Hotline Miami And The Rise Of Techno In UltraViolent Video Games
This underlying fear makes MOON's songs perfect for Hotline Miami . Primarily created in Ableton working with pasted presets and loops, his work focuses on dissonant melodic intervals and BPM-heavy bass that raise the player's heart rate, a key component to a soundtrack's effectiveness. Songs like "Hydrogen" help players focus by inducing fear and a desire for revenge. In difficult levels, just repeating the techno will help you get rid of that terrible feeling of hitting someone's skull with a baseball bat or shooting a guard dog with a machine gun before it attacks you. The soundtrack of Hotline Miami is not only excellent; It's an elegant and aesthetic mindset that deliberately helps players drown out the issues around them.
"Instead of engaging you cognitively, techno actually seeks, as a neuroscientist would say, to free you from the 'rules of reality' and allow your mind to drift elsewhere without fear of being left behind," he explains at Berkeley Professor and psychologist. of music. dr. Suzanne Rogers. When combined with the game itself, the musical effects become a delicate balance of repeats, cross-modes and synthesizers as a unique neural gift to the imagination, encouraging players to playfully let loose. "Electronic music doesn't solicit cognition," he continues. "We don't need to think about it to enjoy ourselves."
Not only did Hotline Miami fuel the indie gaming boom of the 2010s, it helped popularize the trend of pairing adrenaline-pumping electronic music with fast-paced combat, vibrant color schemes, and stylish kills. . In recent years, this combination has popped up in games like Rollerdrome 2022 or Project Downfall 2019. It could be because they signed with Hotline Miami , but video game publisher Devolver Digital keeps an eye out for high-octane games with that kind of dynamic. Ruiner is a brutal 2017 cyberpunk shooter set in the future, while Katana Zero is a 2019 neo-noir about an assassin who must kill enemies and manipulate time to avoid attacks. Both games feature relaxing techno soundtracks recorded on vinyl. Then there's My Friend Pedro , the creative 2019 side-scrolling shooter that went viral with its built-in GIF features. This game's haunting soundtrack sounds like Trent Reznor partying with Blade .
“All of these games evoke strong emotions, whether it's laughter, glee, or just an incoherent scream,” recalls Devolver rep Robbie Paterson. The multimodal experience that occurs in all of these games rewards the sensory overload – bright colors, fast movements, loud music that keeps you alert and focused – which makes non-stop play special. Paterson goes further: "As a rule, we're drawn to it when a game looks weird and fun."