This book presents an overview of the emerging field of emotion in
videogame soundtracking. The emotional impact of music has been
well-documented, particularly when used to enhance the impact of a
multimodal experience, such as combining images with audio as found in
the videogames industry. Soundtracking videogames presents a unique
challenge compared to traditional composition (for example film music)
in that the narrative of gameplay is non-linear - Player dependent
actions can change the narrative and thus the emotional characteristics
required in the soundtrack. Historical approaches to emotion
measurement, and the musical feature mapping and music selection that
might be used in video game soundtracking are outlined, before a series
of cutting edge examples are given. These examples include algorithmic
composition techniques, automated emotion matching from biosensors,
motion capture techniques, emotionally-targeted speech synthesis and
signal processing, and automated repurposing of existing music (for
example from a players own library). The book concludes with some
possibilities for the future.