How Music In Slot Games Can Change Our Experience

Music and sound have a powerful influence over how we experience many situations, and this applies to entertainment too. As fans of electronic music, we’re well-tuned to how sound can be used to build momentum and change the vibe of an entire festival. Our genres of music are often used in modern and futuristic-themed slot games, so let’s take a look at how their soundtrack can change our experience.

The Tone & Tempo of a Game

The tone of the game is created through everything from the soundtrack to digital art and animations. These can be summarized as the theme of the game – and there are a lot of them in slots. From space-themed games to ancient mythology, slots portray a wide range of cultures and time periods.

Then there’s the tempo, which depends on more technical aspects of the game. In the iGaming industry, winlines are the possible combinations that award a player. One of the industry’s newest innovations is Megaways slots that can have thousands of winlines over 10 or 20. While luck will always play a factor, games with more winlines can have a quicker pace as winning spins become more common.

The tone of the instruments must reflect what is happening in the game. For example, an Ancient Egypt game will reliably have drum and flute arrangements that evoke the desert and mystery, covering or adapting melodies we culturally associate with Egypt. If that Ancient Egypt game had electronic music, that could be jarring to the player unless the theme accounts for that stylistic twist. In moviemaking, soundtrack dissonance is sometimes used on purpose to achieve a specific outcome, but slot games often don’t have the opportunity to play with expectations like this.

As for the tempo, the most engaging games use tempo well in their soundtrack to draw players into the game. Many games code this into the experience, providing a calmer soundtrack for when the reels aren’t spinning. Then, when the player presses the button, the music picks up as the action begins. Not every slot does this, but when they do, it’s noticeable.

Tone and tempo can be related too. A slot game about a space battle should probably have a faster-paced, thumping electronic soundtrack over a string concerto. However, a quiet slot set in an Irish grove might not benefit from guitar-shredding hard rock solos.

Music & Sound Cues Inform Players

Just like music can be used to establish tone and pace, it also serves more practical uses. consider our example of games that play faster music when you spin. In those games, the standard music will loop, maybe step up a notch in the bonus round. However, there can also be stings and cues thrown in that inform the player about the game and how it’s going.

The best example here would be winning combinations, which can be signaled with sound cues and/or animations. Some games will play a small piece of music here, especially after a bonus round has concluded and the score has been tallied. These aren’t just set dressing; they can serve as motivators and signify progress through a game. Sound cues have been used for motivation in many industries.

When the music of a slot changes between the main game and the bonus round, it isn’t just a change of tone or pace. The music change itself can act as a sound cue, communicating that the bonus round is where the wins can be bigger for lucky players. For some slots, that winning potential deserves a more epic or action-packed tune or a beat drop.

While not always present, music is instrumental to our aesthetic and practical experience of a game. In fact, it combines those two elements since the tone/pace of music can also portray valuable, informative cues about the slot you’re playing. That’s why you’ll find electronic music on modern, neon-lit slot games but not fantasy-themed slots.

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