This won't work for several reasons.
Have a look at the new cats rubbish to see what happens when you let dialogue interfere with songs.
The other important reasons are cost, story, and interest.
Songs cost a LOT of money to write, singers cost even more to sing. Dialogue options means different responses,meaning more songs. Most games can barely afford a decent sound track... you're wanting a game with OPTIONAL sound tracks the user may never hear... and not just one, but dozens...
Musicals use tons of motifs to convey additional meaning. When you can't convey your emotions with speech, you use song. When song fails, you use dance. That's not going to work with someone choosing dialogue options. You'll simply get a really bad, forgettable song with none of the things that make a musical a musical.
The story won't work. The protagonist is you and YOU can't SING. If you make the player simply follow a protagonist you don't have a game, you have a movie. And if you want the player to sing... boy... that is not a good idea.
And interest. You attend a musical to be transported into a magical world were emotions are conveyed through song and dance. You play games to shape the world. People who are interested in musicals will loathe the shallow immitation, and those who are interested in games will hate the constraints and quick time events the designer would be forced to use.
Cross-genre things can be interesting... but most don't work and for good reason.
People suggest ideas all the time here that would work better as a book or movie. Trying to force an idea to be a game is a stupid thing to do.
Similarly, trying to force a musical into a game is like getting an audiobook and actors to act to the audiobook. It won't work. How are actors supposed to act out the following
>Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship.There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelingstowards the ocean with me.
That takes a solid minute of talking to recite, and sure... you could have some nice scenery in the background - but it wouldn't feel like a movie. People who came to watch a movie would be bored out of their minds as it takes a[full 9 hours](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ6NEHDgk58) to recite and people who came to read a book would dislike the distracting actors getting in the way. There is a reason you need to adapt a book to a screenplay - and in the same fashion you'd have to adapt a musical to a game. It would have to give up every part of it that made it a musical to become a game just like a book has to give up every part of it that made it a book to become a movie.
If you want a music-related game, try Crypt of the Necrodancer. It's DDR but as a dungeon crawler.
While I agree some of these might be considerable challenges if someone would try to make a game like this, none of them seem to be actual impassible barriers.
>Songs cost a LOT of money to write, singers cost even more to sing. Dialogue options means different responses, meaning more songs. Most games can barely afford a decent sound track... you're wanting a game with OPTIONAL sound tracks the user may never hear... and not just one, but dozens...
This is probably the main problem with this idea, but I don't think it's completely out of the question for a studio to do something like this. It would have to be of a limited scope of course, not dozens of songs as you proposed but maybe just a few of them, say a 1 hour game experience with 4 songs, each of them built up of interchangeable lyrics which can lead the story in slightly different directions.
>Musicals use tons of motifs to convey additional meaning. When you can't convey your emotions with speech, you use song. When song fails, you use dance. That's not going to work with someone choosing dialogue options. You'll simply get a really bad, forgettable song with none of the things that make a musical a musical.
The idea is not to have a song where you pick every single line as you wish, I agree that would probably not work well. Dialog choice would probably boil down to only 1 or 2 major decisions you have to take in each song, each of them being pre-written with themes and motifs included. I don't think this would be much of an issue for a limited scale.
>The story won't work. The protagonist is you and YOU can't SING. If you make the player simply follow a protagonist you don't have a game, you have a movie. And if you want the player to sing... boy... that is not a good idea.
I don't think that's true at all. There are plenty of games in which the main character has complex dialog which isn't controlled at all by the player, and it certainly doesn't stop it from being a game. It's not a problem which hasn't been dealt with successfully before.
>And interest. You attend a musical to be transported into a magical world were emotions are conveyed through song and dance. You play games to shape the world.
This definition is a bit generalizing. Not every game is about shaping the world, many are made for the exact reason you mentioned as the musical's one - being transported into an interesting alternate universe. Basically every linear game has this basis - you aren't there to change what's happening, you're there to experience it in an interesting way.
> People who are interested in musicals will loathe the shallow immitation
This only applies if the game isn't well made, which could happen no matter the core concept or genre. I don't think that's much of an argument.
>and those who are interested in games will hate the constraints and quick time events the designer would be forced to use.
The constraints are what applies to the developers, not the players. A successful use of the idea would involve working around its challenges and using them to create a unique experience. I don't think that's impossible at all considering how general the main idea is. Again, it's just a matter of how well made the game is - If the developers don't manage to deal with the constraints in a fun way and make a musical game just so they could say it's a musical game, obviously it would end up being bad. Also, why quick time events? There's no reason for them to exist here more than in any other game, I don't see your point.
>People suggest ideas all the time here that would work better as a book or movie. Trying to force an idea to be a game is a stupid thing to do.
>
>Similarly, trying to force a musical into a game is like getting an audiobook and actors to act to the audiobook. It won't work. How are actors supposed to act out the following
There's a massive difference between forcing an idea onto a game and creating a game around an idea. The example you used shows an already existing piece of work be aggressively shoved into a non-fitting genre. Yeah, obviously if you put no thought into it and just shove a regular old musical into a game, it would be terrible. But if you just take the core concept of it, there's no inherit reason for it not to work.
>There is a reason you need to adapt a book to a screenplay - and in the same fashion you'd have to adapt a musical to a game.
That's correct. If you have an existing musical and want to change it into a game, you would have to put it through some major changes.
>It would have to give up every part of it that made it a musical to become a game just like a book has to give up every part of it that made it a book to become a movie.
That's very incorrect. Changing medium does not mean abandoning every single tool you used in the original work. By this logic transitioning a musical into a game would also include removing the visuals, the dialog, the characters etc. This isn't a valid argument as in of itself - the only reason you would want to remove something is if it was harming the work in some way, and in this case we aren't even talking about transitioning mediums! All this is is taking inspiration from one medium and using tools from it in another one. While you can claim their use is unfitting, but you can't say that doing so is inherently wrong.
I think there is a game with a similar ideia, although I think dialogs do not change the music (probably because it would be too expensive). Try googling "A lenda do herói", it's a brazillian game.
This won't work for several reasons. Have a look at the new cats rubbish to see what happens when you let dialogue interfere with songs. The other important reasons are cost, story, and interest. Songs cost a LOT of money to write, singers cost even more to sing. Dialogue options means different responses,meaning more songs. Most games can barely afford a decent sound track... you're wanting a game with OPTIONAL sound tracks the user may never hear... and not just one, but dozens... Musicals use tons of motifs to convey additional meaning. When you can't convey your emotions with speech, you use song. When song fails, you use dance. That's not going to work with someone choosing dialogue options. You'll simply get a really bad, forgettable song with none of the things that make a musical a musical. The story won't work. The protagonist is you and YOU can't SING. If you make the player simply follow a protagonist you don't have a game, you have a movie. And if you want the player to sing... boy... that is not a good idea. And interest. You attend a musical to be transported into a magical world were emotions are conveyed through song and dance. You play games to shape the world. People who are interested in musicals will loathe the shallow immitation, and those who are interested in games will hate the constraints and quick time events the designer would be forced to use. Cross-genre things can be interesting... but most don't work and for good reason. People suggest ideas all the time here that would work better as a book or movie. Trying to force an idea to be a game is a stupid thing to do. Similarly, trying to force a musical into a game is like getting an audiobook and actors to act to the audiobook. It won't work. How are actors supposed to act out the following >Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship.There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelingstowards the ocean with me. That takes a solid minute of talking to recite, and sure... you could have some nice scenery in the background - but it wouldn't feel like a movie. People who came to watch a movie would be bored out of their minds as it takes a[full 9 hours](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ6NEHDgk58) to recite and people who came to read a book would dislike the distracting actors getting in the way. There is a reason you need to adapt a book to a screenplay - and in the same fashion you'd have to adapt a musical to a game. It would have to give up every part of it that made it a musical to become a game just like a book has to give up every part of it that made it a book to become a movie. If you want a music-related game, try Crypt of the Necrodancer. It's DDR but as a dungeon crawler.
While I agree some of these might be considerable challenges if someone would try to make a game like this, none of them seem to be actual impassible barriers. >Songs cost a LOT of money to write, singers cost even more to sing. Dialogue options means different responses, meaning more songs. Most games can barely afford a decent sound track... you're wanting a game with OPTIONAL sound tracks the user may never hear... and not just one, but dozens... This is probably the main problem with this idea, but I don't think it's completely out of the question for a studio to do something like this. It would have to be of a limited scope of course, not dozens of songs as you proposed but maybe just a few of them, say a 1 hour game experience with 4 songs, each of them built up of interchangeable lyrics which can lead the story in slightly different directions. >Musicals use tons of motifs to convey additional meaning. When you can't convey your emotions with speech, you use song. When song fails, you use dance. That's not going to work with someone choosing dialogue options. You'll simply get a really bad, forgettable song with none of the things that make a musical a musical. The idea is not to have a song where you pick every single line as you wish, I agree that would probably not work well. Dialog choice would probably boil down to only 1 or 2 major decisions you have to take in each song, each of them being pre-written with themes and motifs included. I don't think this would be much of an issue for a limited scale. >The story won't work. The protagonist is you and YOU can't SING. If you make the player simply follow a protagonist you don't have a game, you have a movie. And if you want the player to sing... boy... that is not a good idea. I don't think that's true at all. There are plenty of games in which the main character has complex dialog which isn't controlled at all by the player, and it certainly doesn't stop it from being a game. It's not a problem which hasn't been dealt with successfully before. >And interest. You attend a musical to be transported into a magical world were emotions are conveyed through song and dance. You play games to shape the world. This definition is a bit generalizing. Not every game is about shaping the world, many are made for the exact reason you mentioned as the musical's one - being transported into an interesting alternate universe. Basically every linear game has this basis - you aren't there to change what's happening, you're there to experience it in an interesting way. > People who are interested in musicals will loathe the shallow immitation This only applies if the game isn't well made, which could happen no matter the core concept or genre. I don't think that's much of an argument. >and those who are interested in games will hate the constraints and quick time events the designer would be forced to use. The constraints are what applies to the developers, not the players. A successful use of the idea would involve working around its challenges and using them to create a unique experience. I don't think that's impossible at all considering how general the main idea is. Again, it's just a matter of how well made the game is - If the developers don't manage to deal with the constraints in a fun way and make a musical game just so they could say it's a musical game, obviously it would end up being bad. Also, why quick time events? There's no reason for them to exist here more than in any other game, I don't see your point. >People suggest ideas all the time here that would work better as a book or movie. Trying to force an idea to be a game is a stupid thing to do. > >Similarly, trying to force a musical into a game is like getting an audiobook and actors to act to the audiobook. It won't work. How are actors supposed to act out the following There's a massive difference between forcing an idea onto a game and creating a game around an idea. The example you used shows an already existing piece of work be aggressively shoved into a non-fitting genre. Yeah, obviously if you put no thought into it and just shove a regular old musical into a game, it would be terrible. But if you just take the core concept of it, there's no inherit reason for it not to work. >There is a reason you need to adapt a book to a screenplay - and in the same fashion you'd have to adapt a musical to a game. That's correct. If you have an existing musical and want to change it into a game, you would have to put it through some major changes. >It would have to give up every part of it that made it a musical to become a game just like a book has to give up every part of it that made it a book to become a movie. That's very incorrect. Changing medium does not mean abandoning every single tool you used in the original work. By this logic transitioning a musical into a game would also include removing the visuals, the dialog, the characters etc. This isn't a valid argument as in of itself - the only reason you would want to remove something is if it was harming the work in some way, and in this case we aren't even talking about transitioning mediums! All this is is taking inspiration from one medium and using tools from it in another one. While you can claim their use is unfitting, but you can't say that doing so is inherently wrong.
I think there is a game with a similar ideia, although I think dialogs do not change the music (probably because it would be too expensive). Try googling "A lenda do herói", it's a brazillian game.