The musical parameters of immersion and flow: involving the player, emotionally and physically, in a video-game

Player involvement in a video game is increasingly important to the success of a game and its developers. A musical soundtrack plays a large role in this success, having the ability to enhance a player’s sense of physical and emotional involvement with a game world. It is imperative, therefore, of a video game soundtrack to incorporate the ideas of flow and immersion, areas of interest which have been debated thoroughly by increasingly large numbers of academic works. This thesis takes the main argued parameters of flow and immersion and applies them to a model, identifying how a composition can increase, or subsequently decrease, a sense of involvement for a player, in narrative, action-adventure RPG genres of video games. Each parameter in the model explains its relation to flow and, or, immersion and how it can be combined with the other parameters to enhance player involvement.

A consistent representation of an audio, visual, and player relationship is important to the formation of flow and establishing a convincing game world for the player, without any misrepresentation of sound or jarring transitions. With a player’s sense of physical involvement through flow, immersion can then be achieved, as the player becomes invested emotionally with the game world, culture, and its characters. The supporting composition and two case studies in the thesis help prove that, when following the different parameters of the model, player involvement can be enhanced through a soundtrack.