Tips for a DDR n00b?

Tek7

Tek7

CGA President, Tribe of Judah Founder & President
Staff member
While my wife and I were in Chicago on vacation, we visited CCGR and her husband. During the visit, CCGR was kind enough to give us a spare copy of Dance Praise as a gift. (Thanks again, CCGR!) I recently tried out both Dance Praise and StepMania and have found that I have a long way to go before I can consider myself decent at DDR-style games.

I know several members of the community play DDR. Does anyone have any tips for a DDR n00b like me?
 
First tip: If you weigh over 300 pounds and can ace a couple of the easier songs on Hard (like me), you will impress WAAAAY more people than if you're a skinny guy who can beat every song on Expert.

Second tip: If you don't want to gain 120 pounds, try to learn on some of the easier settings to NOT return to the middle square. On a higher difficulty level, you will virtually never be on the center square, and it's easier to just not create a habit than to break it.

Third tip: Don't gain 120 pounds.
 
Again, avoid the middle, and do songs over and over and over. When I first got into it I played about 4 hours a day...and now I can do anything on "Standard" and some on "Heavy"...still even after about 6 months of no play...
 
Thanks for the tips, guys. I'll have to train myself not to use the center square.

I've been able to clear several Dance Praise songs on Medium difficulty, but some still kick my butt. It seems that if there's 10 or more arrows on the screen, my brain freezes. There's a chasm between Easy and Medium on some songs in Dance Praise and, to my knowledge, no way to slow down the song to learn the steps at a slower speed. StepMania may have a "slow-mo" option, but I haven't seen it yet (then again, I haven't really searched for it).

Any tips on moving from Easy to Medium and keeping my brain from locking up when more than 10 arrows appear on the screen?
 
for me I don't hardly look at when the arrows hit the top of the screen... I feel/listen to the beat and just look at the overall screen to notice the sequence of steps coming up... just takes a bit to get the timing of eye->brain->feet worked out
 
on a side note if you are interested in a community of players doing ddr try Dance! which has just going into open beta... most players still use keyboards, but you can use pads if you have them also. http://dance.acclaim.com
 
I used to play competitively so maybe I can give you some tips. I can clear every song on the hardest difficulty on all of the DDR games from 1st Mix through Extreme (after I beat all the songs from Extreme I quit playing). There are several distinct stages most people go through with DDR, and each one has a distinct style of movement. In the beginning stage, you will tend to return your feet to the center after each step. The best advice I can give anyone using this style of play is, always leave your foot where you put it last. Here you learn to make decisions about which foot to use on which arrow at which time.

After a while, you will begin to memorize movement formulas for common step patterns, and you will chain these into a song. This is where the medium difficulty players are. You will deal with each specific pattern in a specific way every time. The hard songs trip up these players whenever two patterns link together in a way that makes the player move unconventionally. This is the part of DDR advancement that begins to have a component of physical conditioning required to advance. Most of the 8-foot songs (which I consider to be the upper boundary of this phase of play) are nothing more than a string of eighth note steps, which is really boring to play in my opinion, but prepares you for the upper phase of play by slowly increasing the agility of your legs.

In the upper phase of play, the biggest shift in development is mental. You cease to read the notes the same way and you begin to "flow" through the songs on the spur of the moment instead of looking for patterns. The steps become like a sheet of music, and you learn to make tactical decisions regarding which foot to use in order to keep your feet near where they are needed to maximize quickness. The rhythms become more complex and syncopated (my favorite part) and the physical fitness requirements become increasingly demanding. If you started playing DDR to get in shape, this is the part you did it for. I did a science fair experiment on the quality of the workout obtained by different levels of DDR playing, and found that the workout achieved by ONE 9 or 10-foot song is equivalent to a weightlifter doing clean-and-jerks for the same length of time (though it affects your leg muscles and not your arms).

Good luck! I wish I could provide more specific guidance, but it's the sort of thing I'd need to demonstrate in person.

Maybe I can get some video recorded lessons going after school is out in May.
 
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kraniac said:
In the upper phase of play, the biggest shift in development is mental. You cease to read the notes the same way and you begin to "flow" through the songs on the spur of the moment instead of looking for patterns. [...]
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I honestly can not even imagine reaching this point in DDR proficiency. :(

kraniac said:
Good luck! I wish I could provide more specific guidance, but it's the sort of thing I'd need to demonstrate in person.

Maybe I can get some video recorded lessons going after school is out in May.
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Or maybe we can hit Fun House next time I'm in Tulsa. :)

kraniac said:
I can clear every song on the hardest difficult on all of the DDR games from 1st Mix through Extreme [...]
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Can you recommend any particular songs for DDR n00bs? The StepMania package I downloaded includes all songs from DDR 1st Mix through 8th Extreme.
 
I can do most songs on a medium setting, and a couple of easier ones on the hard setting. The best tip I have for moving from easy to medium is to make sure you are finding things that challenge you. If you keep doing the ones you know over and over again, you won't advance. Another way to add challenge is to add competition. We had a lot of that going in our house. It made everyone what to practice more and work harder.

I don't know if there are particularly good songs to help n00bs. Most likely you will need to evaluate your own lvl and pick songs accordingly.
 
notashamed said:
Another way to add challenge is to add competition. We had a lot of that going in our house. It made everyone what to practice more and work harder.
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Unfortunately, we only have the one dance pad. We could purchase an additional dance pad, but our living room is too small and cramped to put down two dance pads. As it is, I have to roll up the one pad we have to sit down and play Final Fantasy XII.

I suppose my wife and I could still compete for the highest score, though. It's not quite the same, but it's a start. :)
 
The mix I first started playing on was DDR USA because it was the only non-imported cabinet available at the time.

For what it's worth, the first few weeks after I bought the home version for PS1 I pretty much stuck to El Ritmo Tropical, Boom Boom Dollar, and Have You Never Been Mellow, though on the easiest difficulties it doesn't make a lot of difference as to which song you play, just look at the foot ratings. These days I'm sure they have better beginning songs, but those three are pretty much the bread and butter of the majority of first-wave American players. I can't vouch for their musical quality though. >_<

After I managed to reduce the number of times I was tripping over myself (I was really bad) I took a liking to AM-3p, and that remains my favorite song today just because the first sixteen bars on the hard difficulty are easily memorizable and fun to perform (though it's a pretty easy song by competitive standards).

By the way, if you haven't checked out the website DDR Freak, it is (or at least was) the end-all resource for everything DDR. It has step charts for all the arcade versions, tips for navigating the menus on the arcade versions, arcade etiquette and warmup/cooldown advice, and an arcade cabinet and tournament locator by state. (I'm kraniac on the DDR Freak forums, by the way, though I don't post anymore.)
 
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kraniac said:
After I managed to reduce the number of times I was tripping over myself (I was really bad) [...]
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I vaguely remember seeing you play DDR once, in passing, when I still lived in Tulsa. (It might have been during the brief period I was attending our former home church's college group.) Then again, it's entirely possible that my brain fabricated the memory. As I recall, though, you appeared to have been quite proficient (i.e. had mad DDR skillz). If you started off being really bad at the game, perhaps there's hope for me yet.

Perhaps.

kraniac said:
By the way, if you haven't checked out the website DDR Freak, it is (or at least was) the end-all resource for everything DDR.
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Thank you, sir, for the link and all your helpful advice. :)
 
Yeah, I used to play at the youth group sometimes. We had pads for only about 2 months, people would play with shoes on and they got demolished pretty quickly. But when you saw me I'd been playing pretty much every day for about a year.

Man, when I think about it... it's been a long time. I started in the summer before 9th grade and now I'm a second semester sophomore in college.

Time is weird.
 
kraniac said:
Man, when I think about it... it's been a long time. I started in the summer before 9th grade and now I'm a second semester sophomore in college.
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Yes, thank you, I officially feel old now. :p

On a lighter note, I beat a Hard song (Nightglow by The Benjamin Gate) for the first time ever while playing Dance Praise earlier tonight. w00t!
 
UPDATE: w00t! I'm now consistently scoring A's on several DDR EXTREME tracks on Light difficulty (playing StepMania). I've settled on a few favorite songs (MOBO★MOGA, Pink Rose, Heaven is a '57 Metallic Gray, and the song beneath MEMORIES with the title in kanji) and have been switching between them when I practice. I also passed White Lovers on Standard difficulty.

I'm excited about my progress so far and even more excited about finding a way to exercise that isn't boring or annoying.

The trouble is that I'm running smack into a wall moving from Light to Standard difficulty. MOBO★MOGA and Heaven is... both kick my rear on Standard, even though I can pass them with ease (consistently scoring an A on MOBO★MOGA and a B on Heaven is...).

Any advice for someone trying to make the leap between Light and Standard difficulty levels?
 
Which reminds me: A few nights ago, I managed to score a C on MOBO MOGA on Standard. w00t! It took me many, many tries (likely 50+), but I finally passed--and with a C! Now let's see if I can work my way up to an A...
 
You're definitely doing it right if you're improving. Just keep going! Once you get addicted, DDR is good for hundreds of hours of cheap entertainment and doubles as great exercise. Woot!
 
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