Music sits at the heart of emotional connection for us as humans.  Think about those moments in life when music was important or memorable and made a certain event or memory stay with you forever.  We listen to music to enhance or change moods if required, think of those moments of sheer happiness when you just want to dance yourself crazy or those moments of heartbreak when music can help you heal (or feel a lot worse!) 

Ever since the invention of slot machines and far before the idea of online gaming became real, music of some kind has always been a part of gaming, think about the earliest of computer games on platforms such as the spectrum 48k or commodore 64, even those early games had some kind of accompanying music, albeit the most basic and sometimes annoying 8-bit tones! 

Things have progressed somewhat since those nostalgic days of the 80’s and we now live in an era where truly epic music forms a part of the strategy for most if not all of the mainstream game developers and casino vendors…

Let's take a look at the music that features in the biggest games.

Guitar Hero

One of the biggest advances in the use of music in games began with the launch of games such as Guitar Hero, one of the first of this type of genre games that allows the player to actually play along with their favourite rock tracks and feel like a true guitar hero even with no musical ability! This was taking air guitar to the next level in homes across the world and still is to this day!

Just Dance

We cannot also ignore the growth in interactive dance style games, titles such as Just dance from Nintendo allow the players to dance along to set routines against a popular music track and even tracks the players movements using the Nintendo’s motion sensor controllers.  These types of game offer an immersive experience and are a great way to burn off some steam (and some calories!) and have fun with the family too.

Beat Sabre

Another great stride forward in music gaming has come from the world of VR where titles such as Beat Sabre allow the player to be truly immersed in the atmosphere of a music track whilst smashing away in time to the track that is playing.  If you have ever played one of these games you will understand the popularity and addictiveness of them resulting in global leagues of players trying to be the best! 

Music themed online slots

Moving on to the world of online slot games and music has also developed immensely as a part of the offering and make no mistake there are real reasons why music is deployed within these platforms, put simply music makes the game better and more engaging allowing the player to engage for longer. Now, most of the top online slots sites offer music themed slot games for engagement purposes.

Music is used in complex ways within these types of games and you will recognise now that certain changes in music tempo and style happen within the game as you play, for example notice the pace of the music when you first start the reels rolling but then the stark change in that music and tempo once you hit some kind of a feature and even better when you land a win! These games are very carefully structured to make sure the musical atmosphere stays relevant to the actions of the game and this in turn makes the game far more engaging.

There are a couple of main types of music deployment in the best online slot games..

Cultural Music 

This may be music from geographically relevant countries to suit the style of the game – for example “luck of the Irish” a hugely popular online slot which features traditional Irish music throughout in an upbeat and fun style, in just one game of luck of the Irish you will hear up to 8 different formats of music but all with the Irish cultural feel.  The same with some of the more exotic themed games of which Egypt is also a regular option, games such as Book of Ra deploy Egyptian style music that was as fit for the pharaohs as well as the online game! 

Famous music 

The second most widely used type of music in online slot games is already famous and normally comes with some kind of licensed theming of the actual game too, one of the most notable partnerships in this genre is with the game Michael Jackson King of Pop  this slot game features some of the biggest hits such as Beat It and Smooth Criminal The game also has a Michael Jackson theme with graphics and animations of Michael performing his dance moves including a feature called the Moonwalk Wilds.

So as you can see music is a huge part of gaming whether that be interactive family games or throughout the world of online slot games, music sits hand in hand with player experience at every level and undoubtedly improves the player experience at all stages of the game.