like a whole damn week ago I said I'd post some stuff I'd been working on, and here's some stuff! First a bit about me: I play DDR on a pad with no bar, and create charts that are designed for big movements that pull your whole body around. So my charts are gonna have a classic DDR feel, but with an emphasis on ergonomic movement. I try to be very clear in terms of guiding the player, and only rarely do patterns where you don't alternate feet, but on my heavy charts I use crossovers a fair bit. When I publish charts (soon!) I will include lower difficulties as well, and crossovers will only be present in heavy (actually a lot of what I've written, the normal and heavy charts have similar numbers of steps and are mainly differentiated by the complexity of the patterns). For now though, I'll just be posting videos of the hard versions. (poorly-lighted, sorry!) footcam included with videos in case anyone is interested in how I envision these charts being played.

Anyway here's a chart for Demons and the Dead that I put together probably about a year ago. Video from Project Diva F 2nd. Edited the chart down a bit, which I think is often necessary trying to make decent DDR charts from vocaloid songs, but it still runs long at 2:47. I love charting swing music, and this has been one of my favorites for it, since it's a rather sinister song, which feels like it gives me permission to be a little mean with the steps. So steps alternate 1-2-1-2 in places, and gallop in other places, and put you through your paces. I am particularly proud of the nasty little bit at 2:05. Enjoy!

At some point probably later this year i intend to put out a pack of fighting game music. Well, probably just Guilty Gear and Under-Night/Melty. Hasn't been a priority but the music is irresistable so I keep pecking away at it. I charted this last week, and it's not necessarily in its final form but it's pretty close.

Raito's music has a really luxurious quality to it, like all the big chords have a couple extra notes on top out of sheer joy for excess, all the lines overlap longer and more fluidly than one could hope for, and here we have a musical climax in the countermelody(? my musical theory ain't that hot so i don't always have the vocabulary to talk about this stuff) at 1:21, repeating the line from 1:00 and just modulating it into the stratosphere. Can't get enough of it. I find that music that has a very strong call-and-response element makes for the best DDR charts, too, and trying to synthesize the coolest bits in both into a pattern you can appreciate in the very limited format of putting two feet on four arrows, dance to and feel in your body is the greatest challenge and reward writing this stuff.

This chart has a driving straight-eighths baseline and a lot of punctuating accents in the vocal line, so I opted for a lot of (fairly) straightforward eighths patterns that lead into a space and then a double. Since I write for no-bar pad play I try to limit any patterns that have an eighth directly into a double as it's very hard on the knees, so it's great to find a song here that easily justifies that by creating natural spaces before every natural spot where you'd use a double. (There's just one pattern where it's an eighth into a double with no space, at 0:51, but I mean c'mon what else are you gonna do there?)

The part I'm still working through is t 1:18. This is a repeat of the line at 0:57, and initially I was doing a similar pattern on the quarternotes alternating single and double steps. But the 1:18 line leads into that cool bit at 1:21, where I definitely want doubles on the beat. it didn't feel dramatic enough so I switched the 1:18 line to a tricky eighth note section. I think this was the right move? Currently considering making it more complex like so: the eighth note line ends with your feet crossed over, ending RDL the double at 1:20 is a Down-Left instead of being Left-Right, so that the next line can consist of you untwisting your body through doubles til you land on a triumphant Left-Right double at 1:23. We'll see. Seems good on paper but I think there's maybe one note too many in the pattern to keep that untwisting going and land a satisfying Left-Right. Either way, very happy with this one.

Patlabor's opening is a bop but also as rigid a song as you'll find rhythmically, with a strong straight eights beat that demands constant recognition. I charted this when I was just figuring out what I was doing and it was a great experience, and I'd recommend this or a song like it to anyone trying to learn this stuff. You could justifiably turn a song like this into an (almost) uninterrupted stream of eighths, which very quickly presents the problem "how do i actually make this engaging and interesting and reflective of the music" and forces you to really think about how to shape long lines of steps, how to properly acknowledge a repeated line, what sorts of shapes can feel like they bring out the melody's rhythm, to what extent should rests be inserted in the stepchart when there's stuff going on in the music? All good questions.

I've been soliciting suggestions for anime music to put in my upcoming pad pack and a friend suggested this to me, a wild song for a triumphant, dramatic show. And of course completely lacking in the qualities that make DDR charts conventionally good. I took it as a challenge and after a lot of hammering it out - both in terms of getting the steps right and in finding BPM adjustments that work (there are 10 or so in the chart) - this is what I came up with. Live music can be a challenge to chart, but not always. Even a song with a BMP that varies pretty widely won't be noticed that much in practice as long as all the lines speed up and slow down together. This one mostly does, but as responsibility for the rhythm gets passed around, that doesn't always hold up - the transition out of that violin section at 0:37 was particularly messy, and I'm not sure I got it "right" or I just played the chart enough times that I internalized the rhythm of the steps as written.

Guilty Gear music is the best, right? Exactly the sort of music that makes you wanna dance your ass off and maybe run through a brick wall. I've done a few charts for GG music - mostly the vocal numbers from Xrd. They present a challenge in that you generally want a chart to build in intensity but DDR intensity pretty much means the density of steps you're performing - so for example music with a fast and light flute part that leads into a slow, loud, powerful finale presents a big challenge in terms of reflecting the music well but also making it feel right to play. Safe Intoxication here I couldn't really square that circle, so lick at 0:53 is by far the toughest part of the chart to play, and everything else kinda coasts until a little uptick at the end. Still really happy with how it turned out (although if I were to rewrite it now I'd probably try and make the beginning have more structure to it). Incidentally the video is from a trailer for Revalator but I clipped the song together myself - afaik there isn't an official short version of it (also sounds like I didn't do it exactly the way the trailer did, so maybe I will fix it at some point).