping.com ~

If you're using mod or midi based music, you can mute and unmute channels to do what you're thinking of doing.

The composer would need to write 2 channels of rhythm that you can fade in and out per style.

The only problem with reggae is that the rhythm is slow and bouncy whereas say dance pop is straight and faster.

The one thing about mod based music is you can embed the tempo commands into these two channels for each style, which would then control how the song sounds. I would not choose reggae to be mixed with the other styles due to it being so different tempo and tone wise.

For triggering your own sound effect on beat, some libraries should return the current position of the song if it's a Mod, you can then work out if it's a 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th beat of a bar and trigger the sound and effect on those.

I believe FMOD is one such engine which does this.

To even test if this is all feasible, you'll need to get a composer who can write these styles and use the same instruments in each style. It's not an easy goal to shoot for but good on you for trying!!