Video-games take on a unique position in the modern media due to its interactive nature. While the spectator of movies, music or literature takes on a relatively more passive and interpreting stance, a video-game requests more attention. To be more specific; a video-game demands an attitude that drives to action, making you a participant of the medium instead of an observer. The music in video-games do not only function as (non)diegetic music, as seen in movies, through the interactive nature of the technology.[1] According to Karen Collin, changes in the musical functions come forth from the ‘sound playback process on screen’ which the player continually converses with. Besides the categories of non-diegetic and diegetic sound, there is also dynamic and non-dynamic sound, interactive sound based on the gameplay and adaptive sound based on the positioning of the player in the game. This dynamic activity of sound is sometimes fluid as a result of which the classification of video-game sound is difficult to achieve.[2] In addition, there is also kinetic sound, where the player physically corresponds to the sound on screen.

Kinetic gameplay concerning sound mainly focuses on a musical output, in which the player functions as a composer or arranger. Tim Summers labels these kind of games as ‘musical games’. Players are offered different kinds of relationships with the music; often striving to a music successful or satisfying outcome. The player is stimulated to take on a form of musical analysis by viewing the music with the help of its ludic aspects and watch the game through its musical components. A way for the player to stimulate is by means of interaction that the players or listener sees as satisfying or rewarding.[3] According to Summers this complex interaction between the gameplay and music isn’t limited to musical games. He states that, for the functionality of a larger purpose, games create musical interaction by letting the gameplay play and experiment with the music and to let it react to it. For example, by using ‘the fantasy of syngergy’. With this he means the magical effect in which all elements synchronise with or adjust to the protagonist.[4] When you view music in games as a system that the player is able to control and therefor is able to adjust the musical output, a videogame changes from a game into an instrument.[5] This comes with a certain kind of uniqueness, just like the performance of a musical piece, as every musical gameplay of every player changes by the personal performative actions.[6]

Based on Summers’ interpretation of music in videogames a connection can be made with Andrew Dolphins definition of Sound Toys: “Sound toys can be considered as interactive, sonic-centric systems in which the end user may trigger, generate, modify, or transform sound.”[7] Based on the nature of a sound toy that drives the formation and structure of sound, it can be said a sound toy is an instrument, game or composition(technique). However, interpretation plays a huge part and therefor an overlap of definitions is possible. So has the level of control of the player and the type of interaction influence on the definition. Sound toys always stand within a certain technological framework, which causes the player to be limited to the symbolic control over the outcome that the generative musical parameters in the algorithm of sound toys make possible.[8] In addition, the question of who the composer is also plays a crucial part. There is a composer or designer that works offline and a player and simulated physics that work real-time.[9] See figure 1.

Figure 1: “Designing for Compositions: Three Compositional Forces.”[10]

Sound toys usually contain external agencies that take place in the form of an object, surrounding, mathematical comparisons (also algorithmical composition), data or a end-user. The end-user is then able to be seen as a player, composer or participant. Besides the term procedural audio, defined as flexible and dynamic with the possibilities limited to play-time, can play a role concerning the procedures of play in videogames. The intersection between al these possible definitions is what the research and debate of and surrounding sound toys make interesting.[11] The model in figure 2 exhibits the potential for complex and dynamic interaction with the medium.

Based on the theory of Dolphins and Summers, I wonder if videogames that do not fall within the category of ‘musical games’, but where the music does influence the gameplay, can be defined as sound toys. As case for my study I choose the videogame DmC: Devil May Cry (Ninja Theory, 2013). I’ll put my focus on the chapter ‘Lilith’s Nightclub: Lilith and Mundus Son End Boss’, where you’ll play the character Dante and enter the nightclub of Lilith in Limbo, when Lilith notices you and sends her demons towards you. As Lilith states, the surroundings change ‘from nightclub to fightclub’ after which you have to go through six levels before you are allowed to go into combat with the endboss. Special about this case is the musical commentary of the gameplay that is being implemented in the design of the levels, the cutscenes and the moving along with the interaction of you as a player. The main question I formed from this, is ‘How is the chapter ‘Lilith’s Nightclub: Lilith and Mundus Son End Boss’ from the videogame DmC: Devil May Cry to be defined as sound toy?

The research start by defining the sound that can be heard during its gameplay. Karen Collins’ theory of sound from chapter seven in her book Game Sound (2008) describes five categories of sound that are fluid and often overlap. The distinctions are diegetic, non-diegetic, non-dynamic and dynamic, with the latter containing of interactive and adaptive sound. The level ‘Lilith’s Nightclub’ has a unique position in the entirety of the game due to the changing position of the background music. During the entire game the music in the background can be defined as non-diegetic. This means that the music in the play isn’t hearable by the characters in the story-world. Due to the changing context of a nightclub, this music changed to diegetic music, making the sound come from the game’s story world itself. Besides that, the music is non-dynamic, as it doesn’t adapt itself to the gameplay. The background noises do implement themselves as adaptive, as they comment the progress during the battles in the levels by means of a non-diegetic commentator and diegetic invisible public.[13]

When I connect this musical data to the theory about sound toys from figure 1, I could state that the diegetic adaptive sound is part of the technological framework of the game. And even more specific; as generative musical parameter. The real-time composition from figure 1 could be filled in by the interactive sounds of the game. Interactive sound directly reacts to the players’ actions, but it is also sound that the player moves to play. It is the sound with which the player plays by the means of question-answer patterns. The influence that the player has through the combinations of the controller on the choice of weapons and the sound that they produce, can be marked as the interactive diegetic sound. Besides that, the game offers feedback through the sound of the enemies as a warning of their attack or as a reaction to the attack of the player.[14] The interactive diegetic sound thus functions as compositional decisions. For this reason I’ll mirror the possibilities of the controller to the possibilities of an instrument.

The possibilities of interactive sound with your controller are optimally audible in the training room, due to the absence of the diegetic adaptive backgroundsound. In the whole game you have seven weapons or instruments of choice;

Rebellion (sword)
Osiris (angel-sword)
Arbiter (demon-sword)
Aquila (angel-ninjastars)
Eryx (demon-fists)
Ebony & Ivory (guns)
Revenant (shotgun)

The weapons each make their own sound based on rhythmical sound blocks and each have their own function and restrictions compared to the opponents. In response to the story you’ll play Dante, a Nephilim (a child of a demon and angel), with the choice to use blue weapons of mothers side (Osiris and Aquila) and red weapons of fathers side (Arbiter and Evyx). Those could slay blue (angel)demons or red demons. In addition, each weapon has the possibility to be expended with functions or possibilities, as shown in the ‘move list’ on Image 3. These can be ‘bought’ by using special points that you gather while playing the chapters. Each player will make his own different choices and therefor will unlock different skills in combination with weapons or instruments. These options regarding the choice of weapons in considerations to the enemy or unlockable skills also provide for different outcomes of sound. However, this training room isn’t musically enough due to the lack of a melodic progression to define the space as a sound toy.

Image 3: ‘move list’ of the Rebellion.[15]

After researching the weapons or instruments and the sonic options attached to them my researched moved to the chapter and their levels. By using a ´heuristic approach´, like van Vught and Glas call a bottom-up process for testing out different hypotheses, whereby the outcomes determine the next actions, different observations came to the front. The purpose of this way of playing is continuing the game essential for the attempt to create a musical progression. The application of ‘instrumental play’, namely following the formal components of procedural goal-oriented play, led to the experiment of playing as musically as possible with the rhythmical sound blocks of the weapons and the diegetic non-dynamic background music and dynamic sounds.[16] This approach led to overwhelming the melody of the diegetic non-dynamic music by the many sounds of the enemy and public based on the interactive patrons of sound. Image 4 shows us that this interactive sonic feedback can be turned off. As a result, however, you’d spend too much time with avoiding damage, as receiving damage will interrupt the soundscape

Image 4: options in DmC: Devil May Cry. in a non-rhythmical, non-melodical and non-harmonical way.

A game-over even makes the sound stop abruptly. Repetition of desired sound, for example a combo with your sword, results in a quick ending of the level. As a result it leaves you without a change to create a musical progression. To achieve musical progression a change of attitude is essential. To put music, seen as a process of tension and release, within the same terms as play, the game can also be treated as a process. Due to ‘free play’, or playing outside the intended use of the creators, ‘transgressive play’ can be achieved which then is able to lead to ‘transformative play’. Transgressive means that the player goes against the game, in which transformative play ‘“doesn’t just occupy and oppose the interstices of the system, but actually transforms the space as a whole” creating new game practices or even new games in the process (Salen & Zimmerman 2004, 305).’ [17]

It thus seems that this way of playing offers the possibility to transform the computer game into a sound toy. The ‘free play’ arose on moments where there was no fighting or where you were supposed to move from one place to the other. This made is easier to make music due to the free possibilities of adding rhythm, by using the weapons, to the existing melodic soundscape. However, the sound of your movements is more limited than when you’ll play instrumental because of the lack of an eventual impact on your enemy and the interactive sonic feedback.

The conclusion that comes forth from these different ways of playing is that DmC: Devil May Cry ‘Lilith’s Nightclub’ isn’t complete enough to function as a sound toy. A melody is missing, which causes the options to be too limited. Thereby, the interactive sonic feedback of impact of the gameplay predominates the possibility of musical progression. A combination of unlimited damage as in the training space and non-dynamical background music as in the levels, when monsters aren’t audibly present and can not be defeated, would create a perfect possibility to function as sound toy. Through ‘transformative play’ a movement towards the definition of sound toy can be made, as long as the player is choosing for a musically oriented way of playing. When the creators would implement small adjustments in de engine, like the option of lowering the sonic parameters, the game could definitely be approached as a sound toy. But for now, we’ll just keep it with slaying the monsters in this game.

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Used Literature

Collins, Karen. Game Sound: An Introduction to the History, Theory, and Practice of Video Game Music and Sound Design. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008.

Dolphin, Andrew. “Defining Sound Toys: Play as Composition.” In The Oxford Handbook of Interactive Audio, geëdit door Karen Collins, Bill Kapralos en Holly Tessler. Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 2014.

Summers, Tim. Understanding Video Game Music. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2016.

Van Vught, Jasper en René Glas. “Considering play: from method to analysis.” In Transactions of the Digital Games Research Association Journal Vol. 4, Iss. 1, 2018.

Ninja Theory (2013). DmC: Devil May Cry. [PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One]. Capcom.

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[1] Karen Collins, Game Sound: An Introduction to the History, Theory, and Practice of Video Game Music and Sound Design (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008), 124.

[2] Collins, Game Sound: An Introduction to the History, Theory, and Practice of Video Game Music and Sound Design, 125, 126.

[3] Tim Summers, Understanding Video Game Music (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 187, 188.

[4] Summers, Understanding Video Game Music, 189-191.

[5] Summers, Understanding Video Game Music, 193.

[6] Summers, Understanding Video Game Music, 196.

[7] Andrew Dolphin, “Defining Sound Toys: Play as Composition,” in The Oxford Handbook of Interactive Audio, ed. door Karen Collins, Bill Kapralos en Holly Tessler (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 1.

[8] Dolphin, Defining Sound Toys: Play as Composition, 2, 3, 6.

[9] Dolphin, Defining Sound Toys: Play as Composition, 3-5.

[10] Dolphin, Defining Sound Toys: Play as Composition, 5.

[11] Dolphin, Defining Sound Toys: Play as Composition, 7, 8, 10.

[12] Dolphin, Defining Sound Toys: Play as Composition, 12.

[13] Collins, Game Sound: An Introduction to the History, Theory, and Practice of Video Game Music and Sound Design, 125, 126.

[14] Collins, Game Sound: An Introduction to the History, Theory, and Practice of Video Game Music and Sound Design, 126, 127.

[15] Ninja Theory, DmC: Devil May Cry, Capcom (Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, 2013): Training > Esc > Move List > Rebellion.

[16] Jasper van Vught en René Glas, “Considering play: from method to analysis,” in Transactions of the Digital Games Research Association Journal Vol. 4, Iss. 1 (2018): 5, 6.

[17] van Vught en Glas, “Considering play: from method to analysis,” 9.

DMC: Devil May Cry as Sound Toy

Slide versus the Cupsong: where’s Agôn?