Honors Projects
Abstract
Interactivity is what distinguishes video games as a medium. In “moral choice video games,” or games in which the moral alignment of player choices affects plot and gameplay, the music often reflects the branching storylines. While scholarship exists that explores musical signifiers in video games, and scholarship alike exists that investigates moral choice video games, a gap in literature exists at the juncture of these two topics. This paper explores two moral choice video games—Undertale (Toby Fox, 2015) and Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar Games, 2018)—in order to identify musical signifiers used by each game’s composer to represent these levels of morality and seek trends between the two that may apply to other games. Ultimately, two factors arose—depth and space—that distinguish moral musical cues from immoral ones. This analysis presents both an introduction to theory regarding moral signifiers in interactive media and a potential guide for composers wishing to score moral choice video games.
Department
Musicology/Composition/Theory
Major
Music Composition
First Advisor
Elainie Lillios
First Advisor Department
Musicology/Composition/Theory
Second Advisor
Ethan Jordan
Second Advisor Department
English
Publication Date
Fall 12-10-2023
Repository Citation
Mesnick, Hayden, "Sounding Ethics: Musical Signification of Moral Choices in Video Games" (2023). Honors Projects. 925.
https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/honorsprojects/925