[AC] StepManiaX produced by Kyle Ward

I'd totally get an SMX pad or machine if I had the money; I'm honestly hoping that one day this will get a Steam release so I only have to worry about getting the pad, and I would easily pay for all those extra songs as DLC if the price is right (Because let's face it, I don't think Konami's going to be doing anything close to this for their Bemani games {at least without a paid subscription and a Japanese account} anytime soon).

I wanna give kudos to the team for securing the rights to all these songs that Konami has seemingly turned a blind eye towards, and listening to what the fans have been wanting.

All I'm hearing is complaining and bitching and nothing constructive other than ripping on Kyle's past endeavors with creating a new way to play dance rhythm arcade games. I'm not a developer for the game, I would imagine they call Konami 'The other guys' because they don't want to lump in a company who is already creating their own game, they comment on a real and pressing issue with the current state of dance games which is: AVAILABILITY IN COUNTRIES OTHER THAN North America, Asia, and Japan.

Also Kyle literally walked up to Konami to ask them if he could create and release this game to the public, their caveat was that he could not sell it to arcade chains such as Round 1/SEGA/etc., as far from what I remember. Gyms, Sport centers, mom & pop arcades and for the general public are fine.

God what a toxic place this has become...

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people seem to forget konami's primary audience is japan and hence the lack of dancemania these days bc it's dead move on boomers and it's not like ddr forgets their roots entirely either, they added alot of legit eurobeat recently, something that hasn't been prominently seen since X2

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If I don't like how something is I'm not going to sit here and try to enjoy it. I'm going to want it to be better. There is a StepManiaX cab in an arcade somewhat near me and up until now I've thought about going to try it out. If I can't voice my opinions about a product to the developers without being tweeted about and mocked by said developers there's a big problem.

As I said before I appreciate the throwbacks and honestly those jackets look great. I just do not have any interest in going to play old songs while DDR is adding more new content. I have a choice to go play DDR or SMX and I choose DDR every single time, and after this whole situation, I have pretty much lost interest in playing that SMX cab completely.

I apologize if I came off as rude in any way, but I genuinely don't think I did at all. I had valid criticisms and they were just brushed off and laughed at by the developers, and I find that disgusting.

My problem isn't with the game, it's with the developers and how they treat their potential customers.

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Zenius is far from a toxic place, all things considered. There's some bad apples, and you got your shitposters, but this is the case with every single forum or group on the internet unfortunately. This is one of the tamer places I've come across in terms of Bemani fandom. I do agree at times things can get rough or rude, but toxic? I've seen toxic. I've lived it. This ain't it.
People expressing their discontent with how staff of a game is handling criticism, it ain't it.

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By all means, it's not you at all. It's the users here with moving goalposts that we can never seem to please, and that's fine. We know the game isn't for people who just want to scream that we're "The sad DDR tribute game". while people yell and hope and get their voices heard for older revivals coming back and when we do, we're the bad guys. That's the issue.

The amount of money spent to properly license these tracks is insane, and a lot of people also don't see the work that Kyle goes into to work directly with the artists to get their music licenses, re-mastered, and legally published outside of Japan, many for the the first time ever or legally within the last few decades. For example, So Deep wasn't legally available ever within the United States, let alone in any other games for the past 18 years. We went through the effort working with the artists and labels directly to bring them back for the audiences that want them.


Totally cool, and we're actively adding other content too to help with that. The last two releases have been super packed with older revivals because we had them queued up and ready to go, and we didn't want to artificially hold back content and stop people from enjoying it if they could. The main focus of the project was to bring back the original joy and feeling of these style of games and work what magic we can to both satisfy community requests and get tracks we've always dreamed of having brought into a game, regardless of source. There's a bunch of new tracks coming next too and we're excited to show those off when the time comes.

The main problem here is people, again, constantly are asking for tracks and features in "other mainline games", but when we go fully out of our way, spending the time, effort, and resources to satisfy that, we're somehow the bad guys. Artwork and step design for some of the revivals is absolutely supposed to be a nod to the past that we all came from and a show of love and passion for what the future can hold for them.

"while their game is based and named off of a Dance Dance Revolution simulator, " - The core development team is made of people who were the main people behind that initially.

Here's a question I would pose - would there be anger like this is, for example, Pump got some of these same songs? Also why anger? You're getting the ability to play the older songs that people want brought back in a modern game in 2020.

I know we can't satisfy everyone, but sheesh.

" And when people give this feedback, we have the team behind the game overtly mocking these members of the community?"

Every single piece of constructive feedback is listened to and given a ton of serious thought, but when you have actual meaningless posts just of randomly cropped graphics or charts or just saying "lol game suxxxxxx" with NOTHING commented on or given, it goes nowhere fast. I'm, also curious as to what people are thinking is attacking here, as I'm fairly certain I've been pretty open to discussion other than the obvious shitposts.

"Mocking someone's free fan project,"

None of us have EVER mocked a free fan project, as that's where many of us came from. What you are seeing is pointing out the hypocrisy of someone saying that things are ripped off or clones while producing the same thing themselves. Heck, I feel if the graphics weren't I'd be thrown under the bus here for things not looking that way.

"We all enjoy dance games. I don’t understand why those with differing opinions are being treated as though they are irrelevant compared to the so-called “real fans.”"

They aren't, I promise you this, but when people post actual random insults with zero actual feedback in them, those tend to get ignored super fast.

"but you're trying to go from fanmade to professional and that's just how it goes."

We've published... 5? 6? games at this point, from ITG to Pump Pro, iDance, and more. The biggest difference is we've been involved with the community and have always striven to keep an open line of dialogue for feedback, suggestions, and more. Ironically, it seems like that's not the case the other way around for some people, and that's fine.

Sorry we're doing what we can to satisfy fan requests, old school players desires, and attempts to bring in a new audience. It's been working fine for us so far, and the feedback literally everywhere else but here has been positive, and we will continue to push the inclusive, welcoming, and open-dialogue to those who are willing to have it.

The point I'm making is that if you're selling a product and representing a company, you are and should be held to a higher standard. You can personally be annoyed at someone mocking your product, but to go into a community and make snide remarks not only represents you, but also roxor games or whatever.


It's not hypocritical at all. That is a fan game, based on Dance Dance Revolution. You are claiming to be something other than a fan game based on Dance Dance Revolution. If you are comparing this user's fan game to your game, you are calling your product a fan game.

Also, you weren't mocking people on Twitter. However, another person who seems to be speaking on behalf of your development team has been posting screenshots on Twitter of users on here and making fun of them.


If you've published 5 or 6 games, I would expect a higher level of professionalism from you at this point.


This is passive aggressive.

i love you

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I haven't really been following this game but I have a question about the video that was posted.
Are there difficulty levels between "Hard" and "Wild"? It seems like Hard charts are a little too simple for my skill level (which is weird, because they're rated like, 14-17?) but Wild charts are too fast and intensive.

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I hear you, but you still aren't telling me anything here. I genuinely want to know what you are talking about.

This is not a "fan project:". This is a retail product similar to PIU, etc. We are fans of the genre, and I'm actually confused by this reaction. I genuinely don't understand that comment at all. DDRXX is a fantastic project that I've seen sop many good things about and that I've personally loved to play, and I'm not sure how that makes us a fan project? Unless I'm missing something here.


The statements are true. Art and chart design in some aspect are absolutely a homage as I mentioned earlier, and people would be complaining either way if it was too different or too similar, so we go with what is fun and recognizable.

Again, chewi, I really don't know at what you're getting at as you aren't actually saying anything. Can't have a conversation if only one person is talking ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


Hard and Wild are difficulties right next to each other - hard varies typically between 15 and 20 in terms of the difficulty number scale. There are a lot of other songs with higher ratings than what is shown, and the slower speed mods in the preview videos definitely make them feel a lot less chaotic for sure.

Your lack of words still demonstrates your blaring ignorance and hatred towards players that are just digging to play their old favorite tunes again and developers who are being able to bring them to everyone. It's for the best of all that you're thankfully isolated to this website and without reach of anyone else in the rhythm game community, however it's unfortunate that the website's staff will most likely defend you at all costs.

It's not worth having a conversation with somebody who is just gonna dismiss my opinions because they're not what they want to hear. Instead you're just gonna make dumb comments about me. You said it yourself.


You're new, the staff hates me here.

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Nothing in my comments on Twitter haven’t been repeated here. It’s nothing new.

The point I'm trying to make here, user LightningXCE, is that you are receiving feedback. Feedback from these people that they think you are being too derivative of DDR. These users only represent themselves, this is correct. They may be a minority. The point is, in response, you made a snide comment about someone's forum signature with banner graphics for their fanmade DDR project. You called them a hypocrite for having a fan made DDR project while they called your game, StepmaniaX, derivative of DDR. However, they are promoting their free project that is openly derivative of DDR. You are promoting a game that costs money, and you are being very defensive against feedback that it is derivative of DDR.

And you also have said that "None of us have EVER mocked a free fan project," however, that's what you did when you pointed out this signature and when jbean posted the screenshot on twitter, and laughed with other twitter users about how much they dislike this member and this forum.

I understand you are indie developers, but my point is, you are should be held and should hold yourselves at a higher standard than forum users on Zenius-I-vanisher dot com. You have received some feedback that could easily be perceived as rude or uncivil, and I understand this. As people trying to sell a game, you shouldn't be making snide remarks or making fun of people on twitter.

My opinion on StepmaniaX? I do think it's derivative and unoriginal, and I don't think it offers me anything worth my money when I can play the old DDR games I like. This is not everyone's opinion, and that's fine. You guys have a lot of fans, and you are making a product that many people DO like. I never liked ITG, but it has had true longevity and created an entire community, still 15 years later. Based on my tastes and opinions, I never expected that. However, we are all our own people with our own opinions. My opinions in this post only represent myself. When you come and act snide towards others, and when your co-workers post screenshots making fun of people on twitter, you are representing roxor games or stepmania revolution x or whatever. Sometimes you need to know when to let it go, when not to engage. You think chewi was rude for his posts? That's fine. You can either take his feedback or leave it. What really opened the gates here to this mess, is the fact that you stooped down to that level. You are no longer representing just yourself, you are promoting a game to the community you want to buy it.


No one is claiming it's new. People are telling you that it is an immature way to react to feedback when you are representing a professional product.

In the end, I am not judging you for your product. I already knew it wasn't for me. I am judging the behavior of a development team that is stooping to a low level and painting themselves in a bad light. People are maybe being petty towards you, but once again, as people coming to a forum to promote a product, you shouldn't hold yourselves to the low standards of dramatic users on a niche forum.

It's ok nobody that's actually active in the community posts on ziv forums anyways so I wouldn't take these "criticisms" seriously

If anything this website will be deprecated and become buddies with SM3.9 as soon as a new and better arcade tracker is made

i'm sorry if my comments on twitter contributed to you locking your account, i wasn't trying to cause drama or anything and i feel badly about this situation

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The graphics that chewi posted look more like ripoffs than homages, sorry to say. The non "homage" graphics I've seen look great (Bye Bye Baby Balloon and Dam Dariram on the recent update) and I don't see anyone complaining about them being "too different" from their DDR counterparts as you said. I like seeing these songs brought back to a rhythm game in some capacity, and I'll grant that the charts will have similarities at parts, but the homage graphics just look hacky, moreso knowing that you guys can do really good nonderivative stuff.

Also pointing out that AaronRoberts' DDR fangame project looks a lot like DDR like it's some kind of monster ownage is really silly! That's probably what he set out to do! He wants it to look like DDR!!!

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It wasn’t you. Promise. Comb the thread and you’ll find the reason.