[Xiz]

The spoiler below is my response to the judges for my "Kirby Smash" file from last months batch. I gave myself a month break to relook at the file now.

Directed @ Choofers / TC_Hallogen / AlexDest / Wayward Vagabond

AlexDest:

1) Missing jump at s24.24.
2) The 24th accents are a good aspect for the simfile. Nice.
3) Another at s87.44.
4) And when s99.80 starts, your layering choice becomes inconsistent. You're jumping from layering the melody, then the percussion, melody again, then you stop layering. You need to pick an instrument to layer rather than going all over the place with it.
5) The anchor at s132.02 is pretty rough compared to the rest of the file. Keep the difficulty balanced.
6) Overall, it's not bad, you're having inconsistencies in layering a certain instrument and going all over the place with that. The structure is certainly decent though. Have people playtest your file.

1) Fixed
2) Yay thanks ^^
3) Fixed
4) This part troubled me. I changed a good part of this. I put jumps on the main melody line starting at 99.80, then at 108.134 (and 112.579) I emphasized the snare for one measure. At 117.579 where the change happens, to keep it from being boring I put jumps on the vocals (kirbys sounds). I removed a bunch of the inconsistencies within that section, hopefully that helps it.
5) Changed it to a more suitable jump stream.
6) Thanks man. This input helped a lot. Will do.


Choofers:

1) Not bad. I would highly recommend mixing up m34-m40 because as it stands right now, it's pretty repetative (in terms of PR it's basically perfect but you're following it too strictly) and it's not very fun to play those 32nd trills on one hand, even at 108 bpm.
2) m56-m58, it looks like you forgot to layer in some snares. Fix those issues up, and this file would be pretty decent.

1) Fixed. I layered some of the sections a bit better to match the rest of the song.
2) Yeah, I realized that after it was too late hahaha. Oops. Fixed.


TC_Halogen:

1) 35.353: Well placed color trick!
2) 39.070/39.660: missed a note for the bass
3) 46.465: I'm not sure how others will take to the implicit call/response thought you have (call is the heavy bass while ignoring the melody, response is ignoring the bass while representing the melody), but I'm quite fond of it
4) 49.799: the swing from the melody and the percussion actually disappears here, so this particular beat should only contain 16ths
5) 53.896: this riff is constant, so you're missing a note
6) 54.243: see 49.799
7) 59.799: this section could benefit from accenting the bass drum a bit, but your structure is nicely defined with snare accenting, so it's certainly optional.
8) 64.243: unfortunately, this section really could use some help. The pitch relevancy shows that you certainly know what you're doing, but it's very empty.
9) 73.132: take advantage of the melody to play with patterns a bit -- you're accounting for deviratives of the same melody with the exact same ascending pattern; play around a bit to make it more interesting! On another note, I strongly suggest adding jumps, because you have a large area of the chart that seems really lightly layered now when the song itself is quite heavy and utilizes some faster rhythms.
10) 120.634: where did the jumps go?
11) This file isn't bad at at all. There are a few kinks that can be worked out, but it's certainly not unplayable. Queue-worthy with proper rhythms, layering, and pitch-relevancy to boot.

1) Thanks
2) I can't really tell what you mean here… so you want me to add a note to resemble the bass in those two sections? (39.070/39.660) I still don't hear it, but I did it anyway haha.
3) Thanks! I found there to be a lot of power in this section, so I tried to make it stand out.
4) Fuck. Good catch lol. Fixed.
5) Fixed.
6) Fixed.
7) It absolutely could. I'm afraid it would break away from the consistency though I have been doing in the file. I'm considering this section a small break before the jacks.
8) I added jumps on the snare. I think it spiked the difficulty a bit, but I think it's doable. But I guess it works now from what I did in #7
9) I changed this whole section now. I filled it out, adding jumps where appropriate. Its above the difficulty I was expecting, but perhaps its for the best.
10) Bmah stole them. I got 'em from him. They are now back in the file. Fixed.
11) Thanks man, great input. I feel like this file really improved with your notes ^^

Wayward Vagabond:

1) first thing was the intro. its longer than it needs to be
starting the file when the announcer says congratulations would be better in my opinion
2) you suffer from a fault that almost everyone that starts stepping suffers
repetitiveness due to imitating the song just because a song repeats doesnt mean the file has to another thing that happens with everyone actually is they are pretty restrictive when it comes to repeating sounds for example at 45 seconds you have the up arrow going to the melody that hits the same key but just because the song does that doesnt mean you should
3) but really the main problem i had with this file is the repetitiveness of the stepsand the layering you use(lack of it) i dont get what you're trying to do with the file itself because of that are you trying to step it in full or are you stepping a simplified version for the song? you kind of skip all over the place in that regard

1) I have to disagree sadly… I know I will be hated on but I do think otherwise. I'm keeping it for now, but I might change it later.
2) I reworked a good portion of the file. I made a bunch of sections (such as the one at 45 seconds) more unique in the way it's stepped, to hopefully add some more variety.
3) There was a lot of inconsistencies looking at the file now after giving myself a month break from it, and I see exactly what you mean. I fixed a good portion of it, and hopefully it should be better.