[cesaref]

This reminds a bit of a project I coded the audio for an art exhibition around 20 years ago, which was for multiple simultaneous players. As the game got more intense it became apparent that the ball/wall sounds were playing music, and that the three players were all actually playing one musical piece.

It was based around 3 arcade cabinets pointing together, so the players couldn't see what was on each others screens.

This was achieved by modifying the ball speed/direction slightly so that it arrived at the bat/wall at a musically relevant point and triggered the correct sound.

Ah, here you go, Josh as a reference to it on his site: https://www.autogena.org/work/ping

[trevyn]

That’s neat. So it was a static composition that the gameplay was tweaked into fitting?

[cesaref]

Somewhere in between. It was a static composition (as in, it had a start and an end) but there were multiple loops per instrument, so more competent players would reach a more frenetic musical performance of the piece if they kept more of the balls in play.

The audio engine (the bit I worked on) was in effect a stem based mixer, but with a state transition diagram per stem, with multiple loops available. Depending on the route through the transitions (triggered by events from the game play, for example, how many balls the player is keeping in play) it was possible to reach more complex or simpler performances of the same musical piece, so the players decisions and ability would affect how the performance of the music, not the music itself if that makes sense?