Z-I-v Summer Contest 2018

Finally getting around to stepping this one after submitting it for Simfile Shuffle 2016 (but only because I don't really have anything else to submit at the moment).

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So I chose a song with difficult BPM changes to sync and it's obvious I'm not finishing it in time for Round 2, sorry. :(

Still, 2/3 in the VIP room is better than 1/3 or 0/3, so... there's that.



I think I like contests better when you have (essentially) two weeks to work on a file instead of one week ALONG with voting and stuff (Battle Royale, Simfile Tycoon, Tournament of Immortals).

My life's a mess and I still don't know what I'm stepping with <14 hours til the deadline, but I do know I still have to vote so I'll be streaming VIP Room R1 files in the next few minutes. I'm also prob gonna keep streaming after while I find a song to step/actually step it just for kicks, so basically I'll be online for a while.

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Oof, it's real late again, and crazy things start happening when it's late. SUCH AS--

All right, so I know Pandemonium X basically went this route in the last round. And I know there's only one chart for now. But I had already decided I was gonna VIP this one since the start. And hopefully you'll see what sort of work I put into it. It took plenty of studying other simfiles to figure this stuff out from square one (secret thanks to Gameoson and CuzcoBlocko!), so here goes a thing!


From the album BOSS ON PARADE REMIXES ~DJ TECHNORCH meets XXX~.

This is the song for me though. This is the one that showed younger me what music could do. This is the one that made me want to make my own music. This is the game-changer. So I really wanted to make this chart look the way I feel listening to it. (Yes, I think that means you'll need SM5 for this. Probably a good idea.)

Hi, here's some public votes because why not.

I played everything on 0.8x music rate. It kind of adds a new dimension to some of these songs. The charts I went for were the hardest difficulties that were an 8 or lower. This might seem like "why?" but I actually played the files on pad this time and I haven't done that for a solid 4 months so I'm kind of rusty. I can't remember how I full combo'd files like Slowly but Surely/Back At Em/The Only Way is Up back in Simfile Tycoon. X_X So please bear with me here.

+5 Merakit Perahu (Heavy)
+3 Color Pulse (Heavy)
+3 Girl Front (Standard)
+2 Sonatine (Sonatine) (Challenge)
+1 LIBERTINE (Heavy)
[The Blitz would probably be here]
+1 Capitalism Cannon (Standard)
HM Something New (Heavy)
HM Nebluosa (Heavy)
HM Up & Up (Heavy)
HM And Drugs (Heavy)
HM RECLIMB (Heavy)
HM Battleground (Standard)
HM Buckle Your Pants (Heavy)
HM GO CRY GO (Heavy)

Everything here was actually really good. Being ranked at the bottom does not imply a bad file. If Buckle Your Pants and GO CRY GO were around during the third round of Battle Royale 2018 (which was quite small) I probably would've voted for them (as with every file above).

I love the variety with Merakit Perahu. Sonatine is also up there for managing to make a track with no drums at all work. I had fun with Color Pulse and Girl Front. LIBERTINE is good at what it's going for. Capitalism Cannon, I've seen the heavy chart but would never be able to perform it. XP Fortunately the Standard chart carries the juiciness in that one over just fine.

PM me if you want more feedback on your file.

VIP ROUND 1 RESULTS!

Posting as a Top 10 this time since points are a lot more important in the VIP Room

Capitalism Cannon [ohaiimian]: 25 Votes!!!
Up & Up [ledgam3r1279]: 24 Votes!!
Color Pulse [Gameoson]: 21 Votes! woomy!
Nebulosa [DigitalBasic]: 20 Votes
Merakit Perahu [vincentw]: 18 Votes & One +5
Girl Front / ODD Front [hooky]: 18 Votes & Zero +5's
Something New [DDRDAIKENKAI]: 16 Votes
RECLIMB [Daffa212162]: 15 Votes
LIBERTINE [tamtamino]: 14 Votes
The Blitz [CuzcoBlocko]: 12 Votes & Two +4's

Full results here

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On the serious note, I must say that my creative juice are pretty drained, so I'm sorry if the steps on the second half of the song are kinda lame.

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I'm not sure where I found the song but it's catchy.
My favourite chart here is the ; it's mostly instruments but there are vocal parts as well. The is essentially karaoke stepping, and , well... aside from having barely any vocals, all the corner jumps in are actually brackets. Could be fun, or not, depending on how much you like them.
If you have the time, please also consider !

Another song I had on the backburner that I decided to finish up. I was going to go with a boss song but seeing how Battleground did not do so hot in round 1, I thought going out on a more uplifting note than a hard one would be best. Anyway that will pretty much do it for me for this year's Summer Contest. It's been fun. Look forward to the next event coming sooner rather than later. :3

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That's funny, I did basically the opposite. I was going to go with another 9-footer (Misty Farewell, by t+pazolite - no prizes for guessing why this song) but then I ended up with a boss song instead. About a week ago I found out about this artcore song Camellia released as a free download... I couldn't help myself.

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I was trying to think hard about how to end this contest, but I had absolutely nothing. Luckily, I had started this one the day the song came out and it got no use in the contest. It's also the only Monstercat song I submitted this time around.

I think everyone is ending in a bang but I think I'll end it on a calmer note. This entire contest I've put out some higher difficulty stuff on average, so I'm taking a gamble by going Way Back to how I started charting in the first place some ten odd years ago.

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Let's wrap this up!


From the album Blue Lightning.

After I graduated from college, I ended up going to Los Angeles for an internship and to see what I could do creatively out there. Since I went to school in my hometown though, it was pretty much the farthest jump from home I'd ever done, even for vacations. It was...a big transition. And all on my own too. So I remember sitting on the plane before takeoff, thinking of all the stuff I was leaving behind and heading into...and after putting my too old iPod on shuffle, this is the first song that came up when we started rolling across the tarmac. I dunno, some things you just recall like that. Now I always think of this track when I'm moving forward into something new--it just feels right.

Anywho. Thanks for putting up with my mediocrity. I'm actually pretty happy with all the files I made here, more than other contests so far. So let's just keep going up from here!

(Oh, and Z-I-v Step Team will strike again after the last round...because why not)

yadda yadda streaming vip room r2 files soon lol see y'all in like 15

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Another song from the Driveclub soundtrack. I tried some new stuff which usually ends up in failure so I'm not holding my breath for a good turnout from this.

Nothing too out of the ordinary here. Just seeing how far I can go with all of these boss-level files I've been able to submit in quick succession.

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