Impact of algorithmic composition on player immersion in computer games: A case study using markov chains

Abstract

The feeling of immersion is an important aspect of gaming experiences. It can be greatly impacted by background music. In this work, we investigate the use of algorithmically-generated background music as a mean to generate immersion in gaming experiences. For such, we developed two versions of the same game. One of them uses music written by a composer. The other uses real-time generated melodies based on a Markov chain. We evaluated the immersion level related to each of these versions using user questionnaires and performance measures. The results did show only a small immersion difference between the versions. This indicates that algorithmic music can be a suitable option for game content generation.