[AC] StepManiaX produced by Kyle Ward

we just can't have nice things anymore

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that's good to hear

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Cute that they did that homage, I mean.

More on topic, what are some of the thoughts on chart flow? I'm hoping that stuff like left -> center -> right patterns aren't too common.

I share that sentiment. I think if this is as much of an "ITG3" as people think there won't be left/center/right patterns going on.

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I agree, I also hope left-center-right (or in reverse) doesn't show up often, especially on higher speeds. I can only imagine what that would be like if it was used as a transition pattern on Double mode. Pretty painful, I think.

I also wonder how confusing it is to read a chart at first if you're really used to 4-panel, with that center panel creating that gap between the up and down targets.

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No more confusing than it would be being a long time DDR player and then trying PIU for the first time.

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That is true. I think the really tiny distance between the center and all the other arrows would still make some patterns deceptive (especially on Double), even for those that have experience with both ITG and PIU.

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Won't know until we see, I guess. Hell, is Doubles actually a thing in this game even?

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I am going to hope and pray that it is. I don't really see a reason it wouldn't be, considering two players can play at once like all the usual arcade foot games we talk about.

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Eh, maybe the already-nut-crushing idea of left-center-right patterns are brutal enough without having two pads to work on thrown in the mix. Or maybe they'll leave it out for the sake of not being told that they're ripping off DDR every five seconds by people who live in 2003. I could take just having Singles in this game.

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Pretty sure at least 90℅ of the fan base can live with Single only, but then there's people who are simply curious about charts using two pads (myself included)

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There is support for doubles, but it's not enabled currently.

For those worrying about left-centrr-right patterns, I have yet to see a single instance of that. The closest you can get to that are fun sideways runs that go LCLRCRLC....etc

Good to know, thanks!

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Yes, thanks for letting us know!

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There is doubles play. I've seen doubles being played on a few of the short streams Kyle had.

I am not the biggest fan of the cab set up, so I'm hoping it's not the final build. This is on a REVO cab that's made for touch games like ReRAVE or even REFLEC BEAT if you want to set it up that way, not for dancing games. I'm sure they will fix the shaking screen issues or have a different cab made for StepManiaX when the game is released.

As for the song list, it's about what I expected. Some ITG3 stuff here, ReRAVE stuff there. The only thing I'm not a fan of is the arrow lanes being highlighted when you step on them. They seem more distracting than anything to me.

I still want to know if this is going to be a home set up only or if it's getting a legit arcade release?

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Yeah, I noticed that lane flare thing. I'm used to it because of IIDX but I'm not sure how I'll feel about that in a dance game. Regarding the song list, I like the ITG3, PIU, and ReRAVE stuff but I was hoping for more instrumentals like old-school DDR and ITG/ITG2. There's a lot of like...Eurodance-esque stuff with women singing which isn't bad but I suppose that's expected since it's a dance game and Kyle seems to be marketing it to a wider audience like gyms and such. From what I've seen in the streams, the music and steps appear to be pretty awesome.

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My understanding is that the machine's going to retain the touchscreen display, as that has been a design feature of the game the whole time. I really would like it if the machine had detached pads, though.

Detached pads? I'm curious, may I ask why?

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All three major dance games released have/had detached (that is, connected to the machine by cables in a plastic tube) pads. This allows the pads to be placed at a different distance from the machine, and I've heard complaints about the pads being too close to the machine. I don't mean pads that aren't attached to each other by a bracket; I've played on a DDR machine with a broken/disconnected double bracket and it's awful. I wasn't at Magfest so I haven't played StepManiax, but I've played Pump before on a machine with the pads right up next to it: it's not the best experience and pictures of the machine make it look like that.

In Kyle's preview videos, he and the other players were playing on a Revo with two pads connected to it via USB placed at a greater distance than the cabinet seems to have, which looked fine.

Ah, gotcha. Thanks

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