Z-I-v Simfile Shuffle 2015 — thank you for playing!

I think everyone's made their views clear on steps and difficulty matching the music, and it's best to move on to discussing other sims from the first week or the projects for the second week.

Cuzco, thanks for your comments on Quaver. I will try to make the next one more challenging. If it fits the music, of course...

I'm sorry, but I really have to explain to Junko how he can improve before we move on from Jumper.

Junko, you can make hard songs, but there's a difference between hard and a jumbled mess.

Take GariK+'s DANCE ALL NIGHT simfile, for instance. It was submitted in round 2 of last year's Simfile Shuffle. is a 10 footer (or 13/15 footer, whatever), however, it's not a jumbled mess. It's actually enjoyable to play. Admittedly, the stream in the middle of the song got on my nerves, but once I get past that, it's just a matter of not being stupid. And the stream actually flows well, I think it's just the downside of playing on keyboard that causes me to slip up a majority of the time. This simfile is really well done.

When I played your Jumper file, the groove radar, with the only exception being the Air section, was comparable to... freaking... DEAD END (Groove Radar Special). Most of the chart COULD be worked around by cancelling out the unnecessary BPM changes, but the stream in the 2nd half was comparable to THIS doubles chart for DROP OUT (from nonstop megamix) that got horribly botched somewhere in the second half and is a complete disaster. It's included in beware's DDR extreme, but it's definitely not the actual chart.

Original:
Goofed:

It doesn't help that the BPM changes you added made the song off-sync.

There is a reason we are including light and standard charts. Not everyone has the power to pass Valkyrie Dimension or even MaxX Unlimited. You need to chill out. You can still make challenging songs, but at least test if someone can even get an A on them before releasing. Be friendly towards amateur players. Also, if you add tempo changes, please make sure the song will continue to be synced to the beat (on beat notes can't be blue/yellow notes...). Cancel out if the song tempo doubles by halving the initial BPM afterwards, and so on.

Again, study the simfile for DANCE ALL NIGHT I posted. Imagine playing the charts you make yourself. Will you smoothly hit all of the arrows you place? This is a key factor in helping me if I have botched arrow placements like a 16th stream containing U L D R L D U R L D R and end up tripping over myself before I can hit anymore errors. Be careful when you want to make the player spin, don't make them get too dizzy to finish. It can be fun, but try to be a little more lenient.

I hope I helped, and please consider what I've posted above. I'm trying to help you avoid getting no points at all for the entire contest.

Don't worry about making a file more challenging, just make it fun.

To offer a bit of advice on Quaver, I feel like there's a couple of moments during those long 8th streams where you could have inserted short bursts of 16ths to match what the guitar was playing. It's not a big deal, though, other than the use of hands I really did enjoy the file. That being said, be careful how you utilize hands. Most people don't like them. I don't mind as long as they're used tastefully, but in Quaver I don't really think they fit too well.

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Thanks for the additional suggestions. When I played Quaver myself, I guess I wasn't too thrilled with the hands myself, especially the one at the end, but I wanted to give them a try. I'll probably take them out.

Those were some very good comments on how to make Jumper better. The previous page had gotten pretty negative without offering suggestions for improving that sim or making future ones better.

We do, it's called Basic mode.

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+3 LIKE A VIRGIN
+3 Feel The Beat
+2 DIFFUSED REFLECTION
+2 KagKag
+2 Seedy Try
+1 Sharaku
+1 Starlight Tracer
+1 Ultra Thizz

Totals:

Cattleya [Telperion] - 24
Feel The Beat [xXMokou98Xx] - 17
groovin' [Gameoson] - 13
Starlight Tracer [Loodee] - 13
BEAT-NEW-WORLD [mf32892] - 11
DIFFUSED REFLECTION [hypnoticmarten77] - 9
Black Light Machine [Lisek] - 8
Ultra Thizz [xRGTMx] - 8
Seedy Try [CuzcoBlocko] - 7
LIKE A VIRGIN [chewi] - 6
KagKag [ohaiimian] - 5
Chance It [The Legendary DJXYZ] - 3
quaver [AngledLuffa] - 3
Silly Ho [Spork!] - 3
SET YOU FREE -FLIP & FILL REMIX- [usaminseijin] - 2
Can't Sleep Love [SupremeX] - 1
Sharaku [Braeden47] - 1
Starlight Tracer [Loodee] - 1

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EDIT: how did you get two Starlight Tracers on the vote lineup?


Fixed for you.

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Arigato

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To further help how to counter drifting when using BPM changes, I made this mockup using the file I submitted.

.......okay, yeah, I know I'm spoiling what I submitted just like SokDion did, but I want to showcase how to avoid the problems Jumper ran into with the BPM changes;



Examine the BPM changes in the left side.

As you can see, every BPM double is countered with a half at precisely the right times (and vice versa), so as to have all on-beat notes remain 4ths for the entire way.

Areas of interest;

*The four four gimmicks present themselves in their entirety, and then after each one, you see what is under the mask, the rhythm that's really going on.
*The 4th gimmick has visual tricks. The BPM is slowed/multiplied by 1.5x and the notes are all 12th/24th based. However, the rhythm is still symmetrical with 138 BPM.
*The last slow section has a strange BPM so that the O.K.! comes when "measure 8" of the slow section comes. *There is some weird drifting in the final fast section, though, when I tried 552 BPM, the arrows that followed were off-sync, so I just set it to 573 instead and everything ended up on the beat (and by sheer luck too). If you detect any noticeable drifting anywhere, do not hesitate to slightly alter the BPM to fix it.

How I got the precise stopping times was dividing the song BPM by 120. 138 / 120 = 1.15. In the 2nd section, with 552 BPM, the stops need to be 0.75x as long as one beat. 0.75 / 1.15 / 2 = 0.326. To simulate the same thing on a 276 BPM, 0.5 / 1.15 / 2 = 0.217.

Examine this video all you like.

"But we don't need to do this fancy math. Stepmania 5 has scrolls and many other cool features!"

True, however, I like Stepmania 3.9 a lot more because it feels more authentic to DDR. Doing this is exactly how the charts would've appeared in DDR and it actually showcases effort.

Edit: Fuck. I deleted my YouTube out of unsatisfaction with my audience (I made a new one) and I overwrote the original clip. And I don't have the .sm used in the former video anymore. Oh well.

Instead of spoiling your song submission, I would have just recommended taking a look at rikame's Rock The Club. Not only is it a good example of how to keep the song synced when using BPM trickery, it's also a good example of tasteful BPM trickery as opposed to Jumper's "Let's insert BPM tricks for the sake of inserting BPM tricks" style.
It's a shame Rock The Club got DQ'd but it's still worth a look regardless.

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Halfway through playing the Round A files, will post some votes tonight!

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I didn't try Rock the Club... However, from what I've heard, it's kinda disappointing that it was late by only 16 minutes....

Also, Telperion provided me this example too;

My brain cannot come up with a solution to this so is there a mathematical way to find the specific time a beat is on? It'll help me with cutting the most interesting parts out of songs instead of resorting to lame fade outs.

What do you mean by that?

Which part?

By finding the specific time a beat is on?

VOTES/RANKINGS

TOTALS

I'll be honest, I really liked all the music choices this week. Especially when compared to Silly Ho. I did what I could for that file, but I think the music just ruined it's chances. I didn't want to use a veto though, since I knew I could complete it.

+5 to Feel The Beat, Starlight Tracer, and Diffused Reflection.

Cattleya [Telperion] - 28
Feel The Beat [xXMokou98Xx] - 25
Starlight Tracer [Loodee] - 23
DIFFUSED REFLECTION [hypnoticmarten77] - 14
groovin' [Gameoson] - 13
BEAT-NEW-WORLD [mf32892] - 13
Black Light Machine [Lisek] - 9
Ultra Thizz [xRGTMx] - 9
Seedy Try [CuzcoBlocko] - 7
LIKE A VIRGIN [chewi] - 6
KagKag [ohaiimian] - 5
Chance It [The Legendary DJXYZ] - 3
quaver [AngledLuffa] - 3
Silly Ho [Spork!] - 3
SET YOU FREE -FLIP & FILL REMIX- [usaminseijin] - 2
Can't Sleep Love [SupremeX] - 1
Sharaku [Braeden47] - 1

Alright guys! Finished judging and ready to give you some big-time points!
NOTE: I only played charts.


TOTALS:
Cattleya [Telperion] - 32
Feel The Beat [xXMokou98Xx] - 25
Starlight Tracer [Loodee] - 23
DIFFUSED REFLECTION [hypnoticmarten77] - 14
groovin' [Gameoson] - 17
BEAT-NEW-WORLD [mf32892] - 13
Ultra Thizz [xRGTMx] - 11
Black Light Machine [Lisek] - 9
LIKE A VIRGIN [chewi] - 8
Seedy Try [CuzcoBlocko] - 7
Silly Ho [Spork!] - 6
KagKag [ohaiimian] - 5
Chance It [The Legendary DJXYZ] - 3
quaver [AngledLuffa] - 3
SET YOU FREE -FLIP & FILL REMIX- [usaminseijin] - 2
Can't Sleep Love [SupremeX] - 1
Sharaku [Braeden47] - 1

god dammit junko

I like everyone's effort on their Round A simfiles, but only half of them really stood out to me.

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You got ninja'd.

Cattleya [Telperion] - 32
Feel The Beat [xXMokou98Xx] - 25
Starlight Tracer [Loodee] - 23
DIFFUSED REFLECTION [hypnoticmarten77] - 14
groovin' [Gameoson] - 17
BEAT-NEW-WORLD [mf32892] - 13
Black Light Machine [Lisek] - 9
Ultra Thizz [xRGTMx] - 11
LIKE A VIRGIN [chewi] - 8
Seedy Try [CuzcoBlocko] - 7
Silly Ho [Spork!] - 6
KagKag [ohaiimian] - 5
Chance It [The Legendary DJXYZ] - 3
quaver [AngledLuffa] - 3
SET YOU FREE -FLIP & FILL REMIX- [usaminseijin] - 2
Can't Sleep Love [SupremeX] - 1
Sharaku [Braeden47] - 1