Cubie: A Musical Performance System Using the Operations and Rules of Puzzle Games
Sadam Fujioka, Shigenobu Nakamura · International journal of Asia digital art and design · 2010
This article describes an innovative musical performance system that employs operations and rules similar to those found in puzzle games. This system can be used by a wide range of people, from beginners to experts. To provide an innovative musical performance, the author implemented operations and rules that are different from those of existing musical performance systems. The new system has a moderate level of difficulty-it is neither too easy nor too difficult-and users can improve their performance by using this system. To devise a suitable methodology for developing this system, the author researched previous works that introduced game elements to the performance system. This article reviews Cubie, an innovative musical performance system designed and developed by the author. Cubie is a musical performance system that can be played by providing text input; it treats letters as pieces of a puzzle. The inputted text string works as a musical sequence and can be operated through interactions similar to those found in puzzle games. The sound system contains a digital synthesizer that uses the waveform data of sound files. Musical parameters are decided by the rules related to each letter. Those rules have no random process, and a performance can be reproduced through the same operation. The following is a discussion of the novelty of the system and whether the system can be enjoyable for beginners and experts alike, with feedback from audience members and participants in the author's work in using this performance system.