StepCon 2023

[gold stinger]

Just a subtle reminder that there are 2 days left, give or take, to get submissions in while you can for StepCon 2023. We've gotten quite a few submissions already, but a fair majority haven't submitted yet.

Deadline (the absolute last & final cutoff for submissions) is Tomorrow (Saturday), 11:59pm SERVER TIME. If you're in Eastern Standard Time (EST), that's 12:59am on Sunday.

[gold stinger]

We're currently processing submitted files/songs and getting them ready for public voting. Thanks to all 35 people whom submitted! Should hopefully be ready sometime tonight before tomorrow morning if all goes well.

[gold stinger]

The First Public Voting Period has Begun!

During this time, all participants (including and especially people not participating in the event), can vote for songs submitted for Round 1 of StepCon 2023. No further submissions for the event will be accepted at this time. You can re-visit the Google Form link in the future to change your votes (until the end of the Public Voting period), and you can vote for multiple options across all Classes (Pick any & all that you like!).

You may fill out the form at https://forms.gle/2zfmt8CxoUCReoo17 to submit your votes.

Please be advised, participants CANNOT vote for their own Class. Votes for that class will not count for said participants.

https://www.flashflashrevolution.com/batch_submission/engine/r3.stepcon2023.xml
If you navigate to your 'Options' in your FFR Engine, navigate to 'Miscellaneous' settings and click the drop-down for 'Engine Playlist', you should see this at the bottom of the list:



You will get this pop-up:



If you Copy the above XML URL and Paste it there, and click 'Add Engine', you should be able to view/play/observe songs from StepCon 2023. If you do not want to play the song, you may preview the song by right-clicking the song of choice in the song selection menu and selecting 'Play Chart Preview' in the right click menu.

Everyone will have until the end of Saturday, October 21st, 11:59PM SERVER TIME to complete voting and submit their forms at the above google link.

Furthermore, discussion is allowed in-thread during voting. But please do not deliberately attempt to sway votes/vote brigade particular submissions, and treat your fellow Stepauthors with respect. People of all skill levels participate within this event, and there is going to be good/bad matchups for people's skills and preferred genres. Keep it civil and respectful. There's also the #events channel in FFR's Official Discord for discussing the event as well!

Also, on a sidenote, please let me know if there's any issue with filling out the google form for voting. I copied some of it from last year, and appears to work on my end, but ya never know. Songs are tested & working.

[M0nkeyz]

Want to preface this by saying that this is my opinion, alot of these comments will have personal bias and aren't necessarily reflective of the quality of the chart itself, but moreso the attributes I value when looking at a chart.

Fat Lip 1: Color Theory felt a bit arbitrary at times and I think the dump sections were too dense for the song, I definitely think dump is a good approach to this song, but it could've been a bit more nuanced.
Fat Lip 2: I think this chart does a few things right, but suffers from alot of PR(pitch relevance) problems and there are alot of unnecessary anchors. There were empty sections where I would expect there to be notes as well.
Fat Lip 3: The patterns in this are quite fun to play, but I think a large portion of the chart has very little relevancy to the music. I also think that 16ths do not work too well when dumping vocals, to me the entire thing felt very ghost-y.
Fat Lip 4: Definitely an approach closer to how I would've done it. I think some of the white notes to the vocals were slightly offputting, we see this type of stuff all the time in accepted charts nowadays so it might just be me, but I find these white ''grace'' notes so hard to read sometimes. I really liked the triple jump motifs to the guitar, they capture the rhythm quite well. I think the short jacks are also quite fun and fit the song.
Fat Lip 5: Really solid entry, the whole chart felt right. Pretty much my only gripe with this one were those 2 spots where you had [23]/[14] anchors leading into a 16th pattern. Those felt a little too dense in my opinion. Other than that though, this one is almost entirely like how I would've approached it.
Fat Lip 6: I knew someone would do this haha, the color theory to the particular vocals does seem like a good idea, but I feel like the spots where the vocals coincided with the rest of the music the chart became a bit too hard to read. There were also a few technical errors that were noticeable from playing the file.

Overall thoughts on the charts and song: I think this is a really difficult song to chart. The rhythms aren't super dynamic and most of the interest comes from the lyrics and the vocals. I think dumping is a viable strategy for a song like this, but I'm personally quite particular when it comes to dumping, I'm not a huge fan of vocal dumps and making an accurate vocal dump is insanely difficult.

Clumsy Communication 1: The chart captured the essence of the song quite nicely, but I was missing a bit of flavor. It could've been nice to have some grace notes or some variety to spice the chart up. PR seemed a bit shoddy in places. The jacks felt a bit jarring, because the rest of the chart is so simple.
Clumsy Communication 2: Dumping doesn't feel right to me for this song. I feel there are enough interesting sounds/rhythms in this song for a regular (does probably need a cut) chart and alot of those aren't being captured because you have a large stream of notes going to the synth. I can tell a good charter made this, because some of the patterns are really fun and capture the music quite well, but the approach doesn't quite work for me personally.
Clumsy Communication 3: I really liked this entry, it was structured clearly and PR felt pretty accurate. I kinda wish you'd deviate a little from the ''jump-to-chord'' structure you have, because I felt certain dynamics in the song could've been captured a bit better (Mainly towards the middle of the song where the lead takes the forefront).
Clumsy Communication 4: The intro did not feel accurate at all to me, I played it several times on lower rates and it's pretty clear these notes are not synced correctly. This is the first song that stepped the grace notes, I really liked that about this chart, I think it's a bit too dense in parts and some parts felt a bit too ghost-y though. The vibrato of the synth is also really hard to capture without long notes, those little trill patterns felt a bit dumpy at times because it wasn't immediately clear to me what you were following.
Clumsy Communication 5: I like how you captured the swingy nature of the song with your chart, but the layering felt really inaccurate. I think this has to do with missing quite a few notes and missing jumps to the chords. Similarly to the previous entry stepping the vibrato of the synth didn't feel super accurate to me.
Clumsy Communication 6: Not sure how accurate some of the notes are, would have to open the chart up in an editor, it felt accurate for the most part. I'm not sure if you were missing jumps to the chords, but the layering definitely wasn't super straightforward, I also think PR could've been a bit better here. The ending cut was pretty bad. I do think out of all entries this one had the most interesting rhythms and patterns.
Clumsy Communication 7: The density in this chart felt a bit weird, there were parts where you put hands to the chords and others where you only put jumps, these felt a bit arbitrary and didn't seem related to the intensity of the sounds. Some parts were quite empty and others were quite full even though the song keeps the same energy throughout. PR could've been better, especially the ending felt really off because you used the same 1-2-3-4-4 pattern even though the pitch changed.
Clumsy Communication 8: This chart started off really strong, the graces felt super fun and the layering made sense, but again I'm really not a fan of how the vibrato is stepped. I also think the chart dragged a bit due to length, the yellow note section was kinda cool near the end, would have to see in the editor how accurate it is though.

Overall thoughts on the charts and song: I think this song is quite repetitive in alot of ways, it isn't really dynamic enough to warrant it being stepped from beginning to end and as such requires a cut in my opinion. Alot of the charts were either too basic and as a result a bit boring or they tried to capture elements in the song such as the vibrato that didn't really work or added minijacks that didn't make much sense. Some of the cuts were also pretty bad and it all stems from the song being uninteresting and hard to step.

AIN'T NOTHIN' LIKE A FUNKY BEAT 1: First and foremost, this is a good chart. However, I do think it suffers from repetitiveness(largely due to the nature of the song itself), I like the color theory spicing things up a bit.
AIN'T NOTHIN' LIKE A FUNKY BEAT 2: This chart is very dynamic, which is insanely impressive considering the reptitiveness of the song. I really like the 24th patterns to the vocals it adds alot of variety to this. My biggest gripe was that the 3-jump gluts felt a little too aggressive, the entire chart is based on how well you can execute those gluts and it doesn't even really go to a sound that stands out that much to me.
AIN'T NOTHIN' LIKE A FUNKY BEAT 3: This chart has a distinct lack of jacks, I think it's a shame considering how often the song has sounds that repeat. The layering also didn't feel super intuitive to me while playing.
AIN'T NOTHIN' LIKE A FUNKY BEAT 4: Not sure how to feel about this one, the structure is quite clear but the difficulty ramps up considerably to a point where the layering almost becomes comically dense. Meanwhile the little drum fills aren't really being stepped. Certain elements of this chart felt great and others were complete headscratchers to me, towards the end where you use 3 and 4-note jacks it was hard for me follow how exactly the chart related to the music.
AIN'T NOTHIN' LIKE A FUNKY BEAT 5: I really like the majority of this entry, the jumpstream felt nice and the way you layered it went well with the music, there was a point tho near the end where the intensity of the music dropped, but the chart kept the same JS structure. I would've personally thinned the layering down a bit there.
AIN'T NOTHIN' LIKE A FUNKY BEAT 6: Really solid entry, this felt alot shorter and alot more dynamic than some of the others. The differently colored notes were a nice touch and the layering was understandable and tasteful, I didn't notice the cut either.
AIN'T NOTHIN' LIKE A FUNKY BEAT 7: This chart really shows how a good use of jumps can make or break a chart, I think the way this chart was structured was head and shoulders above the rest. It wasn't quite as dynamic as some of the others in terms of pattern variety, but because of the changes in jump use it captured my attention the whole time. Using colored notes for the drum fills was also a nice touch. I would've liked to see a few minijacks though.

Overall thoughts on the charts and song: The rhythms are quite interesting in this, but I think the biggest challenge when stepping this is how to overcome the repetitiveness of the song itself. A few charts have done this quite effectively with well placed cuts and the use of color theory or simply clever patterning while others couldn't really keep my attention.

Progressive Temporal Corruption

I couldn't really play any of these submissions so I'm probably not voting on this, but the song itself is quite cool. It's a shame there wasn't an easier chart submitted because I do think this song lends itself well for an fmo/fgo file.

[suicidaln00b]

it says "error loading legacy engine" when i try loading the xml thingy
hellp

[gold stinger]

Originally Posted by suicidaln00b

it says "error loading legacy engine" when i try loading the xml thingy
hellp

When you visit the webpage for https://www.flashflashrevolution.com...tepcon2023.xml what do you see? Do you time out, or see some code?

Try putting it in again following the steps in my post above. It could be that FFR was down at the time. Try other alt engines and see if you can connect to those. Full list at https://www.flashflashrevolution.com/~velocity/~alt/

I do not think the internet cache would be at-fault here but could try clearing it if it still doesn't work.

[suicidaln00b]

ye i see a couple lines of code in the link
tried loading it again but still doesnt work
ffrmania, ffr widgets, and team blaze engine load fine, but dragons fury and velocity stepped things give the same legacy error thingy
tried clearing cache but dont think it worked
might just wait for vid compilation of the charts idk,,,

[gold stinger]

Originally Posted by suicidaln00b

ye i see a couple lines of code in the link
tried loading it again but still doesnt work
ffrmania, ffr widgets, and team blaze engine load fine, but dragons fury and velocity stepped things give the same legacy error thingy
tried clearing cache but dont think it worked
might just wait for vid compilation of the charts idk,,,

All engines are loading the xml correctly so it's not a version issue.

The issue is either with some setting specifically within your game that's preventing it and would normally not be changeable, or something specifically internet-wise which we can't fix on our end.

Only other suggestion I have is reinstalling the newest version of the game from scratch and see if that helps. I'll see if I can't get the video content ready sometime today. Hopecaster did it last year.

[jacobvl39]

Class A

1
Too hard for me to play/judge fairly

2
Too hard for me to play/judge fairly

3
Undeniably a pretty chart, lots of cool bursts and colors. But if you're using all these fancy bursts to represent the swishy sounds in the background, it makes it harder to follow the more important sounds.

4
I like the quirky patterns in the first have that effectively capture the glitchy nature of the song. I found that the increasing density in the second half takes away from this feel .

5
Really solid, not much to pick apart here but I like it.

6
The way some of the sounds were represented was interesting and creative, but is this supposed to be a smooth/chill kind of chart or a more aggressive one? Some of the bursts and minijacks felt jarring when surrounded by streamy patterns.

7
This one did the best job of capturing the rhythms and intensity curve of the music by focusing on the more prominent sounds. As a bonus, it's playable for more of us.

Class C

1
I'm not sure if gluts/chordjacks are the most fitting pattern to use in the outer sections, but the middle part with the bursts is really fun.

2
A well-constructed vocal dump, not so much in line with the FFR meta but it plays nicely.

3
Very aggressive tech dump. I'm not a fan of this charting style but hey, there's definitely an audience for it.

4
Very good and polished chart, not much to say here other than good job.

5
Very much an abstract/dump approach but I have to say a lot of the patterns are pretty cool.

6
The standout in this class IMO, really good attention to detail with how sounds are represented and a lot of interesting patterns.

7
A jack file is not what I'd expect from this song, but what can I say, I had fun playing it.

Class D

1
I think I know who made this so yeah, probably not what FFR is looking for but it works just fine as a dump file. The colored jacks were a nice touch.

2
A blast from the past... all that jumpchain stuff is actually pretty fun despite not fitting the current FFR meta, though it does suffer from some technical errors (lack of PR, missing notes and so on)

3
That's... that's some patterning alright. Not sure what to say about this one but you get points for uniqueness!

4
This is pretty much how I'd expect most people to chart the song. That could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you look at it... maybe it's better to do something that stands out more? Either way, very solid entry.

5
Very polished and great sense of structure, jacks are used to build up tension in the more climactic parts.

6
Pretty colors... perfectly fine easier approach, nothing wrong with how the chart plays but I do feel the colors can get a little distracting/overbearing in some places.

Class E

1
A straightforward approach like this is fine, although there's not much to make it stand out. But I did notice some inconsistencies in the layering, mainly with whether or not jumps are used to represent the stronger drum beats.

2
Tasteful dump approach, plays quite nicely. Some of the rolls get a little monotonous and maybe could use more variation but otherwise I like it.

3
Very polished, effectively represents the song's rhythmic quirks.

4
Most of the chart plays well, but I found the streamy patterning in the middle section to detract from the swingy nature of the song. Some layering issues as well.

5
I was confused by some of the patterning choices - there are some good ideas, but many of the rhythmic fills and prominent beats are missing or represented in a way that isn't clear.

6
Most of this plays nicely and captures the feel of the song very well, but the ending confused me a bit - what do the green notes go to? why the abrupt cut?

7
I would suggest re-thinking the overall structure and difficulty curve of the chart. Some parts felt underlayered and did not emphasize the stronger beats, in a way that didn't feel consistent with the intensity of the music.

8
Interesting pattern choices, I can tell a lot of thought went into this, but I did find that some of the one-handed patterning and minijacks into hands felt unnecessarily spiky.

[Ghost_Medley]

tl;dr: I said a whole lot, arguably too much lol

Progressive Temporal Corruption:

1: This one's definitely trying to be a 110+. Interesting choice cropping out part of the second half, but it's done seamlessly. Minus that, the chart actually nails the flow of the song. A lot of patterns balance their speed and complexity nicely in a way that they're not only fine to hit at that skill level but even below it. My one gripe is the burst patterns that have snap colors on one hand and all white on the other, they're an unusual choice that I'm not sure is justified if they were intentionally set to white for color theory.

2: Interesting crop at the end. Intro and second half were alright, but the main bulk of the file is done very aggressively with either super fast walls or unpleasant 32nd burst patterns. The 16th gluts before the break are also unpleasant, with the second set just being closer to reasonable.

3: One of two charts I've had to change the offset on for some reason. I don't get the majority of the charting choices here. A lot of the high-speed streams and bursts don't feel like they have a pattern or rhythm that goes with the song, and it's more densely packed for the sake of making something very difficult. It does one thing unique, which is cropping it down to just the first half since the break would mess with the flow the stepartist intended.

4: The second half felt much more solid than the first, everything after that one-handed flam jack was a good physical test for streams and burst patterns without any patterns that felt out-of-hand. The first half was definitely awkward, having the calm intro that jumps right into it without warning and throws much more brutal patterns at you to play.

5: Weird crop that this one has. Chart is extremely frontloaded and then calms down for the most part during the rest of it. Lot of bursts are playing it too safe since they're just rolls and feel uninteresting to play, you can spice it up a bit without making unreasonable patterns to play.

6: I saw some of those 32nd mini ohts and immediately started getting worried. It wasn't bad for a bit, and then it got to a point with really aggressive burst patterning and a bunch of 24th trills, some of which were ohts. The various staircase bursts also don't help in the level of comfort this file has.

7: This chart has a very odd balance on difficulty. All the bursts rhythms are either accurately charted or done according to feel with synths or wubs, but the patterning causes a lot of variation with flowy rolls or spiky staircases and oht-heavy streams. Also that one [34][124][34] in the second half is very cheeky.

AIN'T NOTHIN' LIKE A FUNKY BEAT:

1: Why are the [14] jumps a different color each time? I don't really get it. The structure of the first half is very solid, various patterns are repeated to match the song's underlying structure. The second half gets weird by trying to ramp it up with the layering while the song barely changes in intensity. The hands and handjacks just feel out of place and could just be jumps and jumpjacks.

2: Everything in this chart is consistently designed, but the philosophy is very hit or miss. I think the majority of the 24th streams aren't done in a way that brings out the flow of the song. The "yow!" and "hey!" 24th trills do it the best, but the 24ths to "funky fresh" or the feminine singing feel out of place. The 48th graces throughout the file also promote awkward rhythms that don't match the rest of the structure.

3: Weird how this is the only file I've had to adjust my offset for so far. This file has a really short crop, but that's not a bad thing per se. Jump layering is very consistent throughout, but it took me a second to figure out what some of the hands were going to. The jumpgluts in the middle section could've been balanced to put less pressure on a single hand, but they're not bad as is.

4: I had to hold in my laughter when I saw how you charted the "1, 2, 3, 4!" Going all the way with jumpjack and glut patterns feels pretty exciting with this song. I think some of the patterning could've been more varied, especially how only columns 1 & 4 for the main voice sample feels lacking. Song also should've been cropped since it doesn't feel interesting to have the same structure throughout for the whole 3 1/2 minutes.

5: Interesting crop, shows off some more unique samples in the song. Minijack focus is solid for the most part, but things like the 3[34]4 pattern are pretty awkward compared to everything else. Also that sweep of 4 notes on the shout of "3!" feels weird and unfitting.

6: Interesting use of jacks, but there's one or two points where there are gluts forced in the layering that make odd mini-spikes. Not sure how I feel about the color choices for the voice sample.

7: Chart structure plays it simple but it may be boring. Nice use of jump gallops, the color theory to highlight distinct sections in the music works is interesting and is helped by the smart repeating of patterns.

GETCHA!:

1: I thought about this crop being viable when I first heard the song. File goes all the way with a focus solely on chordjacking. Structurally the patterns are enjoyable and mostly clean, but I don't think it fits the song. It provides a lot of intense play that the song itself doesn't really justify. Maybe this could go in an SM chordjack pack, but I can't see it on FFR.

2: I'm not sure how to describe this one other than "misleading". The intro and each verse is so simple and follows the song pretty typically, and then suddenly awkward patterns come in in the pre-choruses and the choruses go full blast with 24th streams and 16th jacks or gluts. I don't really think 16th jacks really fit the song either, they feel out of place when playing because there's nothing I can hear them going to in the song.

3: I see what this is trying to do, but I think that it's going too far for the song. The intro is very awkward with the offset bursts of 32nd notes mixed in with 24ths. Those 32nd ohts on each "getcha" in the choruses, I can hit them but they're not really fun to play. There's also those 3 seconds of silence which I don't understand at all. A dump in this style needs to be dialed back a bit to get it just right.

4: Uses the crop that I recalled for this song. Chart is pretty focused on the instrumental for the structure, I noticed rhythms are charted very accurately for vocals and for certain points in the percussion. I think the density of some bursts could've been lowered to keep it more in line with the rest of the chart.

5: File is directed very towards charting the instrumental, the vocals only come through in either jump layering or through single notes when there isn't much percussion to back it up. the 32nd patterns throughout are simple and sweet, though at the end with stuff like the [12]34 patterns it starts to feel off because it breaks the consistency that the rest of the chart holds.

6: The choruses have a very sweet flow to how the vocals are overcharted with 16ths/24ths. The post-chorus sections feel very off, whether it's in the patterning (8/12 polyrhythms after second chorus) or with the charting of sounds that produces way too aggressive rhythms (vocals and noise after first chorus). A lot of patterns that put too much pressure on one hand or the other without anything in the audio that really justifies it.

7: It's an interesting concept for a chart, but not one that fits the song. It feels too aggressive for the way the song flows. The flow of 2-note and 4-note jacks feels strange, and 32nds are mixed in for very awkward ohts that make it harder to play. Ironically, the sections that don't focus on this are the most enjoyable, such as the break in the song's second half.

Fat Lip:

1: Almost skwid-grade song crop. It feels kinda odd to see a low bpm here, since the pacing of the song justifies doubled bpm. Not sure how I feel about the guitar color theory before each verse. The "16th" js and "24th" rolls managed to be very simple despite it being a dump, though there are a few mini-ohts that are kinda tricky to hit.

2: The intro showed a concept for an easier chart of this song that was promising, but unfortunately it didn't deliver afterwards. Constant 8th notes doesn't really show off what the song's giving, and I couldn't get a sense of what the jump layering was following. The idea of jackhammer patterns isn't terrible, but the implementation was also clumsy throughout.

3: Man, if you're doing a goofy dump of the song you could've at least gone fuck wild and dumped 24th or 32nd streams into the choruses. It wouldn't have been quality anyways, but it would've been more fun than leaving them feeling kind of empty.

4: Lol what was that trill at the end? This file's sturdy overall, accenting the guitar's chugs with hands is an interesting idea. I'm not sure if a lot of the white note charting works out because of what does or doesn't justify its use. Some sections could have it that don't, and some have it when it feels like they don't need it. Also I can tell in the conversion that they were just charted on the 192nds without adjusting to match the sync.

5: Alright layering throughout, very consistent on the usage of hands. (Aside from those last two quads to end the file.) I think most of the long jumpjacks felt out of place, except for the long jack entering the last chorus. Multiple spots where the stepartist was very accurate with charting the voices, but it would've been more worthwhile to simplify when they stick out compared to the rest of the file.

6: jh05013 [10/1/23 23:57]: d though, i wonder what one can do on this one to stand out
dokinabi [10/2/23 00:00]: oh I know

LOL this chart did exactly what I was expecting would come out of a chart in this competition. I never said it but I *knew* this song would have the "unique color for each voice" trick available. Unfortunately, as funny as it is it does detract a lot from the file overall. The rest of the charting has nothing I can point out as being lacking, a lot of patterns are simple but sweet in action.

Clumsy Communication:

1: I can tell you're trying to go for jump layering on the percussion, but the implementation is very inconsistent. I can hear a lot of spots where it's accurate, then immediately following you're missing jumps or doing them in excess. The minijacks throughout the file don't feel justified, same as the mini jumptrills. The trills on the wavy synth are a cute idea, but they're very underimplemented for how much that sound comes up in the song.

2: I don't think this song can really justify a dump chart at all. Or at least, if it does it has to lean more into bursty patterns than constant 24th streams. I don't know whether this file having incredibly consistent jump layering makes it funny or not. It shows there's skill put into this but with a design philosophy that doesn't pay off.

3: This is what I expected for the song's ideal crop. I think the chart is trying to play it very safe, but that makes it feel uninspired at times. The double-up of jumps throughout the file puts a nice flavor in the swing rhythm at least. Jump layering is solid for the most part, for other layering I think the wind-up sound effects could've been less emphasized since they add many mini-spikes to the second half.

4: Alright crop for the song. Weird that stepartist did a late fadeout instead of a harder cut that removes the reverse cymbal. The 32nds and 16ths felt odd, some of the rhythms might not be 24th swing but I don't think they're 32nds either. The anchors are really cute and make for a nice take on the wavy synth line. Don't think the swing gluts are justified at all, they could've just been [24][13] patterns to keep balanced difficulty. The complexity of some of the sections with white notes also feels out of place.

5: Tried to do more jump layering on the melody rather than the percussion. Would work if done right, but implementation felt very scattered with a bunch of places either lacking or having too many jumps for the audio. Also the single to quad progression before each chorus is extremely questionable. (Not a "confident quad", just overzealous lol)

6: Almost an alright crop. Could've edited the audio file to not have the song continue after the last note placed. Stepartist punished themselves by being too accurate with a rhythm in the mid-section, a lot of effort for something that didn't pay off. Otherwise, layering is almost solid but feels either inconsistent or oddly done at times.

7: Very weird balance of layering. Intro went strong with hands charted to heavy beats, then immediately drops off for the rest of the file. Layering also gets way too light at points and doesn't represent the song well. Patterning doesn't feel inspired and is way too simple and repetitive.

8: Odd color theory to start the chart, but cute color theory during the break section in the second half. Simple layering, but I think it decided to layer in jumps in sections where it made following the percussion or following the melody inconsistent. Song also should've been cropped to avoid the repetition in your charting.

[gold stinger]

YouTube Video Previews are out:
Timestamps for each submission are in the video description.

Class A - Progressive Temporal Corruption

Class B - AIN'T NOTHIN' LIKE A FUNKY BEAT

Class C - GETCHA! (Cover)

Class D - Fat Lip

Class E - Clumsy Communication

[Tru]

Funky Beat

Song: High hopes for files from this group. Probably the second easiest degree of charting difficulty, so hoping to see some unique twists to help spice up and differentiate submissions.

1 - Something of a safe approach overall, and a perfectly serviceable file. I like the splashes of colour. However, I’m not sure this chart does enough to distinguish itself from other submissions. Could definitely have leaned in to the more bouncy rhythms more - felt a bit too continuous for what this song is. Increased layering felt introduced in a weird spot, would need to look closer to get more specific with why. Would probably get accepted, but more could be done.

2 - Vocal 24ths were an interesting addition that I broadly approve of. Felt at times over-layered and potentially inconsistent with its layering and pattern choices. It’s a bold chart to be sure. In judgement, would probably be listing consistency checks and smoothing out a few pattern choices.

3 - Unfortunately this chart feels unfocused. Played this twice and it’s hard to figure out what is being followed. I think(?) the layering is pretty consistent so I have to give kudos for that at least. I’d love to see more from this charter, perhaps on a song they’re more comfortable with. There are some good ideas in here but the dynamic nature of this song may have hindered them and they lost focus while planning out their chart.

4 - There are some definitely good ideas here. However, I feel that the chart went a little overboard with the density especially in the second half. While I can understand what the goal was here, I don’t think this approach works very well with this song.

5 - Felt better on the second playthrough. This will probably be a fairly popular choice in this group, as there are some decent ideas and barring the 3[34]4s the chart flows pretty nicely. I’m not personally a fan, as I think the song isn’t one that should be quite this flowy but that’s just taste. Acceptable with a few tweaks.

6 - Yesssss. I could only wish this was longer. This is exactly the file I hoped would come out of this group. Very nicely done.

7 - Pretty similar to 1 and 5, decent ideas and flows pretty nicely but I’m not a fan of this for the same reason as 5. Would probably get accepted.

GETCHA!

Song: A lot of different ways to approach this. I’m expecting a lot of vocal dumps and potentially some interesting cuts. This will require either close attention to details or some good execution or both.

1 - Kind of a neat execution, though some of the glut patterns would definitely need to get adjusted or reduced in spots. An otherwise pretty straightforward approach that I can’t really complain about.

2 - Expected this sort of chart. While I can understand the unbalanced difficulty curve and making the choruses stand out in that way, I think it’s too much in comparison to the rest of the chart. I like the idea but it needs some refinement.

3 - Felt this was way too aggressively done and ultimately I had to quit out around half way. I don’t feel this was a very good representation of the song. A decent attempt, but I feel that it was trying to do too much with the freedom offered by dump charting.

4 - Good cut and an interesting, albeit simplified, approach overall. De-emphasizing the vocals worked fairly well for how this was done, even if it might not be an ideal choice in general for this song.

5 - Similar but opposite approach to 4 where the vocals feature a bit more prominently in a somewhat simplified approach. However, the apparent lack of a cut here really hinders this chart as it lacks much of a dynamic feel to justify this length and it feels a bit tedious/repetitive to play.

6 - There are some good ideas here in a general sense. But there are a lot of questionable pattern choices that really hinder this.

7 - The intro/verse 1 was pretty decent. But the chart felt very odd to play starting at the first chorus. It’s hard to figure out what some of these jacks are for and there are some bursts within them that make this feel like too much.

Fat Lip

Song: Definitely the easiest/simplest song to create a chart out of here. Standing out will be the challenge.

1 - Pretty strong choice here. The dump approach used here worked pretty well overall and barring a few questionable patterns, I’d probably accept this in a normal batch.

2 - I like some choices here - especially the long jack to vocals used in the chorus, which was a pretty fun(ny) approach and definitely tripped me up on sightread. Layering (jump use) would need fairly substantial work to ensure consistency. Feels like a chart from a promising new stepartist, would love to see more from this person!

3 - Relatively simplified dump approach as compared to 1, and pretty decent in a broad sense. However I felt that some choices felt extremely limited when the song offered something more interesting. The best example of this is the jumptrill use here.

4 - A pretty safe/tame chart overall. Not sure what some of these white notes are for. Don’t have much to say, kind of expected to get a chart like this.

5 - Similar idea to 4 but slightly more polished.

6 - Colour work here was a good choice and is done pretty well. I like that this was still a lower difficulty overall, but I think a slightly more aggressive approach would have worked better.

Clumsy Communication

Song: I’m not sure what to expect out of this group. I’d anticipate a handful of fairly similar charts so it’ll be interesting to see how people decided to stand out from the crowd here.

1 - A very straightforward and potentially effective approach here, but the length really hinders this one. Also noted several rhythm errors and jump use consistency needs some work. This seems like a chart from a novice stepartist, and I’d like to see this person keep at it – you’ve definitely got the basics down pat and you’ll improve with more charts.

2 - I like the dump idea but I don’t think this approach was very effective. I’m not sure whether the filler jumpstream was just too slow to feel worthwhile or if it needed to lean in more on bursts. The idea could work, but not quite there imo

3 - Kind of an anticipated approach overall. Decent cut. Bursts toward the end seemed a little out of place but not overly egregious. Pretty solid.

4 - Somewhat similar to 3 but a little bit more interesting imo. Intro is weird though.

5 - Unfortunately it was difficult to determine what this chart was trying to follow at times. Sections at times felt like they were not following the music at all. There’s some cute ideas like those jump-hand-quads. Similar advice to 1, you’ll improve with more charts.

6 - Somewhat sloppy cut. I very much enjoyed the second half of this chart mostly because it’s close to how I would have approached this song. Colour notes here appear to be for sync, but I think it would have been worth sacrificing strict sync for a cohesive colour scheme (or recolorize them to closest 24th). As is, it just seems a bit odd.

7 - Felt kind of weird at times. Density doesn’t seem to follow the song all that well - noted some layering consistency concerns and some portions that just seem too empty for the song’s energy. Also some pitch relevancy concerns throughout. Pretty decent attempt but would need some polish.

8 - I enjoyed this one a fair bit. I have some concerns with hand use in particular here. Broadly I’d like to see more hands, but there is definitely a consistency issue with them either way. This is otherwise pretty solid.

Still deciding on whether I want to weigh in on any of my fellow class A submissions (if so will post those after the voting period).

[gold stinger]

I know there was a Front Page Post notice about this, but posting in here too for posterity; Today is the last day available for voting!

If you haven't voted yet, please consider doing so! Every single vote matters and can potentially decide who gets their song in-game, and who advances to Final StepOff!

[jh05013]

I deleted my overall review on a whim so here's a per-entry review instead.

B: AIN'T NOTHIN' LIKE A FUNKY BEAT

Fun song. I expected some bouncy, jacky approaches, and a challenge would be how to effectively cut the song or keep the chart intersting against its repetitive nature. All submissions were quite enjoyable.

1 - My favorite entry in this group. I specifically liked how progression is represented by hands.

2 - This one sprinkles some 24ths for vocal, which work in some places but felt a bit strange in others. Some of the white minijacks lead to unwarranted 3-jacks. Other than that, a solid approach.

3, 5, 7 - Nice jumpstreams. They may be a bit generic, but there is only so much a jumpstream can have anyway.

4 - A more aggressive approach. The ending is interesting in its own barring the right hand's 4[34]334334, but felt a bit too spiky compared to the rest of the chart.

6 - Very similar to how I would have charted it except for the flams. I like it.

C: GETCHA! (Cover)

Surprised at the amount of hate this song received. Well yeah that might not mean much coming from a vtuber pfp, but I think there can be a good amount of attention to detail that would make a chart fresh throughout, even without dumping.

1 - Intersting chordjack approach, but the intensity doesn't seem to match well with the song.

2 - Intersting dump approach, but the intensity doesn't seem to match well with the song, for a different reason: the easier parts are too easy where there were certainly more instruments worth stepping.

3 - This one seems to go for pure vocal dumps. While I see their merits in charts like Celsus v2 where not much really goes on in the music, or 99.9 where the vocal comes in broken parts, this one unfortunately leaves out a lot of the interesting things happening in the background.

4, 5 - Exactly the kind of chart I was looking for. Although I preferred 4 more for more attention to detail, 5 also had some parts that I liked more than 4.

6 - Vocal dumps were nicely done. My favorite vocal dump in this group, in fact. Some of the other patterns didn't align well for me, either due to patterning or intensity.

7 - A more aggressive chordjack approach. Would have been a vote contender for me if executed well, but there were a few uncomfortable patterns, including unwarranted 5-jacks and one-hand-heavy patterns.

D: Fat Lip

Now this one is a really difficult one to make an interesting chart out of. (Ironically, this group ended up to be the only group where I gave more than 2 votes...)

1 - I don't understand the green-pink jacks, but otherwise a solid dump. I thought a majority would be going for dumps which would make it harder to stand out, but it turns out only 2 entries did. Thanks for cutting the song too. I'm surprised that only 1 did so, considering the song's genericness.

2 - While I see an anchor motif, it seems inaccurate in some places, i.e. some anchors look unwarranted, and some are missing. Would be an interesting easy chart once polished throughout.

3 - Similar comment to 1, except for the [12]3[12]4[12]3 pattern which I couldn't understand. If it's for the vocal, it doesn't feel right because the pitch is not really constant. Other sections were nice.

4, 5 - Tamer 8th-oriented approaches. Both are quite polished. At first I preferred 4 more, but watching them today they look equally good now.

6 - Interesting color theory. Not only vocals are colored, but also they got different colors depending on who is singing. It reminded me of the music video which is kinda funny. Maybe some sections could have been harder, but colored notes do impose a reading challenge so maybe it's fine, idk.

E: Clumsy Communication

A mix of B and C, this song has many viable instruments to pick for charting, but it also requires dealing against repetitiveness.

1, 5, 6, 7 - They have some potential, but look inconsistent in layering or patterning for now.

2 - Didn't expect to see a dump in this group. It was confusing unfortunately, mainly due to 24ths being too slow and not very distinguishable from other instruments. Rolls don't feel right either, since the sound is rather constant with a very vague vibration near the end.

3 - I really liked this one, which incorporated a lot of the interesting things the song could offer and still remained straightforward. Similar style to GETCHA! 4 in terms of attention to detail.

4 - Pretty sure the intro 16ths aren't right, considering that the music is centered around 24th swings. Dumps were confusing similarly to 2. Other sections were satisfying.

(EDIT: after the voting period, I got the blank file and inspected the intro. It was 96ths unlike the rest of the song. Interesting...)

8 - Similar to 4, but I find some of the minijacks questionable. Nice color theory near the end.

[gold stinger]

The First Public Voting Period has Ended!

Here's the results for the First Round:


1st - jh05013 (7)
2nd - Tru (5)
3rd - Matthia (4)


1st - basicdrummerman (6)
2nd - jacobvl39 (1)
3rd - Cuckson (2)


1st - Elite Ninja (5)
2nd - M0nkeyz (4)
3rd - Zoobin4 (3)


1st - storn42 (5)
2nd - ositzxz369 (4)
3rd - Lights (1)


1st - WirryWoo (3)
2nd - xXOpKillerXx (8)
3rd - XelNya (4)

A huge congratulations to everyone that participated, played and voted for their favorites! It was quite a riveting battle over the week from every Class for the coveted 1st Place to participate in the Final StepOff! So much so, that we saw last-minute tiebreakers be resolved in the last couple hours of voting! I will be getting prizes (credits, badges and the such) out shortly while juggling the rest of the swap-over period as we transition into the Final StepOff.

Participants and voters are now open & free to talk about which file is theirs in-order on the StepCon 2023 engine (if they prefer), and talk about which specific songs they voted for (again, if they prefer).

[gold stinger]

The Second Stepping Period has Begun!

During this time, all participants will have received a Direct Message from me containing the Final StepOff song, and their Pre-built .sm File to begin Charting.

All participants will have until the end of Saturday, November 4th 11:59PM SERVER TIME to complete their submissions and submit it to the StepCon 2023 Batch located here.

There will be no trading of songs during Final StepOff, as everyone has the same song.

Class Exam: Schwank vs. Tanger - deathwish

jh05013
basicdrummerman
Elite Ninja
storn42
WirryWoo

Schwank and Tanger come together to form a fusion of genres suited only for the rhythm game scene. How will finalists balance the highs and lows of this high-energy, extremely viable piece behind 2 of the bigger-known Beat Saber musicians? Only time will tell in this year's Final StepOff!
3 participants will be walking away with an extra-special StepOff profile badge (plus a hefty bonus of credits), and the winner will also have this song released to FFR.

Best of luck to the Finalists! To other participants, I will be sending out 2nd & 3rd place prizes, and participation prizes in a bit. The Second Judging Period will begin on November 5th.

[basicdrummerman]

we did it boys

[Elite Ninja]

Well played everyone and congrats to all the winners! The competition was extremely tight @_@

I... I didn't think I was making it this far to be honest and almost wanted to give up early on in the competition but I decided in the end to try my best. Thanks to everyone who voted for me <3 ;-;

[Lights]

i've been defeated by a chair and a storn!

you both made great files, good luck in the finals storn!

[jh05013]

Wow! I'll take Taunfolk, Crawling From Hell, and Kokeshi Cat Medley for the event tokens. Thanks!

I went with my comfortable range of near-90, because the chart would be quite complex already and I wasn't confident with stepping it any harder without hindering the readability. I didn't expect mine to be the only entry in that range, lol. Not fully satisfied with my chart so I'll be tweaking it throughout the week, but I'm glad that it was received well.

IMO entry 6 nailed everything that I found lacking in my chart's second half, so big kudos to the stepauthor.