INVOINNOVATION AND NEW VENTURES

Overture Games: Undergraduates From Music and Computer Science Gamify Musical Practice

A lifelong piano player, Aspen Buckingham (Music ’23) found his usual passion for practice waning amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Alone and adapting to new routines, musical practice felt more like a chore than an inspired adventure. The sobering realization sparked reflection. Then, invention.

Buckingham wondered if gamification might re-energize his musical pursuits and perhaps help beginning musicians as well, more than half of whom quit within the first two years because practice can be boring, lonely, and frustrating.

A music composition and computer science double major at Northwestern, Buckingham corralled colleagues from his two distinct Northwestern worlds and began developing a video game in which a musical instrument controls the actions of in-game characters. The Overture Games team includes programmers Mercedes Sandu and Jack Burkhardt as well as Erin Park and Steven Jiang, two Northwestern undergraduates who, like Buckingham, felt the burden of practice trumping their joy for music.

Last summer, the Overture team spent 10 weeks in the Jumpstart program, The Garage’s pre-accelerator for early-stage student startups. There, they created numerous iterations and levels of their game, Intervallic, and tested it with local schools and students to generate feedback.

One interesting and encouraging discovery: when students were unable to beat a level on the game, most embraced practice and later returned for a shot at video game redemption. The gamified experience, the Overture team observed, successfully motivated practice and served a dynamic counter to practicing with sheet music.

At Jumpstart’s Demo Day in August 2022, Overture Games captured third-place honors. The startup has since moved into The Garage’s residency program to continue developing Intervallic for market.