Glossary

Short definitions for terms that appear often in adventure game and community remake audio discussion.

Cue
A single piece of music or ambient bed tied to a location, cutscene, or state (e.g. “day vs night”).

Stem
A submix bounce: e.g. drums only, harmony only. Lets the team rebalance or disable layers without the original DAW session.

Loop / seamless loop
Audio crafted so the end joins the start without a click or level jump, for indefinite playback while the player stays in a scene.

One-shot
Plays once from the beginning (may still have a long tail), not designed to cycle forever.

SCUMM
Classic LucasArts adventure engine family. Modern remakes may not expose SCUMM internals, but room-based design and iMUSE-style ideas still influence how music is discussed.

iMUSE
LucasArts system for dynamic music transitions. A remake might use simpler crossfades or triggers—confirm with the team.

Voice-led mix
A mix philosophy where dialogue stays intelligible; music ducks or thins under lines.

Sample rate
How many audio samples exist per second (e.g. 44100 Hz). Must stay consistent with the engine’s expectation.

Bit depth
Resolution of each sample (e.g. 16-bit vs 24-bit). Affects noise floor and file compatibility.

OGG / Vorbis
A common lossy game audio format; smaller than WAV. Often paired with loop metadata or engine-side loop points.

MIDI
Note data rather than a recording. Only relevant if the game’s playback path uses synths or soundfonts.

BPM / tempo map
Beats per minute; tempo map allows tempo changes. Share this if the team must align animations or scripted beats.

LUFS
Loudness units for full scale; used to compare perceived level between cues. Not the only metric that matters for games, but useful for consistency.

Asset pipeline
The chain from authoring → export → import/build → runtime. Formats and naming must match this pipeline.

---

Back to introduction.