Roxor Making a New Game with Andamiro

[mydixiewrecked]

[Zeta Aspect]

Okay, we get it. PIUPRO may not be the PIU that PIU fans know and love, and may cost PIU fans their PIU machines at the arcades due to ignorance on behalf of arcade managers. But PIUPRO is similar to traditional PIU in terms of gameplay, minus a supposed focus on perfect-attacking.

Now, let's move on before a flame war starts.
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Original Songs and Recomposed Remixes, Remixes and 8pack Battles.
Friction is a fickle mistress.

[Ghettobarney]

How do you say frick without getting censored. I think that changing the game isn't a bad thing, though I don't play, but still I mean DDR hasn't changed a bit since MAX and it's going downhill, so maybe change isn't a bad thing?

-oja
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OMG I BEETS MACKS 300!

[DarkCore]

[Emptyeye]

Incidentally, to throw the thread further off-topic, I don't even know why we have a censor in the first place. I presume, ostensibly, it's to protect young children from read naughty word or whatever. That's fine, maintainers' website, their rules, I have no problem with that. But when there's evidently no penalty whatsoever for bypassing the censor...well, it kind of defeats the purpose, if you ask me.
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emptyeye.com- Music, writing, life

My Recall- Now with actual, real arcade scores! O.o

[Yeehaw McKickass]

[RBCF retunes]

[valius]

[Zeta Aspect]

[Tsuri]

[Obsessive]

Might as well post my impressions of it here as well:

I am profoundly dissapointed in PIU:Pro. Since Speedzone is a beta testing place, and a developer is there to constantly update the machine, I'll be using this to vent and then assemble it later into a COGENT discussion with him.

PIUPro was designed as a "buffer" game to wean American dance game players off of 4-panel and into 5. Because of Konami, 4-Panel has apparently been declared dead as far as new companies entering the business goes. Andamiro seeks to capture this new demographic "American speed players", and to do this, they have created a game that they hope will cater to American tastes.

So they are running it off of a modified Stepmania program. As far as menus go, there are the same options we all love, like Dizzy, Twister, mini, dark, Quick, everything from the SM/ITG option menu is also in this game. The BPM options are quite confusing therefore, because they don't follow SM/ITG at all. The jump between 2x and 4x now goes by SM measuring instead of the normal Pump measuring (whatever it was) and now all songs are far too fast on 4x (because "American dance gamers love 5.5x, 6x, etc") The noteskin is not pump at all now, reverting to the DDR-style of having all 4ths be blue, 8ths are red, 16th yellow, 12ths pink, etc. For an ITG person this is a benefit. For a Pump player, it takes some getting used to-Not hard per se, just a disorientation at first before you realize no, this isn't a freaky mod.

The Tactile UI is borrowed form ITG as far as a green start button, left and right arrows, and a red "option/cancel" button. Getting from your song to the option menu is incredibly counterintuitive, as it takes careful button pressing to make sure you don't just go right into the song. In DDR, you had to hold the start button. In ITG, you had to hit the button twice before the song started. In PIUpro, you must hit the red button while you are choosing your difficulty. This brings up a sidebar of the options that you must carefully manupulate with all 4 buttons to get to the different option modes. Make one mistake, and the game will set you to "ready", and you cannot go back. After about 4 tries, I got it, and it still seems like I have to press way too many buttons to change 2 options (arrow speed and arrow skin). Because not every option is put in a big menu like in SM and ITG where you can see all the mods, you must seperately go into each mod menu to see what is selected, eating away your precious 40 seconds (which are almost gone since you had to pick your song first)

Now, I don't know if some of the stepcharts are placehilders for when the real steps come out, but most of the Crazy steps for the KaW/Smiley/Banzai songs that were in ITG are simply SM autogen steps. They are very clearly taken from the same stepchart as ITG and just turned by the system into 5-panel. There are a few instances of some tweaking to make more sense (Utopia is a good example of this: A 1/8th note staircase replaces the L L L L L L pattern near the middle), but for the vast majority, it's just a total rip. A novelty to be sure to ITG players, but the creativity is suplexed into a chair for most of the songs. Summer ~speedy~ has become a joke, far too easy for what it should be on PIU. The new Kaw Songs (Exotica, Ra, etc) are put together well for the most part, though it still seems like it was designed by someone just now learning about 5-panel. Some basic patterns and fun turns, but nowhere near what regular Pump has. The Cabinet, like NX, has USB ports which is now basically confirmed that you will be able to add custom STEPCHARTS (not songs) to the game via USB. Basically, just like ITG1/2. However, this also leads me to believe the game can/will be hacked to all hell and back, which IMO is not a bad thing on the surface.

What bothers me is that this game is primarily for sale in the USA for Americans. This means NX will not be sold in the USA. This means that if the WPF uses NX, then the USA will be at an INCREDIBLE disadvantage, because we can't play NX, and they surely don't want to play PiUMania when it won't win them $50,000. We get special treatment because as many people I have observed have stated; Pump is too hard/obscure/ I'm lazy and don't want to learn/It's not like ITG/DDR. This is Andamiro giving a reasonably blank Pump canvas, and telling American developers "Make this work for the USA. Somehow we can get Chile, Korea, Mexico, and all these other countries, but USA remains resistant to this game".

I agree in adding the mods, allowing custom stepcharts, a stricter timing reward (The Perfect window is the same-still large, but now there is a "Superb" window inside the perfect window-which is obviously a reworded FANTASTIC/MARVELOUS) won't hurt I think...It seems "Americans are big into percentages of scores and timing issues". Well, You can't see your percentage on-screen (IMO for aesthetic reasons...there's nowhere really good to put it in the screen that won't block something). Why would you take Stepmania as a Base when there is already a PiU base software, and then not use the options USA players want most? I would gladly take an on-screen percentage over whether I want to play Blink Flat Tornado, even though I should theoretically get both. So there are some primary design flaws as far as the UI is concerned.

I understand the Stepcharts are undergoing work as we speak, and upgrades will be installed until the game is supposed to be unveiled. I will reserve my opinion on the actual stepcharts until then-but I HIGHLY IMPLORE, if Americans are creating these stepcharts, to look toward the koreans for CZ difficulty. Basic moves work great for hard mode, but CZ is known for putting crazy and utterly creative patterns in the stepcharts, from Final Audition to Witch Doctor. IE, Summer ~speedy~ cannot simply be a few death runs at the end; ITG players see it coming, and PiU Players passed the deathrun hurdle back when PiU Exceed came out in 2004.

Simply having a good interface may wean a metric ton of players in the first place, simply for having buttons instead of using the pad to make all the deciions (resulting in a lot of messed up games, I'm sure). Using the SM interface will also bring the hardcore ITG community in I think, because it's a familiar format where they know they can control what is going on. The rest is up to the players themselves. I do not think, though, that it is a good idea to make this "Separate but Equal" Pump game for Americans. The concept has never ended well. This game as it is now seems like a really beautiful PIU theme for Stepmania, like ITG was a really beautiful DDR theme for Stepmania. Is this the direction that Anda really wants to go-Is it cheaper to use SM as a base than to continue using original formats like in NX/Exceed/Zero?

SUMMARY:
Change autogen stepcharts
Change Speed mod increments (.25x? NO. 2.5x? YES!)
Keep Banya/Kpop songs as much as possible
Figure out how this goes with NX/WPF
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Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/crufix

[Obsessive]

[RBCF retunes]

[Mostly_Harmless]

That was actually a really great review Obsessive, I really enjoyed reading your arguements and not getting plssed off at them because you acted mature towrds the topic. It's people like you who intelligently complain and suggest things to kyle ward that will make this game better. only one thing i noticed was that you said nx wasn't for sale in the USA? They have pump nx at an arcade in mass. called TGA. i played it there not to long ago.
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Official DDR/Konami HATER!
Official Pump It Up/ITG supporter for N.J.

[Zeta Aspect]

[TheYellowDartOfDoom]

[RBCF retunes]

Isn't the red button the back button?
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QWERTYkid911: If someone posts porn, then this thread will perfectly represent the internet.

Slowpoke: Ah, so that's how He created the universe so quickly... He was hopped up on caffeine. Thanks for clearing up that philosophical mystery...

PooingCavy: (About difficulty levels) If I could make it up, it would be: Water, Soda, Coffee, Red Bull, ADHD

[TheYellowDartOfDoom]

[Obsessive]

[TheYellowDartOfDoom]