in relation to the use of Stealers Wheel ’ s upbeat song Stuck In The Middle With You during a torture scene in Quentin Tarantino ’ s film Reservoir Dogs , “ the emphatic centrality and heterogeneous functionality of popular song ” leads to “ ironic distance ”. This applies to We Happy Few , where the use of ‘ ironic distance ’ is central in giving the gamer a sense of the morality of the game world that they are about to enter , regardless of the nursery rhyme ’ s incongruence with the game world ’ s culture .
Whilst Cheng questions “ whether music can any longer be contextualised in a truly ironic or shocking manner ” ( 2014 ), the use of London Bridge Has Fallen Down in We Happy Few , and its simplistic , childlike orchestration is still juxtaposed with the images of violence regardless of its shock factor . It still grabs the player ’ s attention , with the ‘ media factors ’ ( the music and image ) and ‘ user factors ’ ( the player ’ s preconceptions of the music ) combining to produce a primary level of immersion where the player is being drawn in to the dystopian world ( Bocking et al ., 2015 ).
Video games that require prolonged cognitive
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attention , such as puzzle games , can also create immersion , but of a different kind . Rather than requiring the player to feel a part of the game world , the music needs to create an environment that is constantly sonically stimulating so that it blocks out the real world during these cognitive tasks . Csikszentmihalyi ( 1975 ) describes this kind of immersion as flow theory , believing that optimum flow is achieved when a task is challenging enough that the solution provides intrigue and reward , but not so challenging that it greatly surpasses our ability . Douglas and Hargadon ( 2000 ) used schema theory to expand on the existence of flow , suggesting that : “ Our enjoyment in engagement lies in our ability to call upon a range of schemas ... immersion stems from our being completely absorbed within the ebb and flow of a familiar narrative schema .” This works alongside Brown and Cairns ’ s ( 2004 ) theory of engagement and engrossment leading to total immersion ; the idea that the player must first be totally comfortable with a game ’ s controls before the game can begin to have an impact on the player ’ s emotions . However , to keep the player immersed and to keep flow within a game , the game tasks must become more challenging for flow to continue , otherwise the player will become bored and therefore will not experience immersion . For music to aid immersion through game flow , it needs to seamlessly loop so that no time pressure is felt by the player . Storm8 Studios ’ Jewel Mania is a mobile puzzle game requiring the player to move jewels in a grid to create lines of three or more matching jewels in order to score points . The music that accompanies this task aids immersion through its light and unobtrusive pizzicato string melody that rises and falls , moving from an A major chord to a G major chord by using A major in first inversion and G major in second inversion . This gives a sense of rise from bar 1 into bar 2 as the C # moves up to a D but harmonically moves downwards , giving the illusion of movement without creating tension as the melody rises but harmony falls . The turn in bar four leads seamlessly back into bar 1 as it finishes on a D that falls back down to the C # as the phrase repeats . Without a definitive beginning or end , this phrase can loop for as long as it needs to . This is vital in creating a game environment that facilitates immersion through flow because the lack of development in the music creates a suspended sense of time , allowing the player to become engrossed .
However , sound effects are also important in adding to the player ’ s sense of achievement during cognitive tasks . Reward stingers sit much higher in the mix than the looping music because they are a