What Does Bach Have in Common with World 1-1: Automatic Platformer Gestalt Analysis

Abstract

Platformer level generation has often used a beat metaphor to relate to how players interact with level geometry. However, this conceptualization of beats is different from the musical concept of `beat', limiting the utility of theories and tools developed in music analysis for platformer levels. A gameplay gestalt, a pattern of interaction that the player enacts or performs in order to make progress in a game, may fit the beat metaphor. By taking a very similar lens and viewing players playing platformer levels as enacting a series of gameplay gestalts through time, gestalt music analysis (GMA) does fit into the platformer domain. This paper details work on transforming a GMA model to work with the Platformer Experience Dataset (PED), and some promising first results of the transformed model.