[Wiosna]

Pretty big bump, but I've accumulated enough files to share charts I've made over the past few months. Not an official release, but this should hopefully be a precursor to what's to come over the next few months.

Wiosna (Sep 2021 - Nov 2021)
Songlist:

This folder contains, unsurprisingly, a mixed bag of my charts that I've made over the past few months. MSD range varies pretty wildly (18-27), but most of the charts should be within the 19-23 range. Most of these charts should be going into various packs, two of which being personal projects. There's no particular focus over the past few months because I've mostly been trying out new and old things to figure out how they work from a kinaesthetic perspective. Talking about what I'm doing is a bit weird because a lot of it is pretty procedural and you have to get a feel for things, but I'm willing to answer questions in that department.

That said, I can probably talk a bit about one of the projects that I'm working on, which is Ephemeral Princess, formerly named Back to Square One. The pack is still a WIP, though I expect it to be about 10 songs just like Breakcore Princess.

The backstory of the pack is a more personal one: I was burnt out extremely hard after making two packs this year (Sharpnel Instrumentality Project and Nightflower Complex, both of which you can check out), and I felt as if I lost a lot of sense of direction when it came to charting. There were a lot of times where I've tried to make something and I really couldn't because everything felt wrong and nothing felt natural to make, so I distanced myself from stepping for a decent while.

I got some of my motivation back by thinking about which charts I really enjoyed when I was still playing, and I've always brought up to others that there is this one chart that really left an impression on me both as a player and a stepper: jimerax's Frictional Nevada. It certainly isn't the best chart in the world nor is it the most ambitious chart in the world, but the feel of the general index-heavy patterning and broken rhythms was something that I used to always think about whenever I charted anything that's percussion-heavy. It's most notable for the breakcore charts I've made from 2018 to 2020, but I felt as if I lost touch with it while making Nightflower Complex because of all of the things I've learned from Sharpnel Instrumentality Project. Harking back to that mindset of satisfaction through index-heavy patterning, but with a more freeform idea of how to structure rhythms, was a decent pick-me-up for how to approach things.

Ephemeral Princess is, not only a focused attempt to create charts that encapsulate the same feelings that JX's FN gave me back in the day, but to also create charts with music that a 15-18 year old April would've liked to play back in high school. I know that the idea of "making files that you would like to play" is a really obvious concept for many, given that I haven't played the game actively in about six years, the concept was a bit hard for me to grasp. I was also a really simple-minded person back then (though I still am!), which explains the limited chart diversity.

I would consider this pack to be more of a litmus test due to the size of the pack and chart selection being so small; I don't expect this pack to gain much traction, but that's fine. I only hope that the charts here at least convey an understanding of the charts that I enjoy(ed) and, admittedly, yearn for today.

Current songlist:


Download links for each chart are provided in both the spreadsheet and in the Sep 2021 - Nov 2021 folder.