6– 8 August, Edge Hill University Conference on Game Music and Sound
The organizers of Ludo2026 are accepting proposals for research presentations.
We welcome proposals on all aspects of sound and music in the context of games.
This year, we are particularly interested in papers that support the 15th anniversary conference theme of ‘Pushing limits and crossing borders’. Papers on this topic may include:
Ludomusicology at the border of digital and non-digital games
Pioneers in game music
Genre hybridity in game composition
Exploring the relationship between academia and industry
Pushing limits in ludomusicology by crossing disciplinary boundaries
Technological innovation in game audio
Game music across borders as a transcultural phenomenon
Marginalised voices and intersectional identities
Musical play as transgression
Presentations should last twenty minutes and will be followed by questions. Please submit your paper proposal (c.250 words) with a short provisional list of literature, and details of any technical requirements, by email to ludomusicology@gmail.com by February 20th, 2026. We aim to communicate the programme decisions by March 15th, 2026. If you require more information, please email the organizers.
We encourage practitionersand composers to submit proposals for showcasing practice as research. The conference will be held in person, but with remote access options available.
Further conference information will be posted on the conference page here.
Organized by Michael Austin, Melanie Fritsch, Andra Ivănescu, Michiel Kamp & Tim Summers.
Released October 2024, Ballistic Moon’s remake of Until Dawn was met with a mixture of praise and criticism, lauded for its enhanced graphics but disparaged for its performance issues and relatively minimal additions to the original title. One such modification includes the new score composed by Hollywood horror veteran Mark Korven, replacing the original work by Jason Graves. In constructing a new musical identity, Korven creates new themes and sonic identities for characters, antagonists, and location which may or may not draw upon tendencies of film, video game, or blends of the genres inherent in interactive media. In so doing, Korven’s new score may provide the player with significantly more—or less—vital information that may influence play and determine the outcome for the eight playable characters.
This presentation explores the use of the newly composed musical score in Until Dawn and its effect in communicating essential elements of narrative rhythm. To survey such changes, critical moments from the prologue, midpoint, and conclusion are analyzed and compared with corresponding sequences from the 2015 original title. Such scenes will examine narrative characteristics endemic of remakes: preservation (despite graphic or gameplay enhancement), modification/expansion, or insertion of newly created portions; additionally, this inquiry will build upon original analyses of interactive dramas and the filmic/ludic spectrum of music’s narrativizing and communicative function, proposing a tripartite division of Fundamental, Tangential, and Superficial levels of narrative potential. This comparison will reveal if such activity within remakes (and interactive dramas) that emphasize a more “cinematic” appearance and execution is mirrored in musical implementation and function.
Bibliography
Aarseth, Espen J. Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1997.
Caracciolo, Marco. “Playing Home: Experiences Between Narrative and Ludic Interests.” Narrative 23, 3 (October 2015): 231-51.
Cheong, Yun-Gyung, Kim, Yeo-Jin, Min, Wook-Hee, Shim, Eok-Soo, and Kim, Jin-Young. “PRISM: A Framework for Authoring Interactive Narratives.” ICIDS (2008): 297-308.
Fordyce, Robbie, and Apperley, Thomas H. “Exhausting Choices: ‘Bandersnatch’ and the Future of Our Entertainment Platforms.” In Reading “Black Mirror:” Insights into Technology and the PostMedia Condition. Edited by German A. Duarte and Justin Michael Battin. Bielefeld, German: transcript Publishing, 2021: 87-102.
Green, Melanie C. “Transportation into Narrative Worlds.” In Entertainment-Education Behind the Scenes: Case Studies for Theory and Practice.Edited by Frank, Lauren B., and Falzone, Paul. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave, Macmillan, 2021: 87-101.
Heidbrink, Henriette. “1, 2, 3, 4 Futures—Ludic Forms in Narrative Films.” SubStance 32, no. 130 (2013): 146-64.
Powell, Andrew S. “The Musical Butterfly Effect in Until Dawn.” The Journal of Sound and Music in Games 1, no. 4 (2020): 22-44. https://doi.org/10.1525/jsmg.2020.1.4.22.
Sbravatti, Valerio. “Story-Music/Discourse-Music: Analyzing the Relationship Between Placement and Function of Music and Films.” Music and the Moving Image 9, no. 3 (2016): 19-37.
Thompson, Ryan. “A Far-Off Memory: Kingdom Hearts III and Musical Reuse.” In The Intersection of Animation, Video Games, and Music: Making Movement Sing. Edited by Lisa Scoggin and Dana Plank. New York: Routledge, 2023: 149-62. Welsh, Timothy J. Mixed Realism: Videogames and the Violence of Fiction. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2016.
2024’s hit roguelike deck-builder Balatro has gone through a tumultuous relationship with the PEGI ratings board. First, in March 2024, it had its 3+ age rating changed to 18+ on the account of ‘prominent gambling imagery and material that instructs about gambling.’ Then, after a successful appeal, in February 2025 this was changed back to 12+ because of ‘mitigating fantastical elements.’ Developer Playstack has always maintained that ‘painstaking care has been taken to ensure that the game does not feature gambling mechanics of any kind.’ At the heart of this dispute is not gambling-based gameplay or monetization, but the audiovisual representation of gambling: the game’s use of poker hands, but also its lo-fi graphics and Luis Clemente’s mesmerizing 7/4 musical score.
This paper asks whether Balatro’s score is part of the ‘prominent gambling imagery’ or the ‘mitigating fantastical elements’, connecting it to the history of music in gambling. While much of this is concerned with the ‘interactive’ sounds of slot machines that directly respond to player success, there are also examples of continuous background music in both machines and casino environments. In the case of the former, music box-like movements were added to circumvent gambling laws (Mancey 2024, p. 9; Collins 2016); for the latter, music serves to immerse players (Collins 2011, Bramley et al. 2016). I argue that Balatro’s score and its surrounding discourse can be contextualized in this history. Particularly its continuous, uninterrupted form and ambient and easy-listening qualities can be seen as commenting on the two roles that background music has played in the history of gambling.
Bibliography
Bramley, Stephanie, Nicola Dibben, and Richard Rowe. ‘The Utilisation of Music by Casino Managers: An Interview Study’. Journal of Gambling Studies 32, no. 4 (1 December 2016): 1127–41. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10899-016-9604-z.
Collins, Karen, Holly Tessler, K. Harrigan, M. Dixon, and J. Fugelsang. ‘Sound in Electronic Gambling Machines: A Review of the Literature and Its Relevance to Game Sound’, 2011. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-61692-828-5.CH001.
