DEEMO is a mobile rhythm game from 2013 that features beautiful piano music and became popular through the years. In 2019 a game titled DEEMO -Reborn- came out. This game is indeed a Deemo game but is not only a rhythm game but also a point and click adventure game. You can play it in a traditional way on Playstation, Switch or PC, or you can enjoy it in VR on PSVR or PCVR.
The game starts with an elegant black almost stick figure creature, named Deemo, playing the piano. Then we can see a bright light and a window opening above the piano. Little girl falls down from it and is caught by Deemo. From there on the little girl - Alice - tries to find a way home. Alice discovers that a tree grows when music is played on the piano. Meanwhile Alice walks around what seems to be a magical castle. There she finds sheet music Deemo can play to make the tree grow taller. In order to get sheet music, it often requires Alice to solve puzzles. She also discovers different clues about its inhabitants and everything seems strangely familiar. You get the feeling that something is really wrong about the whole place.
To advance in the game you will have to play different songs which is the rhythm game part of the game. Once you click on the piano to play, you will be taken to a new environment. Notes will scroll down to you and when they arrive to a target line you will have to use your hands (if in VR) to press an imaginary piano key below where the note lands on the target line. In TV mode you will play the game either on keyboard using S, D, F, J, K, L keys or Left, Up, Right, Square, Triangle, Circle on a controller. The keys cannot be rebound which may annoy some people who are already used to play 6-key mode using different keys (it's one key off from DJMAX default setting which turned out to be a problem for my hand). The D/K or Up/Triangle notes are black and the rest shows white. The songs in VR have 2 difficulties while there are 3 in TV mode (Easy, Normal, Hard).
While VR is not particularly great for this kind of play, the difficulty of songs seems to be balanced for VR play - there are VR charts and they are not difficult. The controls are a bit finnicky though because it is rather difficult to know when a hit registers (it also registers when the keys are hit from the bottom) and it is very easy to 'miss' by accidentally hitting the piano keys. Slide notes are ok to play in VR as you can just swipe with your hand in the correct direction. On the other hand the TV controls may be problematic for those that do not have prior rhythm game experience. While I find 6 keys to be enjoyable it may be confusing to new players. Slide notes are being confirmed by pressing and holding spacebar which does not feel particularly fun.
The adventure part of the game is very beautiful. The game is played from third person perspective. In VR this is rather odd (there are fixed camera angles) but it is still a very nice and rather unique experience. The environments are gorgeous especially in VR. The story is something each player should experience on their own so I won't tell you more. Note that the story is rather deep. The game is pretty much point and click puzzle game even though this is primarily how it is in VR since otherwise it was meant to be played on a (dualshock) controller (which I find rather difficult). Some puzzles are logical and some may require some trial and error or memory, and lastly one room has musical 'puzzles'. While these are no hardcore puzzles they are still enjoyable.
Verdict:
DEEMO -Reborn- is stunningly beautiful game with mysterious and sad atmosphere. Visuals are gorgeous and the music is beautiful and soothing. Alice's voice is a voice of a child lost and it adds a lot to the atmosphere and I'm glad it stayed in Japanese and wasn't dubbed. The story is rather deep and made me feel really uneasy. The puzzles were nice in design even though they weren't difficult, easy enough to be enjoyed without frustration. As for the rhythm game part. At first I struggled to hit the notes and I didn't understand why some notes are white and some are black. When I set the speed to 8x I finally managed to hit the notes correctly and could fully enjoy the music while happily stepping around and waving my hands to hit the notes. The song list is rather limited compared to the mobile version but there is still way more songs than I expected (over 60?).
I bought DEEMO -Reborn- for the rhythm game aspect but the good short story game mesmerized me. The rhythm game aspect is not that great but what can you do when you are trying to port a game from a mobile touch screen? I love the music though. I can recommend the game to everyone who enjoys a good story and puzzles and won't suffer on trying to play a casual rhythm game. I find it well done and beginner friendly (but I'm also a hardcore rhythm game player so my perspective may not be accurate).
Audio Trip is a VR rhythm game that focuses on dancing or cardio.
Audio Trip is similar to other rhythm games in terms of you needing to hit different types of notes as they come near you. There are regular notes that you can just touch. Those look like a 2d triangle. Then there are directional notes that you have to swipe in shown direction. The last type of note is a drum that you simply have to hit hard. Apart from these notes you need to hit there are also long notes that you need to follow. Obstacles are also part of the game and you need to avoid them with both your headset and your controllers which is something players from other rhythm games may not be used to.
Unlike other rhythm games this game doesn't show you any feedback while in-game. So you just hit a note and you either know you hit it or missed it. I personally do not have problem with it as I actually know if it was a good hit or not while playing but was certainly something I didn't expect. This though can make the player more immersed in the game.
The game is combo based when it comes to score but how do you actually get rated is a bit of a mystery to me. At the end of a song you can get 1 to 5 stars and you get percentage of how many notes you hit and how your accuracy was (you can also see where your controllers were hitting the notes). There is also a quote that is probably meant to encourage you but most of the time will do the exact opposite (or I am a really bad Audio Trip player).
The songlist, being rather short currently, features songs I'd put into 'pop' and EDM genre and it seems that it brings known and licensed songs (I never heard any of the songs but it seems people know the songs, unlike songs from other rhythm games). Each song has a short version and a long version and has 4 difficulties. Three are regular 'dance choreographies' (Beginner, Regular, Expert) while the last one named cardio is meant for cardio exercise. The songs are well charted and the way the notes are placed will make you dance if you follow them well. The cardio charts are done so you change movements and make you reach even further than the regular charts. They are designed in a way that you move in a given rhythm and you don't need to do anything too complex which would break the rhythm. While the cardio charts are less complex they still require a certain skill level to be played - not recommended for beginners.
As for a learning curve, this game may be the worst from the games I tried to play. I haven't played beginner levels so I cannot say how difficult these are to play for a beginner. There is a big difference between Regular and Expert though. All the songs on Regular have a similar level of difficulty and same goes to Expert which means there is not much that can help a player transition from one to another difficulty. I can imagine that players without much experience playing rhythm games may be stuck at one difficulty level for quite a long time.
The graphics is good and polished. Each song has a different environment that is animated. The notes look nice, there is an effect that leads your way from note to note and there are other visual effects that happen based on how well you do in the game. The animated environment is not distracting but is really nice to look at if you have the time while playing. The menu area could be more 'vibrant' but it's not bad.
What I have problems with is the UI. Apart from it not looking great and being rather confusing, it is pretty bad to operate it even for the low amount of content there is in the game currently. It is touch based UI which I don't think is the best option in VR. Since it is though in VR I'd welcome if it would allow us to be used the way we use our touch screens on tablets or smart phones. It was not meant for left-handed players.
The game allows for custom choreographies and custom songs but it feels like it's not easily accessible for players that don't like to try hard making something work. The community around this game is small even though very dedicated.
Verdict:
Audio Trip is a nicely done game visually and game mechanics wise with a focus on something that is rare - actual dance moves, movement that flow in general. It lacks in scoring, UI, quality of life features and mainly content - both official and community one. This is the main disadvantage of the game which makes its replayability lower and also makes pretty difficult to even stumble upon this game.
If you are someone who wants to play for accuracy you will probably find out quite soon that the game is quite forgiving and achieving high accuracy percentage is easy. This may turn you away from the game very soon.
If you are looking for a game that will make you move Audio Trip is the game to try out. It is the only game I played that actually made my core sore after playing the game. I'd also put it on a list of games that require you to use your legs. You will squat and you can move your legs to the beat. It forces you to move more than Synth Riders (Rhythm mode) or Beat Saber for example in terms of range of movement. The way songs are charted you can start dancing even if you have no dancing experience. The game features cardio difficulty which makes you work out even more (you don't need as much brain processing power for this mode and can focus on exercise).
I personally like this game very much and would recommend it to anyone who wants to move in VR in a way that makes them dance and enjoy the experience. The game though feels like a unfinished product - it is still in early access - and currently its replayability value is not as high if you are used to playing different songs. What we get to play though shows a lot of care and dedication and I hope this game can become one of the more known and played rhythm games.
A second Beat Saber Challenge started on January 1. I decided to participate and if possible finish the challenge. We were given a list of songs for each day. The difficulty and mods were up to us. This challenge contained song pack songs but there was an alternative for those that do not own them.
Since I played the first challenge when I just started playing Beat Saber it was an actual challenge to pass some of those songs on the difficulties I decided to play them on. I wrote a blog post about the first challenge and it includes playlist of the videos as well so you can see how I struggled with Beat Saber at the beginning. Struggling with my own body and Beat Saber was not the only thing though. I also struggled with many technical difficulties that I did not even solve during the 30 day challenge.
In between the challenges
When I started playing the game I used the Oculus version. When I wanted to stream though I had to use Steam version and I also needed SteamVR running so I could use LIV. As long as I played the original content I was happy and didn't think I'd need to change anything.
Streaming official content is something no one is interested in and people want to send requests. This is where JapanSB comes in. He provided me with mods for the game and requests for songs I could play. Mostly the songs I was asked to play were streamy songs that I'm really bad at. But one of the songs is one I decided to beat one day - Freedom Dive - and it took forever.
When I started playing custom songs things changed. When I got stuck at 7* songs I realized I can't progress not because of my ability but because of something wrong with my setup. The computer I use is good though. I asked for help and someone was so kind to tell me that I can run Steam games with -vrmode oculus. This wasn't the only thing needed to make Beat Saber running the way it should. I also had to change Nvidia settings even on the powerful graphics card I was using. Not using SteamVR meant I had to stop using LIV which turned out to be for the best because there are other software that are better when it comes to performance and also better when it comes to moving an avatar around. I lost the ability to stream in mixed reality but I didn't feel like showing my overweight self anyway. I switched to Virtual Motion Capture and Camera+ and found out that Beat Saber suddenly doesn't lag so much and that my swings that are on time hit the blocks I expected to hit. I suddenly gained like 1000pp without any kind of effort. When I finally reached the moment when my progress would actually require some effort I realized that I'd need to see myself play and decided to buy a webcam. The prices skyrocketed though due to the pandemic and it took a while before I got my hands on the camera.
When I got stuck at one point I was told that changing grip might help. Thanks to Reii I changed my grip and it helped me tremendously - it also means I probably became way worse at playing with the default grip. I also had to set an offset to the controllers so my swings would cut the blocks straight.
When I reached 7000pp I finally tried to understand how one should actually cut a block and I learned that I had no idea. I already knew that my accuracy is lower than of players around my rank and even those beneath it. I also knew that my left hand accuracy was better but I didn't know exactly why because I felt like swinging way less (turns out my left hand is more effecient). The fact is my swings pre- and post- swing are good. They usually reach over 69 and 29 values but it's the 'cut the middle' accuracy that's bad. I usually get 5 points for that and that's not much. Since then I tried to focus on getting better accuracy but it's not easy and I wondered if that's primarily because I just never cared about how to play Beat Saber properly. Nevertheless I managed to get it to 7-8 accuracy which showed up on my scores that went up by 2%.
That's pretty much where I am now. From someone who started on easy Expert and moved very slowly to someone who plays on Expert++ and sometimes moves way too fast for the tracking to work. I had no idea that one can develop such speed. I'm still having fun and wish to play more almost every day. And this is the one thing that changed over the time. I don't actually want to play everyday. While there is a lot of custom songs, many of them are not difficult enough for me to be interesting and I can't play the same songs over and over again.
New Year Challenge
After reading all this text you'll probably wonder why I'd want to participate in a challenge playing official songs. One of the reasons is that I wanted to see how much my play and my point of view changed on some of the songs (their maps). I also wanted to know what rank I could achieve by playing them. In order to be able to place high on the leaderboards I had to turn on Faster Song and Disappearing Arrows (since I can't read Ghost notes) and that is how I wanted to finish the challenge. Soon though I made my first exception. It was on Day 8 which featured the song Overkill. Not so long time ago I passed Ghost (when 1.12 was released) when it was chosen in the new multiplayer. When I tweeted about clearing all songs in Beat Saber on Expert+ I realized it was not entirely true because there are other modes that have songs on Expert+. I went back to the game and passed all 90 and 360 degrees songs on Expert+. Overkill is the song I thought I'd get stuck but in the end it wasn't the song that was the most difficult (it was Rattlesnake). While playing the song I realized that this map is way better than the regular Expert+, because it requires more movement, is more segmented and makes more sense. That's why I decided to feature it on Day 8 in this mode. I spent quite a while figuring out how to record it because I wasn't really sure how to record 360 maps. While thinking about it I also remembered that I have all the effects turned off and that maybe I could turn them back on - at least some - and see if OBS and these effects wouldn't kill my computer.
I turned all the effects on and I hoped that this would make it more interesting to watch the videos since they wouldn't all look the same. Since I turned these off at the very early stages of playing Beat Saber it was for the very first time I saw all the different platforms, note colors and dynamic lights. It also reminded me why I turned them off in the first place - they made me sick. Playing a Linkin Park song was the worst even though I admit I like the platform, colors and lights.
My ability to score went down a lot with these effects on and some colors of the blocks made me even fail songs - the BTS colors are very hard to read for me. I knew that the scores I'd be getting in future videos wouldn't be my best but I kept on writing down my rank for consistency.
Day 8 wasn't the only exception. I made few more and for different reasons. One being FitBeat Expert in 360 degrees mode because that song really deserves some love. It's well done and it's especially good in the 360 degrees mode. I wish there were more songs like that. The worst day of the whole challenge was day 26. I just couldn't force myself to finish (and pass) Bad Liar on Expert+, FS, DA. I tried but the song was so slow I was just missing notes for not being able to slow down or just wait for the notes to reach me. I rather upset and it was hard to stay focused and WAIT for the notes. After like 30 unsuccessful attempts I tried to figure out how else I could record the song. I tried playing sitting on the floor, lying on the floor, playing with my back to the notes (that didn't quite work out but I managed to hit some notes!), standing on one leg or standing on a ladder I had nearby to setup my camera. No matter what I did though changed the fact that the notes were scrolling at snail's speed and I eventually gave up. I recorded the alternative song which was fine even though I wasn't fan of the yellow and pink colored notes. When I uploaded the song to YouTube I realized that I could have just sped Bad Liar up in practice more. This way I could possibly bring it to a speed that would be comfortable. So I went back to Beat Saber and sped it up to 150% and recorded that. It was way better that way but I learned that it wasn't just the speed that annoyed me that much - it was also the map and rather odd angles at times. The following day I was supposed to play a Linkin Park song at like 120 BPM and I was like 'screw it' after two first misses because my sabers were just too early. It was too slow for me. Thankfully the alternative song was Cycle Hit which is a Camellia song (meaning a fast song). While I have played the custom version quite a lot I played this one just several times so I didn't really remember how the map looked like. I tried on Faster Song but there is one part at the beginning where I fail even though the rest of the song is just fine. When I realized that I was playing with Close on it actually surprised me. The last time I played this song I had a hard time keeping up. It's been a while since I played the song but still didn't expect this to happen - the song suddenly felt slow! I tried playing Ghost afterwards and not only I found it to be at comfortable speed, I also had zero problems with the beginning (my right hand is super bad at doing something like that). I was like 'What happened? Will I get to a level at which I'd consider Ghost easy?'.
Did I learn anything?
You could say that I couldn't learn anything by playing official maps and that might be true when it comes to my ability to cut blocks. But there were may other things that happened during that month. I had a Beat Saber crisis kind of. First things first though. What I observed first is that looking at the maps from a new perspective didn't change much. The songs I liked like Play or Warriors are still my favorite songs. The songs I didn't like I still dislike (looking at you Radioactive and Bad Liar). I also understand more why many good players complain about the Expert+ difficulties of the songs. Many of the charts simply do not flow and many contain patterns that are often pretty strange (Victorious), have odd angles (Epic) that are difficult to get good accuracy on or are simply boring (Radioactive). My level of acceptance of 'oddity' is higher than most, mostly also given by the fact that I like tech maps and I'm good at tech. Still there are maps I'd rather avoid even if I like the song (Angel Voices).
Participating in the challenge was good and might have something to do with the actual timing. I had a Beat Saber crisis during it. I'll be honest by day 11 I wanted to give up. Each day I'd launch Beat Saber and OBS and record that one song. In the beginning it took several attempts because I screwed something up either camera+, text, in-game settings or something went wrong (game froze, OBS crashed, base station fell from the windowsill, flatmate turning the lights off). Sometimes it was funny, sometimes it was infuriating. If a video features something wrong (like no sound or camera being off) it's because my patience to replay the song ran out. Thankfully mid-way it usually took one recording. I wondered why I was even recording the videos if no one would watch them? The answers was simple though - to record the progress and have a footage I could come back later to. The question led to a different one though which was more important. Why do I play Beat Saber? I thought I could use this game to lose some weight since I expected to get obsessed with it (didn't happen). I played a lot, had fun and was just slashing notes without much thinking. I needed something easy to do but something I'd also enjoy and something that would make me active and exercise. If you followed me during the first challenge you probably know that Beat Saber managed something else entirely - it gave me a purpose in life for a while. It gave me motivation to do something, to create. I was depressed and I couldn't even get up from bed or get something to eat but the game changed that. With the pandemic not ending though I started to feel a bit depressed again. Once again I wanted something easy to do that did not require any kind of concentration or effort. I looked elsewhere. I bought Synth Riders, Powerbeats VR, played some Pistol Whip, Sound Voltex, Jubeat and even tried Osu! Each game has its pros and cons and also different target audience. I played these games because I was looking for that kind of play that doesn't require much effort from me. On the other hand the games were intended for different target audiences. I could easily see that Synth Riders is in one camp while Sound Voltex is in another. I enjoyed Synth Riders when fooling around and streaming but it is clearly not a game for me. I enjoyed Sound Voltex because I love the complexity of the game while it is easy to time but I'd normally just prefer playing Beatmania IIDX. This is when I realized that Beat Saber became something more to me. The game grew on me. When I first started playing the game I didn't think it could give me something I was looking for in rhythm games. I simply didn't feel like it was there. The official content doesn't provide it but the core of the game is something that makes it possible. Thanks to the community around Beat Saber I was able to mod the game in a way that I like, I was able to play songs and maps I like, and I also found some real competition there. Thanks to Scoresaber I could join the international ranking and see how far I could get. I discovered the Czech community (or rather they approached me) and I found a rival taking me to the 19th place I am at currently. I wouldn't have liked the competitive aspect if the game didn't allow for it. The mechanics and scoring system of Beat Saber is solid, something that makes the game awesome. It makes it a very good casual game but one that can also be approached competitively. The game is very easy to play for beginners, the entry level is low but is hard to master at the ranked custom songs level.
The core mechanics are great and there is a lot of depth. Playing this challenge allowed me to see how good Beat Saber is in that regard and those are the main things that I look for when playing a game. Visuals and quality of life features are often secondary even though lately I have to admit I'd welcome Beat Saber having features that mods I use add.
In the near future I won't be able to continue playing this game and I don't know if I'll be able to pick it up later. I still have little time to get better and if possible participate in the first and (most probably the last) Beat Saber tournament. I hope I can enjoy it as best as I can.
Beat Saber now officially made it to the list of my favorite games. It was hard to admit this but here it goes. Beat Saber is one of my favorite games along with other rhythm games - Beatmania IIDX and Pump it Up.
I'd like to thank Beat Games for creating this awesome game, all the modders and mappers from the community, my rivals, werk for introducing me to the game and infinite.cz for providing me with hardware so I could play.
And finally here are the videos. If you are interested in watching them here they are. I created a playlist on Youtube and I'm sharing that one link, to see a specific day find it in the playlist. The description contains the current rank I have on the song on Steam leaderboards.
Synth Riders is a VR game. You'll be standing on a moving platform and colored orbs will be coming closer to you. You have colored orbs in your hands and a notes will come from further away to closer to you. When they reach you, you have to hit them with the corresponding colored orb. You have blue notes that you need to hit with a blue orb and magenta notes that you hit with the magenta orb. Then there are sections that you have to play with either of your hand (you start with one hand and have to finish with that hand, these parts are green by default) or you have to use both hands kept close to each other (gold parts). Apart from the single orb notes you have to hit there are 'rails'. Those are long notes and your hand has to follow them from start to finish.
The game has two modes - rhythm and force. Rhythm is accuracy based and judges you based on how close to the center of an orb you managed to hit it. Force mode judges you based on how much 'force' you used to hit an orb. The force has an indicator bar that fills up depending on how much force you used.
Synth Riders features different kinds of mods so you can use them to make the game more challenging or easier (for example smaller notes, higher note jump speed).
The game is combo based and you get a lot of points for rails and special sections.
Synth Riders is easy to learn but already requires more skill than Beat Saber at first. On the other hand Synth Riders doesn't get too complex later on (compared to Beat Saber) even though it requires more movement from the player.
As for graphics, the game is set into a retro-futuristic setting which creates a good ambience but is not necessarily something you can visually enjoy or consider stunning. Synth Riders may not have the best graphics out there but it works, is flashy enough to catch your eye and is primarily functional.
The songs are mostly synth wave or how to call it (electronic music). Something you'd expect from a sci-fi movie from 80s and it will certainly remind you of (original) Tron. Some of the song packs are really great and I enjoyed the Electro Swing ones a lot.
Maps are good (compared to Beat Saber officials). They are well done so there is a certain learning curve and that you have a lot of room to dance to the tunes. I haven't played on Easy or Normal but there is a difference between Hard, Expert and Master. The lower the difficulty to more straightforward the charts are and make you alternate your hands more while keeping your hands at their respective sides. On Expert the notes can be out of line so you might need to be crossing your arms and there are more patterns that you have to do with one hand. On Master you are required to do different kind of motion with each hand at times. You will also notice that the speed and density gets higher with each difficulty level.
There are quality of life options that can make the game playable (if you suffer from visual effects like me) and streamable. It has everything you need for streaming in game! For example it has in-game support of VRM avatars and camera views. Everything is set so the community can customize the game and add other custom content - songs, platforms, mods etc.
Verdict: Synth Riders is a rhythm game that in its default settings doesn't bring anything new and is rather lacking both in game mechanics and score system. The game though will bring you as much fun as you manage to get out of it - be it by actually dancing, using various mods to spice up the game or modes to enlarge the play area or be able to play in (up to) 360 degrees.
This means that if you don't want move to move you don't need to and this way you can find the game very boring. This is the kind of the game you need to be in flow with otherwise it won't give you anything. If you wish to get good at the game and excel you might also hit a ceiling quite fast because there simply isn't enough depth to the game and all it will come down is accuracy/force which is a very vague thing in this game. The game lacks clarity and feedback of other games which makes it difficult to try to get good.
The game features good music (even though it depends on your taste) and very well done maps. There are leaderboards for the songs. The game has a nice community and gets a lot of love from it. The community brings new content and there are always people around for multiplayer.
I see this game as a hit or miss because it's more about you than the game itself. If you can move around in a way you like and have fun than the game will be great for you. It's a good workout if you are someone who likes to move around a lot.
This is the rhythm game I would recommend beginners to try. Hitting the orbs seems to have oddly satisfying effect on people.
I was given the opportunity to use equipment from Infinite, a development and production studio from Prague specializing in virtual and augmented reality, who also has one of the biggest VR equipment fleets in Central Europe, including almost everything that is currently available on market.
Beat Saber is a Czech VR rhythm game. As the name suggests the player uses a virtual saber and uses it to cut flying blocks (beats) to the rhythm of the song played. Each beat has a color and direction and you need to use the saber of the correct color and cut the beat in the direction shown. The game has a very easy concept and (almost) anyone should be able to play it.
When the game came out I was well aware that I'd want to play it but I also didn't want to play it in public or at someone else's place. The reason being that VR makes me sick and usually after 20 minutes my heads starts to spin, I get dizzy and I have difficulty seeing what's in front of me. I can't walk straight at this point and it takes about 3 hours for this to go away. Since I've experienced this several times and I also get similarly sick when staring at something in 3d I simply wanted to avoid it.
First Session
One day a friend of my posted on Facebook that if anyone is bored and would like to try Beat Saber they are welcome to come and try it out. I decided to give it a try. I warned my friend that I might not be able to walk afterwards and afterwards I let him explain how the game works and what should I do.
I tried a song on Normal since I knew I could skip Easy for sure. I got an SS Full Combo so I decided to try the Hard difficulty. That was better. I struggled a bit with some patterns and I also had problems figuring out which hand holds the red or blue saber. When my brain finally understood that blue is right and red is left I tried some Expert songs. I managed to clear some. I even tried few Expert+ songs which I totally failed (even tried Max 300 which wasn't the best idea, the chart looked terrible.
When I got tired I went back to reality, I collapsed and spent the next half an hour in the corner of the room unable to move. Eventually I managed to get on my feet and after even more time I was able to more or less walk straight and manage to get home. At that time I thought that this Beat Saber session would be the last.
Second Session
Few months later, NX, another dear friend of mine, was doing a warehouse meet. What we do there is usually eat good food, talk and play games. Many people there were playing Beat Saber and I wanted to try. That day I didn't have the courage to do so, so I asked NX if I could come at another time and try it by myself.
My second session was mostly about playing Imagine Dragons pack which at the time I found rather boring - compared to the crazy songs I played on my first try. The charts I played seemed very similar and repetitive and since I'm not that much of a fan of Imagine Dragons I rated it quite low. (The charts I played the first time I played Beat Saber were really all over the place so I was surprised how similar the Imagine Dragons charts felt. Later though I found out that there are nice Expert and Expert+ charts. I played custom Hards which were more like Experts from this pack) I loved playing Beat Saber though. For some reason slashing those flying blocks to the rhythm of a music is extremely addictive. I felt like a wreck afterwards but it was totally worth it.
Quarantine Beat Saber
I read NX's post on Facebook that he is willing to lend his VR sets for the duration of the quarantine. I wanted to give Beat Saber another try and so I asked what's needed since I have no idea how such thing actually works. I learned that my computer is totally NOT VR ready. NX was so kind and let me use his computer. He even brought it himself and that's were my new Beat Saber adventure started.
Before being able to run Beat Saber I had to set everything up. NX brought me his powerful computer but I needed to connect a monitor to it. At first I used HDMI cable for it but since that had to be used by the VR set I had to find another way. The graphics card supported DVI but I had no DVI cable and my VGA/DVI thingy didn't work. Fortunately my flatmate came to the rescue, he got a DVI cable! After I plugged everything in I turned the computer on and then I realized that the game needs an internet connection. I was like...'ugh, I have no ethernet connection'. I looked at my BemaniPC currently using like 15 year old Wi-Fi adapter and hoped that it would actually work in Windows 10 since I only ever used it on my WinXP Embedded computer. To my surprise I didn't need to install anything, it just auto-installed and worked. I connected to our Wi-Fi router and asked my flatmate to add that computer's MAC address to the allowed connections. They were like 'What's the password?'. And I was like 'I don't know, you changed the password and I didn't get the new one'. So we had to reset everything and I was very happy entering a crazy password on all my devices. Finally NX's computer was connected to the internet. Oculus started to communicate with me and I it asked to be configured. The fun could begin because the space where I play is not VR ready either^_~ (the play area is according to Oculus a 70x60 rectangle). I hit ignore and confirmed all the warnings and just forced it to function. During the setup the batteries ran out and I wondered if we even had something like that. Thankfully we did. All this took me about 3 hours of time and I couldn't wait to play Beat Saber again.
I ran the game and I put the headset on. After I did it I realized it was a mistake because I'd have to blindly look for the controllers. Inubashiri came to the rescue and put them in my hands. I also had no idea where I stand and since the center set in oculus was not actually the place to stand I had to figure out how to get there without killing myself or destroying anything in the vicinity. I made few steps back and when I bumped into a heater I took a step forward. I stared at the Beat Saber warning screen for some time trying to figure out what to do to make the touch controllers work. After pressing some buttons the right one started to work and I clicked on OK or something and proceeded to the game.
I clicked through the song packs to see if I wouldn't find a song I'd know and Pop/Stars showed up. I spent the last few days playing DJMAX and the game starts with this song highlighted. So I decided to give it a try and later recorded a video of it.
The first day I was fooling around and playing on Hard and Expert to see if I can clear some songs. I could S songs on Hard and A songs on Expert with the exception of Camellia songs where I couldn't pass the hard difficulty. I was quite sad about it because I wanted to play his songs a lot. I'd have to wait few days until I'd be able to read better.
A week later I got a bit better, I could SS songs on Hard, S songs on Expert and I decided to give some Expert+ songs a try. I didn't do well on them so instead I started tinkering with the settings. At first what I wanted to achieve was higher scrolling speed but I didn't find that option anywhere. I noticed though that some options would give you a better score - that being faster song, disappearing arrows, ghost notes. I turned Faster Song and Disappearing Arrows on and tried that on normal. I got SS Full Combo but the score was way higher. I tried it with Hard difficulty as well and while I couldn't SS and full combo all songs my percentage was between 89.7 and 94.5 %. The score with these mods sent me to the top of the leaderboards.
The next day I decided to play all songs on Normal this way, followed on Hard and then clear all songs on Expert. There are two Expert songs that I didn't manage to clear as of the day I write this post (both are Camellia songs). After this I went back to Expert+ difficulty and after few days of playing on Faster Song and Disappearing Arrows I found out that my ability to play got actually better and I suddenly was clearing songs on Expert+. I recorded one of the easier songs I cleared because I was happy that I got better.
I wasn't sure how the reading ability affected my ability to play Beat Saber and didn't realize it until I started playing with the mods. The disappearing arrows or ghost notes made me read in a different way and made me more aware of the flow of the charts. This way I also realized that when playing Camellia songs and thinking that they were too fast for me I realized it was actually the other way round - I was the one who was too fast. After slowing down I finally hit the correct amount of notes and all was good. I also had to get used to diagonal notes because those either require me to move faster or tilt my body so I could cut them in the same manner as I cut the ones that are vertical/horizontal.
One more thing I realized is that my grip is not great. I think that on day 1 I managed to accidentally throw away the controller (nothing happened to it). From then on I was tightening the string more so it wouldn't fly away again. Anyway when playing more streamy songs (see Camellia songs) I realized that I need more control over the controller but didn't really figure out how to grasp it more securely.
After playing Expert+ songs and Expert songs with Faster Song on I needed a break and decided to see what the Campaign is about. At first it seemed like a tutorial. In the campaign you will be told how the scoring works (how to correctly cut the notes), you will also learn about different mods and score multipliers and that there is the possibility to play with one saber.
There are 31 missions, some have letters, like 16a and 16b so there's actually more of them. They start on Easy and the last ones are on Expert. The missions have conditions that need to be met. It can be a minimum score, maximum/minimum number of misses, bad cuts, combo, distance 'slashed' etc. The easiest missions were the score ones for me. The missions I replayed were the minimum misses/bad cut ones. I usually didn't realize that I was supposed to be missing some notes!
So that sums up the past two weeks of me playing Beat Saber. I burned 1000 calories per session (I burn twice as much playing Dance Dance Revolution). Garmin Connect shows 576 Intensity minutes of workout per week by just playing Beat Saber. I was hoping that playing Beat Saber could help me lose some weight. I am not sure how much and for how long I'd have to play but so far it doesn't seem to have any effect on my weight (I gained weight). The quarantine will last few more weeks probably so I'll continue playing and see what future will bring. It certainly would be nice to lose weight by playing games I like.
There is still some room for improvement on the official songs but I'm pretty well set for playing custom songs. I do not want to fiddle with the game or computer since neither is mine though so I'll stick with the original content and see if it will still be fun for me in two weeks time. Currently I like Beat Saber so much that I'd consider buying a VR headset. Unfortunately I do not own a VR Ready computer and I don't even have the money for either. Due to the quarantine I do not have any income and even the one I had before is not good enough to pay the bills. If I will get my hands on a VR Set though one day, I'll certainly wade in custom songs.
I would like to thank NX again for this great opportunity to play Beat Saber. If you, my fellow readers, never tried Beat Saber give it a try. Be it at arcades or home, the game is totally worth it.
Thank you for reading,
S'Tsung (stsungjp on Twitter)
In April, during quarantine, Infinite.cz was so kind and provided me with Oculus Rift. My intention was to use it to play Beat Saber - a rhythm game I longed to play since like forever. I was still recovering from the corona virus at the time but starting the second week in April I was able to start physical activity and that also meant playing Beat Saber for real. While trying to find some information about Beat Saber I landed on Beat Saber's twitter account finding out about a 30 Day Challenge that just started. I wanted to participate and didn't want to post it publicly but on day 3 I decided that maybe I could actually do it because it would keep me committed.
Since I didn't make majority of the videos public on YouTube I decided to create this post with all the videos.
This challenge was actually way more beneficial for me than I expected in all kinds of ways. Since I just started playing Beat Saber you should be able to see some progress. I started playing on Expert so maybe the progress may not be that obvious in my videos. On day 1 I did not expect to pass any song on Expert+. On day 3 I passed 7 different songs on Expert+ thinking that passing any Camellia song on Expert won't ever happen. A week later I had B grade or higher on all the songs but GHOST and Cycle Hit. There is still a lot of room for improvement and I plan on passing all Camellia songs on Expert+ one day.
The challenges also made me discover One Saber Mode. Unlimited Power on Day 2 was quite painful for me. Not only because I struggled with that particular song on any difficulty but also because that strain on my arms was too much. Even though I play other games with my hands/arms I wasn't used for that kind of motion range. It also made me realize that knowing the right trajectory for the sabers to hit notes properly is more important than I initially thought. Thanks to that I learned how to stream which was the primary reason why I was failing Camellia songs.
When trying to Full Combo songs I had to pay more attention to when and how I hit the notes. There were notes I was pretty much missing all the time and this forced me to analyze why and change my play style accordingly. Now I don't have problems with the notes that fly somewhere above my head.
Those are just examples of what I managed to learn or realize and I doubt I would have discovered that without doing this 30 Day Challenge.
Since I was streaming and uploading at least one video per day and I wanted the videos to be watchable and not making other people motion sick. That's how I ended up playing around with avatars and mixed reality capture. I used LIV for both and thanks to Infinite.cz again, I was able to get my hands on Kinect camera. I didn't manage to calibrate the camera the way I wanted but considering my play area the result was actually good. As for avatars, I got curious about how to create an avatar and how to import it into mixed reality recording. I learned about VRoid Studio and installed Blender for modelling and Unity for creating a game object and I'm considering creating more 3d content in the near future. I created an avatar for me and my flatmate and I have to say that I am glad I did this. This 30 day challenge gave me something to do and I wanted to do it. For years I've been depressed and not having the motivation to do anything. Not even playing games I liked and this changed that.
Thank you Beat Games Studio for Beat Saber and this challenge. For that one month I found the will to live because there was something I was looking forward to and everything became easier because of that and I hope it will stay that way. That I alone will be able to find more challenges for myself and keep me busy and keep depression at bay.
Here are the 30 videos I recorded. I'm not proud of some but completing this challenge felt rewarding.
Long time ago someone added me to a Czech and Slovak gaming group on Facebook. It's like 70% toxicity and 30% of an actual content of varied quality so I don't usually check it that often. Today though I saw someone playing some crazy chord jack-y song on what seemed to be a Stepmania 5 build. In the zillion of comments underneath I found out that the game is named 'Etterna'. I searched for it and found the Etterna Online website.
Here you can download a SM5 Etterna build, create a profile on the website and gain access to many song packs including 'normal' and keyboard charts. Then you just play, your scores are saved on the server and you can check your standing in the leaderboards. Well, you get the idea.
At first I just downloaded old song packs that we used to play at conventions but then I thought why not give the Etterna ranking a try. I downloaded more song packs, mostly those that had anything BEMANI in the name, and tried some songs. At first I got totally lost on my dance pad and I was unable to sync. There was also something that bugged me but I couldn't quite figure out what it was. It was also making my accuracy go haywire. During this time I recorded some songs via OBS because I thought I'd share few songs so people could see that you can use legs to play 4 panel. Just after that I gave Etterna a bit more thought. I started to look for cell noteskin and after copying to the game I realized what was throwing me off - the note hit animation. The default noteskin in Etterna might actually have some animation but it's almost unnoticeable. Also the colors of that noteskin were messing with my head. When I saw a note that was supposed to be purple it was green! So glad I changed the noteskin. I set my settings to C730, mini 50%, Distant and all was fine. More or less. I'd appreciate a higher speed mod but unfortunately my monitor didn't seem to like higher speed than that.
Anyway here's the video I recorded using my iphone and OBS. Unfortunately I can't seem to figure out how to get record a good video
After playing probably way too much than my body could handle I decided to see if I could possibly play on the keyboard. I just tried the same settings I had for normal play and upped the speed to 750 BPM. I could read the charts more or less but my fingers were kind of puzzled about what to do when seeing certain patterns. I practically failed some tens. Ok, I didn't fail them but my score was around 60% which was unacceptable. I can get way higher score with my legs!
After few more failed attempts at trying to play on the keyboard I realized that I could possibly be playing Beatmania IIDX and clearing tens with 60% instead of this. I didn't switch to IIDX but went back to the noteskins. I downloaded IIDX Empress noteskin and put in my noteskin folder. I set Reverse, Overhead and hit enter on the same song I played before. Suddenly my score went into 90.xx! I struggled with the noteskin a bit for a while and it took me few songs to figure out where the problem was. I was in Perfect window rather than in Marvelous one. I realized that the red target line is not actually where one should be confirming the notes but rather below it on the key graphic. But otherwise I realized that with these settings I can be better at clearing songs on a keyboard. Nonetheless, my legs are still better at accuracy and speed. Here's a video of me playing Destiny, a 10 (not sure what the difficulty is)? The SDVX Station I pack is awesome.
After playing more songs requiring me to do hell a lot of jacks I decided to hook up my SVSE5 controller and try playing 4 panel on it. This time around the game itself started lagging so it even became difficult to record. But when not having OBS recording my game session the client runs fine and I could play eve harder songs than on keyboard.
In February a very rare event named Rhythm Fest was taking place in Zoetermeer at NVGM. It was as the name suggests a rhythm gaming event that featured many rhythm games and tournaments. Until recently I was struggling with my health. By an accident the cause why I was feeling so bad was found and treatment was started. Since then I started feeling better and that is why I really looked forward to this event which would be the first event during which I wouldn't be affected by my condition that much. I couldn't miss it! I was looking forward to finally get out of the country and have fun somewhere playing games, meeting new people, and talking to my friends.
My original plan was to fly to Eindhoven and from there go to Nootdorp where I'd be staying. I had to switch airports though so the plane took me to Amsterdam. In Eindhoven, there is Gamestate that has Dance Dance Revolution A. I wanted to play some DDR there but that will have to wait for next time. In Amsterdam there is also a Gamestate with DDR A so I decided to go there. A dear friend of mine joined me even though he didn't feel that great and I'm thankful that he came to join me. We could briefly talk and I hope he had some fun in the arcades while I was stomping on arrows.
Gamestate Amsterdam
Gamestate is mainly ticket machine arcades but they also have a dance machine at various locations. It's really great that there is more locations with dance machines and that the community can grow. Not sure about if there are any new DDR players but for the Pump community it was very helpful. We arrived to Bijlmer ArenA and went to grab something to eat. We stopped by Burger King and tried to eat our meals outside. It was so windy that it made even our fries fly!
After that we headed to Gamestate where I charged my card with a lot of euros (it's 2 EUR per 2 songs) and went to find the DDR A machine. I saw some players stepping on arrows during tutorial and wondered if they'd even get to play some songs. They did. I watched them finish and then they let me play. I hoped I wouldn't fail any song.
I saw the machine in local mode so I didn't need my eamusement pass which also meant I wouldn't be able to play the songs I wanted. My first song was Polovtsian Dances And Chorus which is an easy 11, coming from game I enjoyed, and a song that has a steady rhythm which I could try to sync to. I have to say that my first attempt at syncing with the machine was a failure. I stared at an AA with a disbelief. I tried another song and stared at another three digit greats.
Then I picked Mermaid Girl. I seriously struggle with timing on that song in IIDX but thanks to trying hard to AAA it I can sync to it quite well. I got the worst AAA you could get and I finally understood that I'm too early. I miss my slow/fast and dark mode settings. After that I played all kinds of songs and for someone who was rather dehydrated I did quite a good job at some songs. The machine was great. The cab looks nice, the pads were VERY sensitive and in overall I had a great time playing DDR.
After some time we had to leave so I could check in to my airbnb. We took the train to Den Haag. I then went to Laan van NOI and took the metro to Nootdorp (it wasn't necessary but oh well, we didn't take the best route to Den Haag either and at least we could talk more). When I got off the metro it was a raging storm outside. I had to walk 2km in that and I have to say that I was totally soaked when I arrived to the airbnb.
The place I was staying at was quite big and very clean. I got an allergic reaction when I entered though and I wasn't sure why that happened. Later I found out why it happened, there was a cat!
I asked the host about some grocery stores and directions and he told me how to get there and also told me to wait till the rain stops. I didn't expect the rain to stop but it actually did after few hours. I tried to find the store but failed. I still managed to grab something to eat and then wondered if I'd fall asleep.
I still had few hours of time before my body would want to sleep so I continued reading Assassin's Creed novel (I don't recommend it). Then I tried falling asleep. I fell asleep at like 4 am and I got up at 9am so I could grab something to eat before we would leave for NVGM with Thumbsy and Noodle. I took a walk around the area and took some pictures, the omnipresent wind was starting to irritate me but then it was time to leave.
Rhythm Fest
At Rhythm Fest I wanted to try out new games, talk to some players and participate in events that were held during the event. I signed up for ITG Doubles, Pump it Up Heavy, Jubeat, Sound Voltex, Beatmania IIDX and Pop'n Music.
Jubeat Festo
I didn't play a single credit of Jubeat before entering the event which was a mistake and I have to say I failed very badly. I showed that I excelled at Good attack and most probably ended up last. I was pretty depressed after that but thanks to Penda who told me I was early I managed to sync after the event and actually enjoyed playing Jubeat. One of the biggest mistakes was not bringing headphones with me because the first time I heard the songs I played was when watching the stream after I arrived home. Here is a video of me trying to play a song I never played before and I didn't hear anything from the machine.
Beatmania IIDX
When I arrived to Rhythm Fest the first game I played was Beatmania IIDX Sirius. I totally failed with all Goods, but then we played Sayonara Heaven with Nebbii, who even asked me if I don't want to play the six instead of the 8. I cleared that one though after listening to Nebbii's hits and realizing it's like half a second off. Then it was time for me to say Beatmania IIDX Rootage hello, so I went upstairs and immediately fell in love with that cab. I logged in and wondered how much messing up with the settings would await me. I set something up during the two songs I played and it seemed fine. So I decided to give some dan courses as try. I tried THE SAFARI and utterly failed. I got to a point where I needed to just survive one measure in order to finish the course but I didn't get past the measure and sadly died. Someone next to me was like 'oh, yeah, that's Safari'. When he saw the course result screen he was like 'oh, you played 7th dan? That was a very good attempt!'. That felt great.
I had to try out doubles on the machine too. I decided to play a dan course right away which was a mistake since I didn't set my settings for doubles. I certainly made the course way more difficult than it already was. I was also pretty rusty but surprisingly I somehow made it through. Someone should have given me a prize for clearing the course with the lowest percentage ever.
The tournament took place right before and during dinner time. I was very exhausted and hungry when I played my first round. The song picked was Playing with Fire. Supposedly an 9. I don't usually have problems with 9s but I got a C. In the following round we were supposed to play Xlø. When I saw the clear rate I knew that I'd most probably just fail the song. And that's exactly what happened, I even just hit the white key to get rid of the result screen (good thing that I have all the stats showed up during play). I thought I was eliminated from the event and went to eat dinner where I briefly talked with the organizer of the event and also had the opportunity to see others who were helping run the event. A IIDX player came to me then to tell me that it's my time to play my round and that is how I discovered that it was a double elimination event. I was up against Jacky whom I saw play some BEMANI games before and assessed his skill as 'good'. He's a 6th dan in IIDX. It was him who played first, the song picked was Yum Yum Jelly. He got a nice A or at least it seemed good to me. After my two Cs that I got I didn't believe I could do any better. When I was nearing the end of the song I heard someone say, it's gonna be close. I didn't know Jacky's EX score but mine was showing something around 1100 which was high for me. I tried to concentrate as much as I could and hit the last note with Just Great. Then I looked at the result screen and saw Jacky's -1. I won somehow!
My join was short lived because my next opponent was Penda who'd just beat me no matter the song or difficulty. We played dAuntl3ss and I got a nice B. Considering it was a ten that I played for the first time it wasn't bad. Penda just single-handedly AAed it.
The event was really fun. I got to see Penda, T_Bone, Nebbii play and that was great. Meeting T_Bone after a decade was also something I didn't expect and it was a really nice surprise. It also showed the difference between old school players and the new players. IIDX event was a success for me even though I didn't win anything and started pretty badly.
In The Groove
Since I'm in a pretty bad shape playing anything but doubles was pretty much impossible for me. I didn't do well in ITG but I enjoyed the songs I played. The first song I played was with Nebbii who casually chose a 15 on reverse to warm up. I played for a while before the song started to get streamy and then later went to play on a different cab. I was looking for some easy songs but it seemed I could choose between difficulties 10 to 20. I picked some Stamina 10 and hoped it would somehow warm me up and prepare me for Pump it Up Heavy that was starting earlier than ITG event. I somehow made it through the song without dying and played few more songs while figuring out what my settings could possibly be. 630, 30% mini, cell seemed readable.
I tried playing some doubles on yet another machine, but it was powdered and I almost fell off the platform. I came back to the machine I played on but the pads were also super sensitive and I wasn't sure if playing the event on a dedicab would be a good idea. I still could play on a SD cab though. I picked that cab to play my tournament songs on and luckily that also meant my failures weren't seen on the stream. For doubles I expected to clear an 11 but somehow I failed a 10 without even noticing it. That made me feel very bad and I just didn't want to play any more dance games. I played my four songs and enjoyed the charts which weren't bad and were quite fun to play. Nonetheless, I have to say that I'm lacking in the ITG department quite a lot. There are new kinds of charts and my legs don't know what to do with them. At the Eurocup two years ago I had to brute force the songs sometimes jumping on one leg. This amused the players watching me and it also showed me that a lot has changed the decade I was on hiatus.
Pump it Up
PIU machines were running StepF2 and featured even XX songs. I also picked the worst looking cab to play on and it actually felt great playing on it. At least for me. It was as sensitive and the panels were more recessed which I prefer than having a really flat platform. The PIU players were good and I knew that my performance would be bad but I didn't expect that it would be that bad. The songs I got to play were two 17s, both of which weren't particularly difficult but my stamina was nowhere to be found when I needed it. I enjoyed both charts and songs but got eliminated immediately.
The players that I got the opportunity to see play were really good and I wished I could be my old self that could play 24s all day.
Pop'n Music
Pop'n Music is the only game I didn't really bother playing much before Rhythm Fest nor during it. I knew though I'd have to set my settings before the event starts because I'm a strange person and play with beat-pop and sudden. So I played one credit on non-Animelo cab and found out the blue buttons were sticky and that made me fail the songs I played. My timing was terribly off and I had no idea which speed would be good for me. When the event started I found out the song level starts at 30 so I knew I'd have some time to adjust on the easier difficulties. Penda seeing me play told me I'd probably make it to the semi-finals and he was right. I made it there and even got to the finals where I got terribly crushed by Nebbii. The song picks were good for both semis and finals. I got to replay Zirkfield which was one of the songs I played on my first play. I won the match even though I failed the song again. Got a better grade and score though.
We played the finals in Taisen mode which was a nice experience. We played Diavolo, カラルの月 and StrayedCatz. I got Bs on all songs while Nebbii AAed Diavolo and Aed Kareru no Tsuki. The final song is one of the 44s I actually managed to clear but Nebbii had already like 50k head start. If he'd just mash some buttons he'd win. While thinking that and setting my speed to something else than 1200 BPM that it showed me I noticed Nebbii staring at the settings screen with OK on it. My thought about him mindlessly hitting buttons could possibly come true. Nebbii accidentally confirmed the settings from the previous song and unfortunately he actually tried to play the song normally. That resulted in a very rare result screen where Nebbii wasn't the winner.
For me Nebbii was the winner already, so he didn't need to replay the song but he decided to played it. To make things interesting instead of playing the 44 he played the 49. I knew it was very unlikely he'd get less than 40k in order for me to be the winner but I didn't expect him to A the song so easily^_~. He got 85419 on the 49, a score I could dream even on the 44.
We got our prizes then and even got a photo of the three of us and our host.
Sound Voltex
SDVX is the event I was looking forward the most and it ended up to be the worst one. Since day 1 it was very difficult to even get a game of SDVX and then I spectacularly failed a 14 on my first stage. That was very depressing. I had no idea why and how. I knew it was because of wrong settings but I couldn't figure out what was right. After several failed 1st and 2nd stages in a similar fashion I set my speed to 630 (TOO SLOW actually) and -6 offset. With these settings I managed not to fail any of my 3 stages and cleared even a 17.
After that I though everything is fine and I'd be able to play and see some normal scores for me. Something went wrong though (probably the fact that I used my hands all day in a way they aren't used to) and I didn't have the strength to even grab the knob and turn it in any direction. I was in a terrible pain and the songs we played were quite laser heavy. Since there were two cabs (thanks Dexx and Viddy) we could be matched. I got matched with a nice player but one who was just somehow breaking into 14s. Even though I won against him my scores were atrocious and I walked away in shame. I wanted to participate in the heavy SDVX division at first but after my hands getting cramped on song number 1 I just decided to give up and play something else that doesn't require using knobs.
Nostalgia
Nostalgia is a game I wanted to try one day and I had no idea I'd get the chance to. After logging in I was shown where to find what and a tutorial. I was a bit perplex from the options but then I got to play a song and I had quite mixed feelings about it. I was able to hit the notes somehow and always clear a song. I just played songs up to difficulty 10 but I didn't really see any difference between the difficulty levels. I was just too confused about the whole game play. It was nothing like Keyboardmania where one played the melody and had to hit the correct notes on a real two octave keyboard. I left the cab thinking I'd never return to it again but in the end I gave it another chance. I opened options once again and this time set different perspective (overhead), speed to 3x, and moved the piano bar as low as I could. After that I finally started to feel like I was in control of the game. I was hitting the correct notes at correct time and I finally felt some kind of feedback when I missed. Thanks to this I also started to listen to the music more and realized that the songs are also keysounded and that what I hear is actually what I was supposed to hear. That honestly felt great and I enjoyed playing the game for an hour or so.
I was surprised when some people came to me to tell me that I'm good at the game. I felt like a total noob (my scores weren't good at all) but then they remarked that I can play different rhythms in each hand and I can also hit singleton notes with single fingers unlike many other players I observed just mashing the keys somehow (I though that was very inefficient way to play, and I also played Keyboardmania just before playing Nostalgia)
Even though I prefer Chunithm I have to admit that Nostalgia is not a bad game.
Groove Coaster
If you follow me on Twitter you probably noticed that I play Groove Coaster for PC. I like the game on PC but I never played the arcade version because I was too afraid to try. I walked around GC cabs many times but never gathered the courage to play. This time I finally had to try. I bought a Nesica card and went to try my first song. I played イニシャルイニシャルエコーエゴー on HARD because I felt confident enough to pass an 8 on HARD on something I never laid hands before. It was a success. I missed a note in the -| looking part and got an A. I tried Love for You next and Aed it as well. I was still struggling with the boosters so I didn't get no miss on it...
I didn't concentrate on hitting the booster buttons at the right time because my hands were figuring out what I was supposed to do with them. When I tried to see if I can get a Great when I want to, to my surprise I got Great! When I felt off I also got a Cool or Good and I knew exactly what the judgment would be unlike on the PC version where I have the impression that I'd need a different offset for each song. I found out that the scores I got were actually comparable to the ones I got on PC and I also realized that not playing the AC version originally taught me some bad habits. I had to quickly reevaluate how I'd play some patterns. On the other hand critical hits weren't such a nightmare for me anymore and playing even harder songs in AC was not as bad as I imagined it to be. It actually felt easier to spam hits on AC than my keyboard. Flying dual slides where a problem on AC version too.
After finding out how enjoyable it is to play the AC version I spent a lot of time playing the game. I played some multiplayer with Aiko which was a nice experience too. Seeing Yume and his avatar fighting who'd be in the lead was kinda fun. You could see that my Yume was falling behind when I was encountering too many critical hits but otherwise she was in the lead.
MaiMai
The washing machine game! After waiting in a line for ages I got to play the game and I got hooked very fast. The game can be picked up very easily (similarly like Groove Coaster) and is actually lots of fun. It seemed that the ideal level as a starting difficulty was ADV 7. I don't really have much to say except that the game was very fun. I burned my fingers when sliding on the screen so I can imagine gloves are a good thing. The buttons were often covered in sweat which is also something I wasn't fond of.
I'd want to write more but I think I already wrote way too much text and will stop here. The event was well organized, we were well informed and I can imagine that it took a lot of effort and hell a lot of work to organize the event. I am very glad I participated and I'd love to attend another event like this. Thanks to all people involved in organizing and NVGM for hosting and their support. Thanks!
Gamestate Den Haag
On Monday after I managed to get up I wanted to get something to eat in Den Haag and go play some Pump if my legs would cooperate. I was exhausted from the whole event and I wasn't sure if playing more dance games would be even possible. I asked Thumbsy if he knows some good places to eat around GS and I was recommended Full Moon. Since I went there several times already I found the place without a problem. I had no idea where Gamestate is though, but then I somehow remembered that it could be seen from McDonalds which I could find on my own. I went to McDonalds and from there I saw Gamestate right in front of me. I just had to cross a construction area.
After hopping from panel to panel so I would end up in mud I got inside Gamestate. I charged my card with 20 EURs and wondered if I'd meet any PIU players there.
I found the machine upstairs. Some players were playing on it but they weren't logged in so probably not regulars. After waving my card in front of the card scanner for a while it finally loaded my profile and I could play some songs. I was a bit confused about the XX menu since Prime introduced a two level menu and XX went back to one level. I had no idea where to find what song so I just picked some songs that seemed passable for me. During my first song I realized how HUGE the screen is. All I practically saw was the screen which was quite a strange feeling. I'm used to seeing quite a lot of space around a screen and stare at rather small notes but this was HUGE. This also messed my reading ability so I had to set the scrolling speed to something lower. 573 seemed fine.
My performance wasn't great but considering that I didn't expect to be able to walk that day it was probably good for my condition. I couldn't clear a 17 even though I was close. Still there were many songs I never heard of and I enjoyed playing them. Later on I managed to play some of my favorite songs or charts and I even got to play Canon D D23 which I play at each of my sessions on a well maintained machine. I totally failed it this time and I felt ashamed once again. There are songs and charts I want to play like LIADZ Full Song D21 and I can't enjoy them as I used to. It motivated me to get in better shape though and I hope it will last. Because I can't go to another event feeling so embarrassed again.
I met Offline, Frank69 and few other players while there which was nice too. Looking forward to playing more Pump again soon.
Gentlemen
After work Heat was supposed to join me at Full Moon but since he took longer to arrive than expected we met at Gamestate. I got a katsu ramen and green tea with lemon at full moon, both being delicious, and then I headed to GS. There I went upstairs and joined a player's session already. I couldn't card in thus. He picked some 13 that I somehow got SSS on. Most probably just because I played without HJ, it didn't dawn on me that I should set that. Then we played a 14 and a 15. The player was a bit surprised I could play those. Then it was Offline's time to play and they played Dignity. At least I wasn't the only person picking weird songs^_^. It was nice to see Dignity being played after so long time the song wasn't available in Pump.
Heat came then and we left GS to walk around the area. We were trying to figure out what we could possibly do. In the end we went to a cinema to watch Gentlemen. In order to get to see the movie I had to climb TOO MANY stairs. I thought I'd die of pain, so many stairs after days of playing dance games and powerstancing was a nightmare. I managed to get upstairs though with the help of the rail and then waited for the movie to start. Oh, the movie was really good. Well shoot, well written and funny. I was very glad I got to see it because I hardly go to cinema.
After the movie was over I returned to my airbnb to pack all my stuff and whatnot. I fell asleep at dawn but somehow managed to get up to catch my 9am flight.
At the airport my deckboxes were taken out of my bag and I was asked what's inside. This is nothing new, when traveling with Magic cards this is what happens. But this time my boxes got a swab and I had a hard time trying to hide a smile. Also the body scanner that I'm not a fan of found something strange in my leg. I got quite an aggressive pat down (on my rather aching leg) but the TSA agent didn't find anything on my leg, so he shrugged and let me go.
Our flight was delayed by 30 minutes but the captain told us we'd most probably arrive on time. We even arrived earlier than that so there wasn't even time for sandwiches to be served. It was a bumpy ride and passengers were glad we landed safely in Prague.
I was very hungry and even had troubles to get to the closest shopping mall. I ate the most caloric meal I could find and then headed home. I was totally exhausted and I had one day to recover before going back to work. I spent a great time in the Netherlands and hopefully I'll get there soon.
