Video game music: not just kid stuff is one of my favourite papers from a few years back, because it is arguing for something that I have long believed: writing music for devices with limited sound processing capabilities involves a different way of thinking about the composition. To play some sound effects on the NES, you had to momentarily disable the background music’s percussion channel (this channel itself being made up of intermittent bursts of static). I’ve always found it more interesting to design within restrictions (or “engaging constraint”), which I suppose is one of the resons I was attracted to web design all those years ago.

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