Dance Dance Revolution

[jaedaen]

Hey fuckers,

Any of you all ever play any DDR? I was quite good back in the early 2000s, though I mostly played at home then. I was quite fit in those days, and it was the only thing to ever motivate me to do so. I remember the elation when I beat MAX 300 for the first time, swimming in sweat. The high was incredible.

This fat fucker wants to get in to shape again. I'm more interested in how it made me feel than anything. I bought a new pad, an L-TEK EX PRO 2, it seems quite responsive and stable thus far, though I'm only really doing 6-8 footers (old difficulty scale, so what's that, 9-12?) at the moment on Stepmania 5 via old DDR packs. I'm working my way through the catalog. My stamina is absolute shit, and my basic foot patterns are extremely sloppy compared to back in the day, but I'm old and it's been so long since I've done this. Crossovers still mostly feel pretty natural at least.

It might be fun to compete with someone or a couple of people around my same level by posting a song and practicing it for a week to compare high scores or something. Anyone interested? Seems like everyone plays bar nowadays which is something I will never do, as I am forever a member of House Barless. To me, a jump means a JUMP. Not denigrating you min-maxers out there, I just don't understand that style of play at all.

 

[Jade]

I LOVED Dance Dance Revolution back in the mid-2000's. My cousin had it at her house and I played it nonstop with her every time I went over. IMO it's the quintessential kids game, but it's just so awesome that people of just about any age can play it and have a blast. I'd wanna get my own pad and play again but I suspect it wouldn't be as much fun if I was just by myself.

 

[calico_jack]

BOW TO UR DDR KING

 

[JamBrain]

I used to be super into DDR when I was younger! I would go to the arcade a few times a month when they had cheap token days and crowd around the machine with like 6 other people waiting for our turns. I even used to own one of those nice handmade wooden/metal pads that cost me a pretty penny to ship out to my home. If you're already at 9-10 footers, then you're getting back into the groove just fine OP, the muscle memory will come back to you in time

I'm still trying to find a working DDR cab in my city, all I've found is a defunct MAX2 machine and one of the new pump it up cabs. Not dissing PiU players, but I can never get used to diagonal movement, every time I'm "flowing" my old habits kick in and I go back to playing the cardinals.

 

[manpaint]

I am afraid the only thing ressembling DDR I ever played was that dance mini-game in Club Penguin. It was a good minigame though.

 

[Junious]

I really liked that darude - sandstorm track on theoriginal DDR. I really liked to do ddr while stoned as a teen. It's good to have rhythm and motion in your life!

 

[LostintheCycle]

Used to be super into osu!mania when I was younger, got around to entry-level 4 star maps and always wanted to play DDR, but I could never find any cabinets. All the arcades in Melbourne fucking suck. It's all filled with those kiddy gambling machines and mobile game knock-offs. I only found one place that had anything similar but it was quite expensive and I'm pretty sure they got rid of it.

 

[LostintheCycle]

Just found this thread damn. Update is in order, I got back in touch with an old friend from high school, and he's pretty damn good at DDR. He showed me a spot in Melbourne which is near my uni that has a DDR cabinet, first time I'd ever seen one in my life. Well since then I've been playing it regularly.
I don't know how DDR A3 difficulty maps to Stepmania difficulty, at the moment I'm around 11-12, just cleared a 13 yesterday. I normally hold the bar but I might have a go at a 9 or 10 barless.
I love the people in the local DDR scene, they are all super friendly and chill.

 

[Pink Fluffy Cat]

I've never played any DDR / osu!mania game, the difficulty seem to be quite insane honestly. Probably because I'm not used to 4 key rhythm games that I can't read the chart.









BTW good to see the arcade scene still being alive

 

[LostintheCycle]

Man I was RIPPING on the machine today, on the verge of throwing up at times but nonetheless I persisted. Almost nobody else was on except me for a few hours.
I started off pretty shaky and I thought to myself "This is probably gonna be an off day", but then I remembered the other day I wanted to play some no-bar tracks which I did just to give it a shot. My accuracy was way worse but I managed to still hit most notes up to level 11. Then when I went back on the bar I was like 3x better, my legs were looser feeling and I wasn't freezing up as much. I was really getting that thing when you're hitting every note in a stream even though you feel like you can't even read it.
I'm seriously considering buying my own pad now, DDR gets pricey once you're playing regularly and I'm playing at least one long weekly session or a few smaller sessions depending on my week's workload, so I pay around about $20-$30 (AUD) a week now, which is gonna be ~$1300 a year, give or take a couple hundred, on a game. An L-TEK pad at home would be half that cost, one-off, just need's a monitor, computer, and sound system. A bit of maintenance now and then and it'd last a while, plus I don't need to trek for an hour and a half to the city to play.
Here's a pic I took today of a score I was pretty proud of on this classic chart. I thought I'd scuff the sections where it leaves the crossovers, but I actually aced a few of them.

 

[LostintheCycle]

This website contains image charts and links to YouTube videos of the maps of a ton of DDR songs, you just gotta change the number in the URL to the difficulty you want.
Since it's hard to get to the city, when I'm at home I sometimes watch these and move my feet along with it, which I think has helped me get better with reading. Reading in DDR isn't like reading in osu!mania because you need to consider where your feet are and where your feet can go from where they are. If you're not careful, you'll contort your legs in an odd way and have to adjust, losing a few notes in the process. If I can get it down at home I can get it down at the arcade.

 

[bnuungus]

This is reminding me that I need to pick up beat saber again for the sole purpose of the good cardio workout it gives me

 

[stonehead]

Yeah man, I love DDR. I play it every week.

Man I was RIPPING on the machine today, on the verge of throwing up at times but nonetheless I persisted. Almost nobody else was on except me for a few hours.
I started off pretty shaky and I thought to myself "This is probably gonna be an off day", but then I remembered the other day I wanted to play some no-bar tracks which I did just to give it a shot. My accuracy was way worse but I managed to still hit most notes up to level 11. Then when I went back on the bar I was like 3x better, my legs were looser feeling and I wasn't freezing up as much. I was really getting that thing when you're hitting every note in a stream even though you feel like you can't even read it.
I'm seriously considering buying my own pad now, DDR gets pricey once you're playing regularly and I'm playing at least one long weekly session or a few smaller sessions depending on my week's workload, so I pay around about $20-$30 (AUD) a week now, which is gonna be ~$1300 a year, give or take a couple hundred, on a game. An L-TEK pad at home would be half that cost, one-off, just need's a monitor, computer, and sound system. A bit of maintenance now and then and it'd last a while, plus I don't need to trek for an hour and a half to the city to play.
Here's a pic I took today of a score I was pretty proud of on this classic chart. I thought I'd scuff the sections where it leaves the crossovers, but I actually aced a few of them.
View attachment 59429

I have an L-TEK, and a Cobalt Flux at home, plugged into my old computer running StepMania. They aren't making Cobalt Flux pads anymore, but L-TEKs are super sturdy. I cracked one of the fiberglass panel covers, but it was like 20$ to buy a replacement panel cover. I don't like using the bar, so I don't have one at home. Can't speak to how sturdy they are, but it's probably not bad.

The real beauty of playing on a computer is all of the fan-made charts out there. There are 2 or 3 different packs with 30+ Touhou songs each, and Ben Spiers has mapped literally hundreds of pop songs if that's your thing.

 

[LostintheCycle]

I have an L-TEK, and a Cobalt Flux at home, plugged into my old computer running StepMania. They aren't making Cobalt Flux pads anymore, but L-TEKs are super sturdy. I cracked one of the fiberglass panel covers, but it was like 20$ to buy a replacement panel cover. I don't like using the bar, so I don't have one at home. Can't speak to how sturdy they are, but it's probably not bad.

I heard L-Tek was good and am glad to hear you also have a good experience with it, makes me feel more sure about it.

The real beauty of playing on a computer is all of the fan-made charts out there. There are 2 or 3 different packs with 30+ Touhou songs each, and Ben Spiers has mapped literally hundreds of pop songs if that's your thing.

I've also seen packs exist for almost all the DDR games too, naturally, which is awesome. The only thing you'd really miss out on is getting to interact with other people in the scene, which is a part of it for me. I like meeting some of the other players, especially since there are a ton of software developers who play DDR so it's sorta like networking.
I also see things like the ITG stamina scene, which is part of why I want a pad as well, because I'd like to give that a go
Would like to try my hand at charting a few songs as well

 

[LostintheCycle]

Sup, here to brag about recent DDR progress.

This was my high score a while back on this map, which is mindblowingly insane and also really fun. I managed to nudge it up a couple 10k since this pic was taken but didn't snap that.

This one I'm proud of. It's a sub 700k score, not otherwise special, but it was a level 14 sightread with no bar! It felt absolutely crazy, in fact quite bonkers really.
Also been trying out doubles no bar like how the aforementioned Mr Lanza does it. My friend tells me it's no fun, but for me the fun in DDR is pushing my physical limits and overcoming challenges, so naturally I had an absolute ball.
I've got time before class tomorrow for a session, can't wait to do it and see where I take it now.

 

[jaedaen]

Shit LITC, you're going harder than me now. I could have gone toe to toe with you back in the day, but mainly nowadays now that I'm older, I just use it as a good 30 minute workout regimen and nothing more. I gotta say, I'm glad people are still going hard on it! It always really resonated with me too.

 

[LostintheCycle]

Shit LITC, you're going harder than me now. I could have gone toe to toe with you back in the day, but mainly nowadays now that I'm older, I just use it as a good 30 minute workout regimen and nothing more. I gotta say, I'm glad people are still going hard on it! It always really resonated with me too.

I'm like nothing, when I was playing yesterday a guy came in who had AAAs on 16s, he was awesome. DDR players have a pretty high average skill level, and I still feel far from that average.

 

[stonehead]

I'm like nothing, when I was playing yesterday a guy came in who had AAAs on 16s, he was awesome. DDR players have a pretty high average skill level, and I still feel far from that average.

That's absurd, I can't even pass 16s. I have exactly 1 AAA, and it's on a 7. Although, that's 7 in the old grading scale, so I think it'd be something like a 10 in ddrX scoring.

 

[redacted345]

This past sunday past noon was cloudy and so fucking boring...I recalled how I would like to go to the shitty city arcade downtown and play Pump It Up and Time Crisis on days like this.

In my city and I would guess Argentina Pump It Up was the craze, DDR delegated to the PSX version and its shitty soft mat. Never got past Novasonic Another Truth and Beetoven Virus -classic pump songs- to be honest I was too foot heavy and I slammed the thing too hard but still I envied/admired the gothic brown guys lounging beside the arcade with their girls. Or I admire them now and thought they were stupid back then, I don't recall. Everything was covered in gunk and sweat and cigarrette smell.

These last years arcades started to dwindle and to be replaced with the new non-violent, one button mobile Flappy Bird arcades, I think mainly as a neccessity to separate fathers going with their kids from smoking pool playing outcast teenagers from old creepy guys like me. These strata coexisted without problems 15 years ago but not now. The pandemic gave the final blow and the old school arcades closed. Pump It Up ended up being the harbinger of what was going to become the k-pop craze in the coming years.

Going back to pump/DDR I'm torn on the fitness side of it. I say this even remembering being drenched in sweat at the end of an inserted coin. A friend of mine which I played most with and was very good at it, was/is very fat. It has to be better than Wii fit/Kinect/that Switch plastic circle/beat saber.[/i][/i]

 

[LostintheCycle]

Passed my first 16 the other day. I think first 16 after three months of playing is pretty good progress. I'm at a point now where I've finally decided to go through with building the cabinet
A friend of mine is doing the same. Unfortunately it's way more expensive than it should be because Australia is so remote from other countries. It'll cost me a few hundred dollars, but apart from that my only other option would be cheap soft mats that I'll rip after a week or two, or paying $1000 just for an L-TEK pad. So that's why I've gotta go absolute bargain bin for my build. Already plan on grabbing whatever speakers or TV I can find from the side of the road or a charity shop. Two spare chairs would suffice for a bar.
Why is getting an Arduino so expensive these days? I thought the point of them was to be reasonably cheap.