I've implemented background music and by putting it on a service I can keep the MediaPlayer from shutting them off when a sound effect occurs.

However, because its a service separate from the application the music continues to loop even when you've exited the game. The secret for this sort of thing I found is to "bind" the service (to the application or activity I assume) but figuring this out is not easy.

So far it seems I have to throw out my existing service code which plays the music. I'm searching for examples that show it simply.

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screenshots of combat: