BEST-mix.net - DDR Simfile Tournament

It's time for some frighteningly fantastic simfiles just in time for Halloween! Included here are eleven stepfiles, all to songs with a spooky/horror theme of some sort. Use this thread to discuss and review these simfiles. The songlist is as follows:

Boom Boom Scream / Domino & Scream Team [#Infinity]
Boom Boom Scream (Paradrive Version) / Domino & Scream Team [#Infinity]
Courage the Cowardly Dog / They Might Be Giants [#Infinity]
Electronic or Treat / PON [Telpira]
goldenslaughter (Tishi's VW2 edit) / zts [Anonymous]
Grim Grinning Ghosts (Blarsa Remix) / Buddy Baker [hellrazor]
Halloween / Aqua [Lisek]
Rock The Night / DJ Bobo [Zero-X]
Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites / Skrillex [Akira]
Spirit of the Night / Daniel [#Infinity]
Trick or Treat! / Three Little Evils [Telperion]

DOWNLOAD PACK (92.94 MB)

Wow, I notice that this pack still hasn't gotten a single download. I take it that there really wasn't any interest in the midst of Hurricane Sandy? I wanted to keep a relatively consistent schedule, and I know that many other members of the community live far from the American Atlantic Coast, but if this really isn't an appropriate time to be promoting a simfile pack, then I do dearly apologize. Beyond everything else, I just hope that everyone here who got affected by the storm is alive and well, and that you aren't having too much difficulty coping with its aftermath.

Because of the dubious circumstances of Hurricane Sandy, if anyone still wants to submit anything to this pack, then I'll continue to accept reservations and re-upload the pack with any additional submissions.

I downloaded this pack before your post.

Unfortunately the power/internet was not reliable for me the last couple days, so I haven't had a chance to play anything yet. If somebody wants to set up a chat review, I can try and make myself available.

As far as my file goes, I was not happy with the way it was turning out and decided to scrap it. I'm definitely in for future packs, though!

I downloaded yesterday, Electronic or Treat was amazing and Boom Boom Scream (although seems like the challenge chart should have been included in the original and forsake the remix it's much to similar) was also a goodie. Courage The Cowardly Dog was also interesting, I don't get the appeal of "They Might Be Giants" I guess they do comedy music, the video was really cool though and brought out the spooky side.

I also appreciated that it was released in time for tomorrow.

Oh and Trick or Treat! / Three Little Evils was the best song in the pack, what an interesting song choice and great step-chart. I love the music speed changes and melody shifts.

A few initial impressions...

Electronic or Treat - Maybe it's because I stopped playing the official DDR series after it jumped the shark with SuperNova 2, and so I'm not particularly accustomed to "newer," more technical stepcharts, but I can't help but complain that this simfile goes totally overboard with bpm gimmicks. I guess they add to the challenge factor, but otherwise, I find them to be an unnecessary distraction and nuisance to the steps themselves. Occasionally, they can add a creative edge to the simfile's presentation if used with clever technique - check out Grip from the Best of Best-Mix Artists Community Pack for a good example - but here, there's a crazy speed change virtually every other second for the duration of the file. The song itself isn't a particularly great choice, anyway - it isn't very tuneful and just sounds like a chaotic mess - but the turbulent bpm gimmicks just ruin the two advanced stepcharts for me. There are some decent ideas in both of them, but as a whole, I found this package far more discomforting to play than enjoyable.

Grim Grinning Ghosts (Blarsa Remix) - Pretty interesting song choice - that clip at the end is downright creepy, though! As far as steps go, this isn't without its problems, but not bad overall. Your placement could still afford some additional momentum, but the steps themselves are pretty sharp and quite playable. At certain points, I think you should have experimented with different note patterns than just the predominant strings of 3-note 8th streams you resort to, as the phrases themselves are somewhat repetitive and would benefit from some breaks. The section in which you resort to step-jumps at the end of each consecutive 3-note stream is particularly rough - although I do enjoy the introduction of step-jumps, they should be used sporadically and not repeatedly as they are here. The accessible song choice and short cut both work to your advantage in this case; try varying your note patterns a little more, and you might be able to pull off more ambitious simfile projects successfully as well.

Halloween - Like the better of your two Best-Mix #5 entries, this package nicely showcases your ability to fit in a lot of step creativity while still keeping things simplistic. You seem to have no trouble at all finding the right amount of foot movement in each stream, and you have a solid idea of when and when not to follow the main melody directly. This song is painfully overstepped, but you did a pretty solid job with it, although I still wish you would try harder to cut your songs to a more reasonable length.

Thanks for getting the pack uploaded, Inf. I'll play when I have some free time (in 1 and a half weeks :( ).

I'm alive! Minnesota isn't anywhere near the storm, but I hope the East coast guys on here are pulling through.

Cool looking pack. I'll give it a shot sometime soon. Pretty occupied with other stuff, yada yada. And who knows, maybe I'll drop an ominous EDM file (if I ever get myself to start on one of the songs I have in mind) in the future, though probably well after Halloween.

Yep, we shouldn't have overloaded it much :P

I'm up for a chat review sometime next week (this weekend is bad for me). Let me know :]

#Infinity wrote:Electronic or Treat - [...] this simfile goes totally overboard with bpm gimmicks. [...] there's a crazy speed change virtually every other second for the duration of the file.

You should have seen our original set of gimmicks - we watered them down a lot for the release, lol. I guess we're a dangerous combination when it comes to gimmicks...

Sorry for late post, have no hurricane for excuse but... I sprained my ankle, heh.

Halloween - Like the better of your two Best-Mix #5 entries, this package nicely showcases your ability to fit in a lot of step creativity while still keeping things simplistic. You seem to have no trouble at all finding the right amount of foot movement in each stream, and you have a solid idea of when and when not to follow the main melody directly. This song is painfully overstepped, but you did a pretty solid job with it, although I still wish you would try harder to cut your songs to a more reasonable length.

Three entries. I did Ghost, Master ov Time and Sound of Delight. Thank you for compliment on the steps. The thing about length? Well, most of my songs are 1:45 ~ 1:55. Ghost wasn't cut because it was too hard for me to do and this one - I liked it longer. I had 1:40 cut but it felt bad. Decided to go with the longer version (but still, not full).

2 more notes about my file - Halloween - for those who don't read readmes:
- song contains Pump charts for those who like PIU
- background was drawn by my dear Nusa, loving <3

So yeah, my little review / commentary on the files.
Loving the diversity in BOOM BOOM SCREAM streams. Seems like a lot of fun on pad.

COURAGE THE COWARDLY DOG is interesting. Even thought that it is slow paced I think that also it can be enjoyable.

Wow. Loving graphic / video editing job on Electronic or Treat. I don't think that you went overboard with the speed changes. Overall fun chart and great job on gfx.

goldenslaughter feels much understepped. Challenge difficulty would be a great ITG-style chart. Heavy is ok but nothing too appealing.

Grim Grinning Ghosts chart isn't that good. Arrow placement looks quite random.

Rock The Night kinda screams for some more jumps. Chart would be much better with them.

Great job on Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites another fun song with great steps and graphic / video job.

SPIRIT of the NIGHT feels too generic. Didn't like the song and steps.

And last but not least Trick or Treat! has awesome song and cute background (is this original drawing?). Thanks to nature of that song steps have GREAT diversity and are really fun.

I liked both infinity's files, they were cool, some fun steps.
Electronic & Treat, the video was put together really well and was cool, I love the song, although, the bpm pauses throw the sync off, no matter what i do i cannot keep the combo count, the last 5 steps or so are always a miss.

(This is Aaron btw V: thanks for telling me that it had moved to here, a middle finger to all of you <3 ;0)

Hey guys, sorry I haven't been around much over the past week. I've been very busy with schoolwork, and so I didn't have much time to address the activity here.

Is there still any interest in having a chat review sometime this weekend? If not, then I would like to start preparing for the End of Year Bonus Pack 2012 so that participants have enough time to work on their entries.

I should be around for a chat review.

It's cool. The song I have here right now, i'll just save it for Cheesemix if ever, it fits there :D

Also, a note on Electronic or Treat!, it's best to play it on OpenITG or above. However, the assist claps do get messed up on Stepmania 3.9

Akira wrote:Also, a note on Electronic or Treat!, it's best to play it on OpenITG or above. However, the assist claps do get messed up on Stepmania 3.9

yup, works alot better in openITG, awesome file. and again, the video was put together really well.