“Night Parade of 100 Demons”: designing digital games for musical improvisation

Abstract

This paper presents “Night Parade of 100 Demons” (Oliva, forthcoming), a research-oriented mobile game designed to foster musical improvisation. Starring Japanese yokai creatures, it consists of four minigames, affording different forms of extemporaneous musicality. While improvisation within music-oriented digital games remain underexplored, NP encourages players to experiment musical possibilities, without being constrained by traditional game-like structures (such as winning conditions). NP was developed with the “research through design” (RtD) methodology, starting with “openended research aims” (Colton and Hook, 2017) to “materialize the design questions or aesthetic issues that are being addressed” (Khaled, et al., 2018). NP identifies improvisational musicking as an understudied area of ludomusicology. The game has a Japanese setting, using four popular yokai (an umbrella term for Japanese spirits and supernatural entities), culturally identified as connected with playfulness and creativity (Foster 2015). In recent years, yokai have been featured in different media (anime, games). NP is situated withing this cultural context, presenting musical twists to myths and tales related to yokai. Early tests show positive engagement with musicking, with players actively pursuing novel musical sequences found to be aesthetically pleasing. The game takes a self-reflexive stance on improvisational within digital games, celebrating it as an underexplored musicking modality.