Visitors passing through the Jean-Drapeau metro station since the beginning of July have had the option of experimenting with a unique musical experience. Budweiser teamed up with a local gaming company to create Studio Bud Musique.

EXPLAINER STOMPS OUT THE JAMS.

1 This floor is actually an instrument. Four instruments to be exact. The folks at Space and Dream, a local company that specializes in creating "immersive interactive entertainment," have transformed the floor into a mix between "Rock Band and the Dance Dance Revolution games," according to Guillaume Langlois, the company’s founding president and lead designer. The 8-by-8-foot floor is divided into different sections to represent drums, bass guitar, rhythm guitar and lead guitar. Each section lights up in different places and people try to move and step in each lighted area to "play" the song. The better they are at hitting the lights, the faster and more intense things get. And they need to work together to move to the next level. "There can be a sort of collaboration between players," he says. "We wanted to have people interacting and collaborating and communicating with each other."

2 Though the players step on the floor to trigger the next wave of sound, the surface itself hasn’t been changed. Images are projected onto the floor and infrared cameras track the players’ movements in order to see if they’re hitting the right spots. This is done using Space and Dream’s Hydra projectors, which create what Langlois calls an "immersive projection environment with moving images." He says they decided against installing actual triggers in the floor because of the heavy volume of traffic expected in the metro during Osheaga and other summer festivals. "Since it’s in a crowded, busy public space, mechanical failure was not an option," Langlois says. There are three different four-minute songs to interact with, and each piece was created specifically for the project. "One song is very metal and another is alternative rock and one is more inspired by what DJ Champion would make," he says. "They cover the range of spectrum of music that Budweiser wants to be associated with." If all goes well for the players, they get rewarded with the sound of a crowd applauding. Sorry, no beer.