I am a game designer making music, not a musician making games. The signal runs the other way — controller → Unity → Max, rather than instrument → Max → Unity.
This is the line that separates my work from the closest existing research, and it took reading two papers to find it.
The two neighbours
GAPPP (Lüneburg, Ciciliani — Anton Bruckner Private University) works on gamified audiovisual performance. When I first read it I thought they had already done my research. On the surface we overlap: game mechanics, audiovisual output, human experience. Underneath, their centre is musicians, concert halls, ludology.
SPLT/SCRN (NIME ‘23) routes an instrument through Max into Unity to make a game-piece. Again: performer first, game second.
Which way the signal runs
| GAPPP / NIME | This project | |
|---|---|---|
| Who plays | Trained performers | Ordinary players |
| Entry point | An instrument | A controller |
| Signal | Instrument → Max → Unity | Controller → Unity → Max |
| Output | Musical performance | Audiovisual, sometimes AI-generated |
| Venue | Concert | Installation |
The distinction is narrower than “game engine as instrument” in general, and that narrowness is the point: game controller as instrument is a smaller, newer, more defensible position than game engine as instrument.
Where it is running
Phosphor — gamepad → Unity → OSC → Max/MSP. Architecture determines reverb, vegetation determines tempo, gaze determines harmony.