Z-I-v Summer Contest 2013

Non-Roman character.

HOLLA AT YO GIRL FOR SOME VOTES
+5 - Put a Donk On It
+4 - Wow Wow VENUS
+3 - How We Kill Stars
+2 - Sushi (the fact that you made that chart that fun blows me away.................)
+1 - Don't let it go
+0** - 9000 Miles, Move Me, My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark, Sky of the Ocean, Survival Games, That’s Paradise, Upside Down (Hyper Euro Mix)

** - Honorable Mentions; Qualifying score was 8.75/10.

TOTALLY TOTALS
Put a Donk On It [Akira] - 5
Wow Wow VENUS [Silverhawke] - 4
How We Kill Stars [Azn_punk_07] - 3
Sushi [Oni-91] - 2
Don't let it go [KNS-17] - 1

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Would Greek count?

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Also, what about all numbers?

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Yes, you could do all numbers, though it might/will come off as cheesing.
But no part of the rule says you can't so...

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Is it me or Beat No.4 has a problem ? looks like the bpm's stuck at 121(I guess it's supposed to go at 242)

Uploaded .sm has a single bpm value

Oh, that's good to know. I probably should just not have uploaded the .sm, had I time to test the file I would have realized that it didn't save any of the speed changes. I designed the simfile with StepMania 5 so if you have a way to, play it there.

Oh I see, lower difficulties don't have the bpm changes.
I guess I'll use sm5 from now on

I posted this yesterday by accident but now voting is open so I'll do it:

1. Speedy Speed Boy
2. Sky of the Ocean
3. Something Better
4. Danger & Danger
5. Red Sun

Rewview for Sky Of the Ocean
- Heavy sure delivers. The file definitely has a good focus on the theme -- I loved the emphasis on the male vocals and you managed to mix in other elements of the song without making the file's structure confusing.
- Standard the break section was a little too empty but still well stepped. I really hope nobody double steps the 12ths in this file because even though a lot of turning is involved it's very fun.
- For the light steps it should be easier to follow. Most newer players at this difficulty would be double stepping a lot of the patterns, getting confused and turning into pretzels.

Also I saw the rule about one file (at least for this week's theme). Personally winning shouldn't be the big issue at hand here but stepping in your own unique style. I don't expect to get many votes but I'm still contributing to this -- I'd rather see interesting submissions (Something Better was a brave submission considering how slow the song is).

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Vote:
Move Me [Pie-kun] - +5
Wow Wow VENUS [Silverhawke] - +4
Put a Donk On It [Akira] - +3
Survival Games [DMAxel] - +2
Kiss You [Akira] - +1

Total:
Put a Donk On It [Akira] - 8
Wow Wow VENUS [Silverhawke] - 8
Move Me [Pie-kun] - 5
How We Kill Stars [Azn_punk_07] - 3
Sushi [Oni-91] - 2
Survival Games [DMAxel] - 2
Kiss You [Akira] - 1
Don't let it go [KNS-17] - 1

I'm not sure if the numbers are ranks (therefore, #1 being +5, 2 +4, etc) or the amount of points. :\

Wait would EΛΠIΣ pass for this weeks theme
Forget that I just did some research lol its all greek, yay
Ughh I literally have nothing good in my library so im just resorting to KO's

After talking about it, we have decided that TWO files a week will be the limit.

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Votes:
+5//Move Me
+4//A Song for the Lovers
+3//Put A Donk On It
+2//Danzai Plasma
+1//route 80s
+0//Kanashimi no SQUALL

Put a Donk On It [Akira] - 11
Move Me [Pie-kun] - 10
Wow Wow VENUS [Silverhawke] - 8
A Song for the Lovers [Oni-91] - 4
How We Kill Stars [Azn_punk_07] - 3
断罪プラズマ [AkihiroIIDX] - 2
Survival Games [DMAxel] - 2
Sushi [Oni-91] - 2
Don't let it go [KNS-17] - 1
Kiss You [Akira] - 1
route 80s [Mr.Music] - 1

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reference to https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2526020/SC2012/69.....png

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VOTES
+5//Put A Donk On It
+4//Always Up With You
+3//Fall Into The Web Of Desire
+2//MANGA SUPER ROBOT
+1//only my railgun
+0//Play Hard and Danger & Danger

UNNECESSARY COMMENTS

Put A Donk On It:


Always Up With You:
I saw lots of thought was put into this one file and great song choice

Fall Into The Web Of Desire:
God the chorus kept reminding me of Romeo & Juliet by Lolita

MANGA SUPER ROBOT:
Yea I always love your file, please never stop

only my railgun:
Your perfect

TOTALS
Put a Donk On It [Akira] - 16
Move Me [Pie-kun] - 10
Wow Wow VENUS [Silverhawke] - 8
Always Up With You [Alchemy Jones] - 4
A Song for the Lovers [Oni-91] - 4
Fall Into The Web Of Desire [Blinded_No_More] - 3
How We Kill Stars [Azn_punk_07] - 3
MANGA SUPER ROBOT [Lisek] - 2
断罪プラズマ [AkihiroIIDX] - 2
Survival Games [DMAxel] - 2
Sushi [Oni-91] - 2
only my railgun [Akira] - 1
Don't let it go [KNS-17] - 1
Kiss You [Akira] - 1
route 80s [Mr.Music] - 1

now if you want actual reviews pm me

Yo, humans, here are my reviews. All, unless otherwise mentioned, are relevant to the highest single difficulty in the song. Hopefully I got everything. Sorry if any come off as mean or overly-blunt, I tried to be nice but honestly I did these all in two days and I'm tired did you know that cats sleep a lot? I did my best to stay ignorant of who made what file until after I was ready to post this. Anyways, rankings are at the end, good job everyone.

50 Ways To Say Goodbye – Oh joy, this song haha. Some parts of this suffered from sudden changes of the instruments when it might make more sense to follow one or two instruments (the vocals being considered an instrument in this case). Many of these changes resorted to the percussion, which was sometimes simplified in a less-than-exciting way. One example of this is M50, where the percussion doesn’t quite follow what could actually be the most varied part of the song.

9000 Miles – Pretty hard for a 7, but definitely a fair rendition of a Pendulum song. Only thing I didn’t like was some of the patterning, where I couldn’t figure out why you used the same two arrows multiple times (like a LD-DLDL pattern or something similar). Other than that this is neat. The gfx are well done but I would move the title text to the left a bit, they may converge with a lot of lifebars.

A Song For The Lovers – There’s not much to say about this one, it’s fine. Not a huge fan of the unforced doublesteps but it’s so slow that it doesn’t matter.

Always Up With You – Honestly wasn’t a fan of the ambiguous start on the up arrow. Also, the piano didn’t seem to fit the steps at all points but other than that.

Be – Good patterning and nice gfx. The song could use some freezes imo, and the taps at b109.000 I think are half a beat early. Not sure why the freeze at 174.000 is there and M52 confuses me though

Because of You – I didn’t like how the crossovers kinda just came up randomly without anything in the music to cue them. A good example is at the end with the crossover double-gallops. Making them all crossovers is a little brutal and kinda dilutes their meaning. This is just my opinion but the file is much heavier in crossovers than it needs to be. The steps flow well other than this.

China Gal – This is more turny than Right Round :v There were some vocals that could have had freezes that didn’t, that’s all I noticed. Neat song choice.

Cumbia – I liked this more than I thought I would, I’m a sucker for 24ths and 32nds. Your patterning is interesting, I think that I like it.

Danger & Danger – There are lots of neat ideas in here but some parts district my attention away from them. The jacks after the jumps are jarring and I’m having trouble understanding the reasoning behind them. The freezes and taps starting at M61 also seem to be off .-. I like how you put the jumps in on the “jump!”s.

Danzai Plasma – Okay, this is mostly fair for a 14, I really only have three complaints about it and two are about things that would be okay if the song weren’t 250 BPM. The first is the jump at 192.000 x.x. The second are the footswitches, which are also kinda out of place because it’s the only instance in which they’re used. Additionally, the 12th/16th run. Honestly, I thought that this was really neat and distinguishable but I can’t tell how they go to anything in the music.

Dashboard – Reasonable for a heavy chart, though it would be cool if you followed the faster parts on the guitar.

Day ‘N’ Night – You humans and your music. Anyways, I cannot find anything particularly wrong with the chart, so good.

Don’t let it go – Consider putting some jumps on the crashes that aren’t already jacks, that might give this file some more variety. That’s all I really have for this, neat song.

Dynamite – Nice effect on the title in the gfx. As for the steps, there are double steps, and a lot of them. Maybe if you did some laterals/crossovers instead the steps could flow better, though for a 6 this is still playable and everything. Also, the end felt very detached. Have you considered following the vocals exclusively? It may require some spread-out 16ths but it would be cool.

EVERYBODY – I wasn't big on the ambiguous steps or the spins but I guess that this is still very reasonable for a heavy 7. Nice work with the banner.

FACE DOWN – I liked the down + spread jumps at the end, and the graphics are very clean. However, 38.000 leads into a rather nasty doublestep, and so does 151.500.

Fall In The Web of Desire – This is sexy, I would card this and buy it dinner.

Falling Down – Very, very nice. The patterning is great and I like the use of repetitive patterns. 359.000 bothers me a little bit, maybe have taps on 358.667 and 359.000?

Free Style – Good job for following the music with the 16ths. The only thing in this file that I don’t really like is the sheer number of doublesteps, there are so many >.<

Get Out of My Way – Your patterning, overall, is excellent, I didn’t really see any problems at all. What was that video though? :s

Hooveristic Trooper – good doujin. Nothing to say other than that this could be a little less turny on the less active parts but I won’t push that and the patterning was good nonetheless. Good job with the cut.

How We Kill Stars – This has some massive difficulty spikes. Like, if you’re going to start having gallops like that maybe the steps should be simplified, because 8th-crossovers to gallops is already enough of a difficulty increase .-. Interesting take on the gfx.

Howling – Thank you for this.

It’s Only Us – I can’t say that I agreed with every crossover but, nonetheless, you’re good at using them. I don’t have anything to add. As for the gfx, the artist text is a bit then but I love what you did with the title text, it looks great.

Kanashimi no SQUALL – uhm this is good, fantastic patterning, ect. I wish that you could include the fast guitar bits but that’s not really doable in the heavy D:

Kanashimi no sukooru – This is good too. It only has 10 holds though, and I think that there were many taps that would have worked really well as holds, such as the riffs, extended vocals, ect.

Katamari on the Rocks – There’s nothing that I can objectively criticize about this, neat song choice.

Kindness – This file looks mostly fine, there are parts when you switch from jumps to freezes on vocals that sound the exact same and that’s not very consistent but it doesn’t really need to be. I think that this is a 7 though.

Kiss You – I give up, why are there slowdowns where they are? There’s really nothing slow about those sections and the transitions are really jarring. 142.250 is a doublestep. No complaints otherwise, I like the lots of jumps.

Love It When You Call – Nothing in here struck me as problematic. Neat gfx.

Manga Super Robot – Missing taps at 65.750, 69.750, 73.750, 77.000, 77.750, and 78.500. This problem repeats itself in later equivalent sections. Everything else is fine, good work and thank you for the challenge chart.

Mizukagami – Nice use of freezes. You kept up the energy of the song and the steps flowed well.

Move Me – I’m not a fan of the slowdown right when the steps begin, but I can see why you did it. There also seems to be some direction bias, most of the steps seem to face left, maybe change some things around to balance it out if you want. Interesting song choice.

Murasaki no Tsuki – Good use of freezes/jumps, that’s all I really have to say. Good 9.

MY SONGS KNOW WHAT YOU DID IN THE DARK – I liked the crossovers and all of the other mechanics, the only thing is that you at some points strayed from the music, such as at 31.500 where there is percussion but no note to match it.

Nonagon – Interesting song choice, I will give you that. I do not recommend starting on beat 0, this gives the player no time to acquire the beat. Other than that, the steps are interesting but in some parts they don’t match the music, such as at M4 though M5 where all of the brass is hit but only half of the percussion is hit. This creates some very awkward flow in the chart, which made it difficult to play. There should also be a tap on 53.500 if you’re trying to match the vocals. I recommend slowing down and paying closer attention to the music, because as it is the steps and the music are rather disconnected.

Only Love Survives – All I noticed on my playthrough is that the steps seem to have a strong left-facing bias. Some sections face left for a long time, such as M16-22, which is entirely left facing. It may be useful to time when the steps change directions to avoid this. Good patterning on the stream.

Only My Railgun – The biggest thing that I noticed with this file is uncomfortable ambiguous steps. Avoid using U or D after L+R jumps, the player may start on the wrong foot and, in this file, enter some fast streams and be forced to doublestep. The flow was alright.

Play Hard – Nice job, you followed the music well.

Player One – Your steps are nicely consistent, and your freeze usage is good. I like how you have an 8th note stream at the really intense part of the song, I like this.

Put A Donk On It – Perfectly fair for a heavy, lol at the song choice. I think that the chart matches the song well, whatever this actually means. You accented some of the samples well and your use of 16ths was appropriate, cool file.

Rain – The only thing that I have to say about this that’s negative is that there are long sections with no direction changes. M9-31 in the heavy faces entirely left .-. The challenge isn’t as bad in this regard but it’s still an issue, fix this and this file will be great.

Red Sun – I honestly wasn't fond of the repeating LDUR patterns mid-way through the song, the right-facing patterns that followed them were more varied and honestly more fun. That’s all I have to say that’s negative, I like the jump/freeze combo on the crashes near the end.

Rose Jail – Well, those were vocals (I think). There were some parts that faced one direction for a long time M23-32 and, personally, I think that some of the jumps should have been executed earlier, such as at 183.000 instead of 184/185. Other than that I liked your use of jumps.

Route 80s – To be honest, many notes just didn't match the music. 56.500 and on should have been separated 24ths, there’s a loud crash at 68.500 that has no notes to it, no taps belong on 95.500 and 97.000, ect. Pay close attention to the music, because many notes just don’t match up as though are. The way that you added blocks to the bg image is a neat way of making the text stand out though, nice job on that.

Runaway Baby – I really liked the tap-freeze-taps near the beginning. The chart flowed well. No complaints.

Sky of the Ocean – I liked how you simplified the percussion, and the crossovers flowed really well. Beautiful gfx.

Smooth Criminal – Probably the best file for this song that I’ve played. Here are my only gripes: 1. In the “Annie are you OK” parts, you repeated the patterns on the 16ths and I liked that, then on the third iteration you broke this repetition, which personally I would keep up. The fourth iteration also broke the repetition but then the song is not actually the same there as MJ raises his voice so that’s perfectly fine. 2. In bits like 110.000, maybe that should be a jump and 110.500 should be stop, so that the tap is on the crash.

Something Better – Kinda quiet so I did what I could. The doublesteps are mostly alright but the one at 90.000 isn’t really possible to avoid without a really fast/awkward doublestep. There were then the jumps where two jumps would be the exact same despite the different notes, and those might be more interesting if you made them different jumps. From what I could tell, you seemed to follow the music itself just fine.

Speedy Speed Boy – No complaints about this one, works just fine for the song, nice work.

Survival Games – There were many things that I liked about this file, including the use of 16ths, the freezes near the end, ect. No criticism here.

Sushi – Some parts of the this song confused me in that you went from following the vocals to a simplified rendition of the percussion and then back really quickly, other than that lol this song.

That’s ***** (?) – I… actually liked the twists lol. However, there is a missing tap where the vocals are being followed at 102.500. I thought I saw another but now I can’t find it :T.

The Fallout – Almost as turny as China Gal. The crossovers did flow, though the ones in the beginning felt a little tough given the calmness of the music. One thing that I do recommend is, well, this: on the freezes with the forced doublesteps, have the same tap for the percussion and another one for the strings, like this: http://i.minus.com/jbdvY1Dvmbnk9F.jpg Also, for the gfx, you could darken the image to make it resemble something like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. I dunno that’s probably a stupid recommendation.

The Pressure – This was a little too turny. It’s not just the number of twists and crossovers that I take issue with as it is the fact that they don’t seem to be related to any musical cue. There were plenty of vocal sections that were distorted and would have been nice for crossovers but they never seemed to be the point where you used them. I also can’t figure out what the 16ths at 204.500 are supposed to go. All of your patterning otherwise I thought was actually really good, nice direction changes and everything.

Up in the Air – I liked the 16ths, they reminded me of a certain fighting videogame. ANYWHO there are possible missing taps at 32.500 and 48.500, I didn't notice anything else. Nice patterning.

Upside Down – This song. Anyways, there were plenty of sections in which your steps faced left for a long time and, when right facing steps emerged, you stuck with them for a very short period of time which felt awkward. The way in which you timed the steps with the music, however, was fine. Neat gfx modification.

Wanna Be Your LOVER – I can see this being on an arcade machine.

Wow Wow VENUS – ಠ_ಠ The jump at 23.000 kinda bothered me. Shouldn’t it be moved up a 16th and shouldn’t something be placed at 23.500? The tap at 54.500 doesn’t seem to belong with the vocals. The steps from M26-M30 are perfect.

Years – Okay maybe it’s because the music file was an MP3 but I got this incredibly offsync. The sync, to a global offset of 0.000, I believe is -.221. I also found the second measure a very awkward place to start the file, 17.000 might be more intuitive. M52-M60 face entirely left, which feels kinda awkward. I liked the hands and the 16th stream worked well in its context. Nice graphics.

Young Man – I didn’t notice any problems which either means that this file was fine or I was staring at the bg video the entire time ?

Yuusei Overdose – I liked the 12th notes, I was not as fond of the crossover at 34.000. While not wrong or anything, it’s a big difficulty spike compared to the rest of the song which is really why I was put off by it. I recommend starting the song a bit later, starting on beat 0 gives the player no time to acquire the beat. M6 might be a better place to start though that’s just my take on it.

Votes:

+5// Kanashimi No SQUALL
+4// Sky of the Ocean
+3// Falling Down
+2// Fall Into The Web Of Desire
+1// Mizukagami
Honorable Mentions: Up in the Air, Player One, Manga Super Robot

Put a Donk On It [Akira] - 16
Move Me [Pie-kun] - 10
Wow Wow VENUS [Silverhawke] - 8
Fall Into The Web Of Desire [Blinded_No_More] - 5
Kanashimi No SQUALL [Blinded_No_More] - 5
Always Up With You [Alchemy Jones] - 4
A Song for the Lovers [Oni-91] - 4
Sky of the Ocean [Telperion] - 4
Falling Down [xXMokou98Xx] - 3
How We Kill Stars [Azn_punk_07] - 3
MANGA SUPER ROBOT [Lisek] - 2
断罪プラズマ [AkihiroIIDX] - 2
Survival Games [DMAxel] - 2
Sushi [Oni-91] - 2
only my railgun [Akira] - 1
Mizukagami [Silverhawke] - 1
Don't let it go [KNS-17] - 1
Kiss You [Akira] - 1
route 80s [Mr.Music] - 1

It's missing Dossar's Mal ô Mains. Here's the link, for those who downloaded the zip pack.

http://zenius-i-vanisher.com/v5.2/viewsimfile.php?simfileid=21870

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It's listed as ranks. For points I'd use the plus sign

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