DDR Step Charts: A Different View

So there's been a lot of discussion over the years about what makes a good chart and what makes a bad chart. For the most part, people just play a chart and decide what makes the chart good or bad. However, one of the aspects of a good chart I have found is how well the chart fits the music, but not in a way that you think...

Remember, DDR is supposed to be a "dance" game. Of course, it hardly resembles dancing, but when you don't use the bar and just having a fun, it's easily to start "grooving" or employing a bit more body movement than what's required. Your whole body gets into the beat and you really enjoy the song and chart combination.

Anyways, too many times to charts get judged solely on the rhythm portion of their chart and the body movement portion is ignored. Unfortunately, a custom sim will be said "this is amazing" while either employing terrible flow or no flow. Now by flow I do not mean the alternating of left and right feet. No, by flow I mean the entire body is forced to turn in such a way that it feels "right". That's a part that's hard to explain, but when I test a chart out, sometimes I will feel like I should move in a direction that I don't and then I feel disappointed when I face the same direction instead.

A quick example: If a chart has you turn left, right, left and.... stay facing left, it can throw you off as the song didn't change in melody, but the chart just stopped having you turn left and right without a reason to from the song!

At any rate, I'm not sure where to start, so I'll go with what's on my mind.

Chart Difficulty - This is a broad one but I'd like to discuss this. A lot of charters today equate difficulty with foot speed. Not just foot speed, but constant foot speed. Let's look at the grand father of all boss songs (Paranoia being the great grand father) - Max 300. This song had what it took to be a difficult song and is still considered today to be a milestone for up and coming players.

Intimidation Factor - As much as you may call it cheap, Max 300 had a level of intimidation with it that other songs never had: it was fast, it was hidden and it had a lot of steps. Max 300 at a 150BPM wouldn't be deemed nearly as "boss worthy", granted, the doubled BPM does work because the song IS fast and it's tribal style song. Before you ever hit play, you know this song is tough. I believe that brings with it a certain mental aspect with it that makes the song a bit tougher.

Waves of Challenge 'Voltage" - Max 300 goes in a pattern of "waves", or points of high energy/arrow density. The song isn't consistently hard through out, instead, it starts off by throwing an easy set of steps for the first few measures, then gives you a bout of 16 notes. Then it brings another easy stream of 8th notes followed by a spout of 16th notes. This pattern continues until it settles into a mild set of 16th triplets mixed in a stream. This method of easy - hard - easy- hard gives the player a chance to build up stamina/health and to tackle on the difficult portions as they come to you but giving you a "breather" in between each. The "hard" portions are essentially what make up the voltage in a chart's groove radar.

M 1 - 12: Easy
M13 - 16: Hard
M17 - 20 : Easy
M21 - 24: Hard
M25 - 28: Easy
M29 - 31: hard
M32: Easy

Notice, too, that with each "hard" section, it starts off facing the same direction, then steadily forces more movement until you're doing LDURDUL which causes a full "swing" from facing left to right and left again.

Steady Difficulty
Then the chart keeps the wave aspect coming, but shorts each "burst" and has more points of a "breather" (measure. So far the chart itself only goes to the rhythm a handful of times. The 16th triplet portions don't go to the melody at all, but they fit the intensity of the song.

M33: 16ths,
M34: 8ths
M35: 16ths
M36: 8ths
and so on

During this step, the body faces one direction for each full measure before it's forced to change direction. This provides less jerky movements and less stamina being drained.

Once we get to the section of all triplets (Measure 45), the body only changes direction during the transition of each 16th set. Then you're forced to change direction after each 16th set (Measure 49) then you're forced to change direction within each 16th set (Measure 51).

Measures 45 through 51 have increased the difficulty but the foot speed and rhythm haven't really changed. The only thing that's changed is the requirements for body movement, but at this point many people are starting to feel the burn. This is a great method of slowly increasing difficulty without forcing a complex rhythm. The player doesn't really noticed what the chart is doing, they just feel tired.

Rhythm Variation - This is a big one for me. At measure 57, the rhythm from the very beginning returns. Why not having the same rhythm found in measure 57 at the start of the song? Because one of the ways to shake things up is to have a different way of executing a rhythm found earlier in the song in a different way. If the same melody happens 3 times in a song, it's usually a poor idea to use the same chart all 3 times. One method that great charts use is to have a simpler version of the rhythm the first time, do the rhythm karaoke (exactly to the prominent melody) then do the rhythm to not-so apparent melody or just add steps that add to it.

Mini Boss[i] - Once again, thinking of each chart as a separate "level", you can see Measure 45 as a sort of "mini boss" before the "main boss" of the song. It's a section that's the toughest so far, but not the toughest in the game. Now we have jumps and a lot more notes. This section is designed to drain you of your life and stamina, but it doesn't go all out.

[i]Recovery - Max 300 doesn't do this, but I'll discuss a song later that does. One of the thing I've seen great charts do is provide a "recovery" method. Either a section that's easier to allow you to recover your health or recover your stamina. Max 300 provides approximately 2 measures of "reset" before it kicks back into gear. Sections like this can be crucial in tougher songs and are a welcome sight for many players.

Death Run - This section is what I call the "meat" of the boss. These last measures are the toughest part of the song and there's a natural progression in the song and the chart difficulty. It's called the "death run" because a lot of people will fail the song because of this particular section. Max 300's death run isn't as clear cut, but famous songs with obvious death runs include Paranoia Survivor Max Challenge, Pluto Relinquish and Valkyrie Dimension. Measures 74 through 81 have a lot more steps than we've seen before, but this section is relatively easy as it has you facing the same direction between each section of 16th notes. This is what I call the first "stage" of this boss. Remember how in many video games bosses go through "stages"? As you defeat one form they would take on a tougher form and it goes on and on until you defeat them? This is how I view charts as well.

Now on Measures 82 to 85, the chart gets simpler but each section requires the body to move between sections. Then the rhythm repeats and requires body movement in each section (85 to 89) then in measure 89 we got a longer stream. Finally at measure 90 we get a build up of each measure getting progressively harder than the last. A couple of 16ths and a few jumps, then then constant triplet sets of 16th and finally one final spazz out of 16th notes and finally one of the hardest sections to nail PA wise: 3 tap 12th notes. And done!

Most of the pre-SuperNOVA boss charts employed these methods and many people consider this the "golden age" of DDR charts.


Chart Flow

Now I want to talk about "chart flow". By chart flow I don't mean always the alternating of left and right feet, but a transition in footing that makes sense because of the song. This doesn't always mean alternating left and right feet but it normally does, but to me it mostly means it "fits the song".

Let's look at one of the most played charts in DDR history: Freckles. This song isn't played a lot just because it's a remake of the Rurouni Kenshin theme, the chart is really fun and fits the song very well.

Swaying - You might think silly of me, but I consider swaying the natural fluid alternating movement of the body. Ok, so for hardcore players, you may move stiff and minimize all body movement as much as possible, fine, but for the majority of players, they won't use the bar and are just having fun.

For Freckles, measures 6 through 9 (and it happens else where), we see a "sway" happening. For the first sentence "what am I going to do" we're facing to the left, for the next sentence we start to transition to the right, but when she goes "counting all these freckles in my life", we face to the right and do a forward motion which goes with her increase in quarter note pitch increase and ends with a jump on "life", a distinct ending to this lyric of the song.

After this, the singer stops singing and the notes stop. There is "dead space" in the song and the chart matches it. Nothing infuriates me more than a charter who refuses to allow a chart to go a few notes without an arrow even when there's nothing in the song that it would predominately go to.

Next we have what I can a "reversal". A "reversal" is a point in the chart where your flow direction stops adruptly and goes in the opposite direction. In measure 10, we put the left foot on the left arrow and swing the right foot over to hit the down arrow and your body will stop on the final left arrow. There's a slight bit of momentum at this point but you have to go against that momentum and push off with your left foot to swing your right foot up to hit the up arrow. Yes, most people at this point are going 'uh I just hit the arrows' Try this that very pattern: LDL UDR and you should feel what I'm saying, your shoulders might sway a bit doing so. Another example (and my favorite) is the UDR UDL pattern as it's more of a "swinging" motion so to speak.

This "reversing" direction is further used by having your body facing right before inserting a D+R jump. Most people will immediately face left to get this jump. At this speed, this kind of twisting is fine, but higher speeds it's rather uncomfortable. Anytime you go from facing one direction to jumping to face the opposite direction, you're forcing the player to quickly turn and at higher speeds this is difficult and just plain unfun.

Mirroring - One of the things many charts do is mirror a flow. Not a pattern, but a flow. For example: LDRDL and RDLDR. It mirrors the direction your facing, but the pattern itself is not mirrored (a mirrored pattern of LDRDL would be RULUR, but you're facing right either way). Notice that in many points in measures 14 to 20 you're facing the opposite direction you would be facing in measures 6 through 10.

Matching Mood - In measures 24 through 31, the chart switches to a more somber freeze with quarter notes. The freeze here goes with "oooooooo" in the vocals but the quarter notes denotes that this section still has a bit of energy to it. This is where I'm really big on having the body match the tone of the song. This section is obviously distinct and "quieter" than the rest of the song. After this section it picks up in energy as does the chart. Then when the chorus kicks in, the singer's voice gets higher in pitch and volume and the chart itself has more streams to reflect that. Another way to do this is the lower the BPM of a song during distinct "milder" sections like in Still in My Heart Momo Mix's slow down. There's no need to have the chart have the same intensity through out the entire song.

Freezes - This is another big one. Most of the time freezes are used to match a note that's being held in the song as well. One other thing that a freeze can be used for is to cause pivoting as the player must put pressure on one foot and swing the other foot over to the opposite arrow. Proper freeze use can be difficulty to master but keep in mind steps that will happen coming out of the freeze. If you're facing to the right with your left foot on the up arrow, you probably don't want the arrows coming after the freeze to be DLD as it requires the player to quickly swing into a crossover without any kind of transition which can be tricky and just not fun for many.

Notice here in Freckles, 24 through 31, the freeze arrows start off on the right foot and you're facing left. Then it swings you to face right with your left foot hitting the freeze arrows. It's important to note which foot his the freezes as the use of the same foot to hold/tap can cause one leg to wear out faster than the other and can be unfun for a lot of players.

One other thing is not using freezes all the time. Note in measure 35 during the word "love", the arrows do RDRDR as opposed to using a single freeze note. This part o accentuates the break in the music before the chorus more and creates a distinct section.

Chorus - For a lot of songs, the chorus is the "meat" of the song, where most of the energy. In Freckles this is no different and the chart reflects it. There are crossovers and a lot of alternating between turning left and right. Also notice that when the second part of the chorus happens, it sounds very much like the first and the chart is very similar to that, using the same rhythm and when the background singers sing "deep inside my heart", you're facing one direction for 4 notes before turning to the opposite direction, which is the same when the background singers sing "why aren't you around". Also at for both parts of this, the first lyric of the chorus ends with freezes, just like the 2nd lyric of the chorus.

Finally, the song ends with a lot less energy than the chorus had and the chart ends the same way.

Freckles illustrates how the flow of a chart matches the energy of the song. This is why I believe it's one of the most popular charts in DDR history.


I say all this to show that there's a lot more to a chart than the rhythm used. Each pattern possible in a chart forces a particular body movement. Once you start thinking about what moves a chart will make you perform, you start to think about charts in a different way. My best charts (Sunset ~Fading Glory~, Drive Away) weren't very hard at all but they made use of these techniques I talked about and they match the song.

Now I can't say that these methods will please all people who play, but I know that writing a step chart involves more than finding all the exploitable rhythms and possible sections for "fast foot speed".

@Daiz: Stops and speed-ups can also give some spices to a chart, whether to build the emotion of the song that is reflected in the chart, or to make the chart harder or trickier. How do you look the addition of them in a chart?

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As annoying as pauses/speed ups are, they are part of chart design and an "element" of the "level". Most of the time, once you've mastered a section with a speed up/pause, it's no longer an issue. "But I don't want to have to memorize a chart just to pass it." Guess what, you already have. When you see LDRDL you don't think "oh I have to move my left foot on the left arrow, then right foot on the down arrow. Oh and I guess i need to swing and face to the right." Garbage. You've done the patterns and movements enough that it's pretty much committed to muscle memory. Know what's coming in a song after you've played it several times. Try taking a chart you know very well in Stepmania and swap the lefts with rights or ups and downs and see how different the chart feels. Being able to time the notes is part of rhythms. Music players don't get upset because a song they are performing has pauses or speed changes in it, it's just part of how music works.

As for pause/speed up use, I think it can definitely go with the flow of the chart. Ecstacy is the one song that really had noticeable pauses in it. It required you to keep time without notes and was unique for its time. And it matches the song, the pauses happen during a dull moment in the chart. Obviously if the song stops suddenly, that's a good use of pauses. Pauses can also be used to separate parts of a chart to emphasize certain notes, such as Poseidon Kors K mix. I've noticed as well that when my foot lands on an arrow that's a pause, my whole body will pause (except when I'm trying to keep time by adding taps). It's a great way to have the player's body do something slightly different as a player will usually put more force on the step of a pause than they would if the pause wasn't there.

Slow downs can also represent breaks in a song. Paranoia Survivor does this very well with it's slow downs. Would the chart be any harder if the slow downs didn't exist? Probably not. Slow downs have the added difficulty of adjusting how you read a chart, but after you play it several times, you've memorized it and execute it without thinking about it.

Finally, speed ups can used to show higher intensity in a song. The Legend of Max's speed up may lack notes, but it occurs during the words "the fear". You see the chart speed up to 666 BPM, you're definitely going to fear it. It works very nicely.

Granted, all speed changes and pauses don't really work, but a lot of times they signify changes in the music. New Decade slows down during during the "beat boxing" showing sections when the music is less energetic and is more about a complicated rhythm. The steps during this time are less about stream and more about complicated rhythms and patterns. Once the song hits the high speed again, it results to fast movement and streams. If there are speed changes in a chart, the chart should have a different style too.

Finally roppongi evolved version D is commonly cited as being "hated" when it first came out here. Now that people know the speed up and the pauses, it's their favorite version. Each pause in the song happens on a strong note that's played with a bit more "umph" in the song. Once the speed up happens, the percussion, albeit a bit low, picks up and joins the melody, signifying more energy in the song and thus it speeds up. The chart also follows suit being being streamier with more 16th notes.

Two of the worst uses of speed changes, in my opinion, are in flow -true style- and Poseidon (original). The speed ups during these do not really signify a change in the music's mood or energy in the song. These are examples of how to not use speed changes.