Question 1: What the goddamn hell is wrong with you?

Question 2: What happens if you don't catch a mine?

Question 3: Have you actually put any thought into how to make stepcharts work with this new silly mechanic, or would you just haphazardly shoehorn it in and just watch everyone go into the options and turn off "kaboom" mode (or failing that, play a different game)?

Seriously, mines are already a pretty dumb gimmick the way they're used most of the time. Even if new stepcharts for this idea allowed time/patterns to shift the catcher where it needs to be, all that really does is introduce invisible steps. You might not be judged on the timing like normal steps, but inevitably there will be one best way to shift the catcher correctly and maybe a few inefficient other ways per song. If that much thought is going to go into it, chances are you could just skip the dumb gimmick, make the pseudo-steps into actual steps that are part of the song.

However...


This doesn't give me much hope if this is your "fun" example. The actual logistics of this doesn't sound fun at all. You either do some weird double jump thing or force yourself to do a pair of fake triplets on a Solo layout.

Have you played Solo? That shit was awkward as fuck and there's a reason it didn't last. It wasn't well-planned, the way you had to turn and move was extremely uncomfortable, and there wasn't a whole lot that could be done with the two extra panels that wouldn't be better reworked into four-panel or dropped completely.

Sorry to dump buckets of shit on your parade here, but I really can't think of any way this game would be "fun" and "not a chore to play."

*laugh*

many, many things.



i was thinking about it being a health drop thing, although that goes a little contrary to my general philosophy that the idea of "health" in standard play of an arrowsmash game is unnecessary.  It could be something like a -2 DP drop too.



The second one, obviously.  i'm just an idea guy.  i don't have to actually think about logistics or practicality or anything.  seriously. 



I think any sort of thing that you add to the arrowstomping realm has the *potential* to be gimmicky, it just depends on how tastefully it's used or treated.  Mines definitely have their gimmicky nature, but there are times when i think they actually add a lot to the game - my favorite being HoTN hard and Disconnected Disco Hard where the mines were used more as a "visual clue" that you're supposed to do a foot switch on the empty beat to keep your flow going.  The mines in "I Think I Like That Sound" double expert similarly have more function than gimmick because of how they change what happens physically with the arrows you have to execute.

And of course i'm not averse to the use of mines as a

{visual pattern builder}

on occasion.

Although i hate hands for the most part, i think that they too can have some tasteful use in stepcharts if used sparingly (i feel they're ridiculously overused).

And rolls are just dumb.  *shrug*

but i digress.


I think that the idea of having a 'minecatcher' (or a something catcher in any case) can have its abuses as well, but i think it has some potential mainly because it adds a dimension to what happens outside of the context of "here's what's  happening right at the casings".  At present, the one thing all arrowstomping games have in common is that all of the "directives" you're given happen immediately.  When an arrow hits the casing, you hit it, when a mine hits the casing, avoid it, when a freeze trail ends, you can let go.  All "present time" sort of thinking.  That's why people can speed whore to their hearts content - they have the ability to isolate their play to look at one thing at a time and never need to look at the "bigger picture".

Adding this forces people to think of the bigger picture and maybe have to put some foresight/forethought into how they're going to step, and in a way that's of their own choosing.  And the fact that there may be a "most correct" way to do it doesn't necessarily detract from it.  It's kind of like when a harpist has to change their pedaling to match the new notes - for the most part, where they change their stops is dictated by how the music is written, but there are times when the change can happen within a span that's to their discretion, and they choose what is most comfortable to them.  I like the idea of adding that sort of element to a stepchart that is less "you must do this this way" and more "let me present you with some options."



i'll agree that Solo was ill-conceived, but i think that it *could* have worked if they knew what they were doing.  again, i think it's more a matter of the stepchart styles being broken, the charts generally being "this is really a 4 arrow chart with a couple of other arrows thrown in" without thinking idiomatically for all six arrows as a philosophy.

of course it didn't help either that each panel of Solo only had two sensors instead of four.



it's cool, man.  *laugh*  i don't think you know me well enough to understand that this idea (along with many others) wasn't supposed to be taken too seriously.  It has less to do with the actual Idea and more to do with the weird sort of thinking that occurs in my head.  I like reading books that are written out of chronological order (so long as they're done well), but some people can't wrap their head around the idea of time being in something other than a straight line.

I think that the idea could Work, but obviously it's wouldn't be for everyone, and that's fine.  It will never happen in real life anyway, it's just fun to speculate about, and to get reactions both positive and negative about it.

Didn't you have a dream about playing DDR inside a sphere with a gyroscope or something like that a few years ago?

This is actually a cool idea. Someone sit down with a C coder and do this in stepmania. You could do this. Don't listen to idiots like LynxWinters, he's just another dumb emo who bitches when something creative comes along.

i'm surprised you remember that.  i don't ever remember mentioning that to the general populace and yeah, that was quite a few years ago.

and yeah, it wasn't a dream, exactly, but it was one of those "something i thought about when i immediately woke up" sorts of things.  i was thinking about the afronova pattern being played on a sphere, and that turned into a similar sort of pattern that i created on an old old double edit for R5.

See, that's a perfect example of worthless crap, as cited in my most recently created thread.  Darknote's post was an example of worthless text, as cited in the same.  The difference is that his wasn't demeaning, harmful, or unamusing.  Yours was.  gb2/ITGFreak/

rofl dood you totally got me on that one

i am so emo my hair cuts itself

Hands are hideously uncomfortable in four-panel, but Pump used them well for the most part. The five-panel layout is a lot more natural for that sort of thing.


I see where you're coming from with this, and at first you're right. Players will have to think ahead to figure out where and how the best way of positioning the catcher is, whether that be the best way for the song or the best way for their playing style. The thing is, with no naturally random elements in the stepcharts, once that "best method" has been discovered it'll always be the best method and the whole thing is memorization all over again. The speed queens can bump right back up to arrows and mines flashing by at the speed of sound and shift the catcher around by memory instead of by looking ahead.

I'm not against the idea of a rhythm-based puzzle game you play with your feet, which is what your idea boils down to, I just don't think cramming it into a static set of patterns like DDR/ITG is the best solution. Yeah, there's shuffle, but that's a haphazard solution at best. Try to make the idea into something that stands on its own, not just a new option for an existing game that's ultimately not set up for it. Music games are based on the fact that each song is played the same each time. Different players may play the song in different ways but the notes are always the same default layout, options notwithstanding. This is the sort of idea that would probably work better with a more dynamic approach to gameplay than a static one.


It's not just that. Solo's layout of foot placement is really unnatural. DDR works alright, Pump tends to be a lot more comfortable even if it does end up taking more work and energy in the end, and there was a six-panel game that didn't last but had a hexagonal shape that worked alright, similar to Pump's half-double mode.

Solo's layout made a lot of potential step patterns unusable because of how feet would have to move and balance would shift. Imagine a 16th-note triplet of left, up-left, up or something similar as long as it rounds a corner, so to speak. It's not like you physically can't do it by alternating feet, but because of the close distance of the panels and the position you have to start and end such a pattern in, the actual application of those patterns is really limited and feels pretty forced. Other patterns would work better, but anything involving three consecutive panels from the two sides and around the front doesn't really work. That's five potential three-step patterns out the window in one fell swoop. Solo had issues.


It's not that it's overall a bad idea, just one that shouldn't be crammed into the already-defined play style of DDR. Dance games are hard enough to design well on their own. Take a look around the internet for failed games like Technomotion, 3DDX, or the slightly more successful EZ2Dancer. I could see the whole "hit notes while positioning a thing correctly while keeping a beat" deal working, since that's sort of what Frequency and Amplitude were. It would just be awkward as hell on your feet and no idea sounds all that great when presented as "it's just like this existing game, but WACKY OH MAN!"