Andrew Schartmann - Böcker

Koji Kondo’s Super Mario Bros. (1985) score redefined video game music. With under three minutes of music, Kondo put to rest an era of bleeps and bloops—the sterile products of a lab environment—replacing it with one in which game sounds constituted a legitimate form of artistic expression. Andrew Schartmann takes us through the various external factors (e.g., the video game crash of 1983, Nintendo’s marketing tactics) that coalesced into a ripe environment in which Kondo’s musical experiments could thrive. He then delves into the music itself, searching for reasons why our hearts still dance to the “primitive” 8-bit tunes of a bygone era.What musical features are responsible for Kondo’s distinct “Mario sound”? How do the different themes underscore the vastness of Princess Peach’s Mushroom Kingdom? And in what ways do the game’s sound effects resonate with our physical experience of the world? These and other questions are explored within, through the lens of Kondo’s compositional philosophy—one that would influence an entire generation of video game composers. As Kondo himself stated, “we [at Nintendo] were trying to do something that had never been done before.” In this book, Schartmann shows his readers how Kondo and his team not just succeeded, but heralded in a new era of video games.

This study of five of Nintendo’s landmark music scores offers new insights into video game music composition and creativity with limited technology.Faced with severe technological constraints on system memory, composers of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) sought ways to disguise repetition in music that repeats extensively. Their efforts gave rise to a set of compositional techniques for creating the illusion of variety. Andrew Schartmann distills these techniques into a theory of harmony and form for the analysis of NES music. It then uses this theory to analyze five landmark scores of the NES era: Super Mario Bros., Dragon Warrior, Metroid, Mega Man 2, and Silver Surfer. Both theory and analysis are scaffolded by a detailed description of the NES hardware and its attendant constraints, highlighting the ever-evolving dialogue between technology, commercial demand, and artistic sensibility that characterizes video game music of the 1980s and 1990s.

This book explores Keiji Inafune’s unique and controversial approach to video game design by breaking down his prolific output into seven key concepts.Keiji Inafune is a polarizing figure in the video game community. While some view his work on Capcom’s Mega Man series as a pivotal contribution to the gaming industry, others question his very claim to the title of game designer. No matter one’s stance, however, Inafune’s work inspires passionate discussions about video game design and its history.In this book, Andrew Schartmann explores seven core principles that permeate Inafune’s output and constitute his creative “voice.” He also draws on Inafune’s controversial persona to probe the very definition of “video game designer”—a term problematized by the collaborative aspect of game design and the industry’s Wonka-esque obsession with secrecy. With high-profile games like Mega Man, Street Fighter and Resident Evil, Inafune's repertoire provides an ideal lens through which to explore the nuts and bolts of game design and the many forces that shape it.