Dance Dance Revolution
 Dance
Dance Revolution, a.k.a. DDR and Dancing Stage in Europe, is a music video
game series produced by Konami. It was first introduced to Japanese video
arcades in 1998, after being shown at the Tokyo Game Show earlier that year.
Since then, the game has gained significant popularity elsewhere in the
world, including large portions of North America, Europe and Australia. As
of 2005, over 90 official versions have been produced, including those for
home video game consoles. The Dance Dance Revolution series is a subset of
the larger Bemani series of music video games. As of 2007, there are over
1,000 songs featured in all versions of DDR worldwide. The game is played on
a dance pad with four arrow panels in a cross barby formation: left, right,
up, and down, eight arrows (two 4-arrow pads), or six arrows (the 4 main
directions plus up-left and up-right diagonal panels, known as solo mode).
These panels are pressed using the player's feet, in response to arrows that
appear on the screen in front of the player. The arrows are synchronized to
the general rhythm or beat of a chosen song, and success is dependent on the
player's ability to time and position his or her steps accordingly.
Gameplay details
In Dance Dance Revolution, a player must move his or her feet to a set
pattern, stepping in time to the general rhythm or beat of a song. During
normal gameplay, arrows scroll upwards from the bottom of the screen and
pass over stationary, transparent arrows near the top (referred to as the
"guide arrows" or "receptors"). When the scrolling arrows overlap the
stationary ones, the pla yer
must step on the corresponding arrows on the dance platform. Successfully
hitting the arrows in time with the music fills the "Dance Gauge", or life
bar, while failure to do so drains it. If the Dance Gauge is fully depleted
during gameplay, the player fails the song, usually resulting in a game
over. Otherwise, the player is taken to the Results Screen, which rates the
player's performance with a letter grade and a numerical score, among other
statistics. The player may then be given a chance to play again, depending
on the settings of the particular machine (the limit is usually 3-5 songs
per game).
Depending on the version of the game, dance steps are broken into varying
levels of difficulty. The main difficulty levels are "Basic/Light",
"Trick/Standard" and "Maniac/Heavy", and some versions also include
"Beginner" and "Oni/Challenge" difficulty levels, usually with extremely
easy and difficult sequences, respectively. Songs are also given a "foot
rating", ranging from one to ten feet to indicate the overall difficulty of
the step sequence. Beginning in DDRMAX, a "dance gauge" known as the "Groove
Radar" also shows how difficult a particular sequence is in various
categories, such as the maximum density of steps, how many jumps are in the
steps, etc.
Other modes
Several other gameplay modes have appeared throughout the DDR series.
Nonstop Mode, introduced in Dance Dance Revolution 3rdMIX, allows the player
to play several songs in a row, with no rest period in between. The player
chooses a particular Nonstop course to play, each course containing a
predetermined order of songs. In 3rdMIX, the number of songs played is
dependent on operator settings, but the mode later reappeared in DDR EXTREME
with a fixed number of four songs.
DDRMAX2 introduced a more challenging variant of Nonstop mode, known as
Challenging Mode or "Oni" Mode (referring to "demon" or "ogre" in the
Japanese language). In this mode, a player chooses a predetermined set of
songs, similar to Nonstop mode. These courses range from five to ten songs
in arcade versions, and can reach upwards of twenty in home releases. Unlike
Nonstop mode, a Dance Gauge is not used to determine whether the player
continues to the next song. Instead, a battery divided into three segments
is displayed at the top of the screen, with one segment disappearing every
time the player scores less than a "Great" judgment, or receives an "N.G."
on a freeze arrow. If one of these errors is made while the battery is
empty, the player immediately fails the course. The battery is replenished
upon successful completion of each song, although the amount given back is
dependent on the unique settings of each course.
 Another
"Challenge Mode", unrelated to the "Oni" Challenging Mode, is only featured
in certain home releases. Gameplay consists of several "challenges" that may
be attempted one at a time. In each challenge, the player must complete a
certain song or section of a song while meeting certain conditions,
sometimes with various gameplay modifiers applied to the song. For example,
some challenges may require the player to not hit Up and Down arrows, play
one set of steps with the wrong song playing, or play with the music reduced
to half speed. Challenges are grouped into several sets within each game,
depending on their difficulty. This mode was renamed "Mission Mode" in later
console releases in Japan, and "Dance Master" mode in the US. It is also
called "Stellar Master Mode" in Dance Dance Revolution SuperNova.
Endless Mode is another mode exclusive to home versions. Similar to Nonstop
Mode, this mode allows the player to play through numerous songs one after
another. However, Endless Mode continues to queue up songs indefinitely,
until the player quits or the Dance Gauge is depleted. The song order is
random, but options are available to limit the songs to a certain difficulty
or category. The player may also choose to have a break stage appear after a
certain number of completed songs. Endless Mode became a standard unlockable
mode in all DDR home releases after Konami's American arcade division shut
down. (Note: on the Japanese 3rd Mix for the Playstation, Endless Mode could
be "beaten", contrary to what its name implies, by achieving the maximum
score and stopping the score counter.)
Event Mode is a game option whose function differs between arcade and home
versions of DDR. On arcade machines, Event Mode is an operator setting that
disables all menu timers, and also disables the "Extra Stage" on DDRMAX and
above. A player will also not fail a song immediately even when their dance
gauge drops to zero - instead, the song failure message occurs at the end of
the song. This setting is used primarily in tournaments, to give judges more
time to take an accurate tally of the players' Dance Points. In home
versions, Event Mode (settable in the Options menu) returns players back to
the song selection screen when they fail a song, and also after completing
the normal number of stages. (All Xbox versions of DDR have Event Mode
enabled by default.)
Extra Stage, introduced in DDRMAX and appearing in subsequent arcade
versions, rewards a player for receiving a grade of "AA" or higher on either
Heavy or Challenge difficulties on the final stage. The player receives the
opportunity to play a free extra song, which is often a very difficult song
with difficult song modifiers, such as 1.5x, Reverse, Dark, and No Recovery
(The Dance Gauge starts out full except that it cannot be refilled). A
player who attains a grade of "AA" on the Extra Stage is invited to play
"One More Extra Stage," which is usually a somewhat easier song, but with
much more difficult modifiers such as "Dark" and "Sudden Death", and a
single mistake will cause the player to fail the song.
Dance Magic is a competitive mode introduced in Dancing Stage: Mickey's Rave
(a version of DDR featuring popular Disney songs). In this mode, the dance
gauge is replaced by a single bar that starts evenly divided between the two
players. As one player performs better than the other, that player will take
over more of the bar. In addition, each player has an "attack gauge" that
fills as the player hits their arrows and achieves streaks. When this gauge
fills, a random attack is sent to the other player, usually causing a
temporary change to their step pattern (a speed change, adding arrows not
normally in the song, causing all steps to become jumps, enforcing Sudden or
Hidden mode, etc.) and thus making their steps more difficult. Regardless of
the technical accuracy of a player's performance, the player who holds the
majority of the bar at the end of the song wins the round. This mode appears
again in the arcade and PS2 versions of DDR SuperNOVA (renamed "Battle"),
and also appears in the derivative game In The Groove as "Battle Mode" and
in StepMania as Magic Dance.
A different mode appears in DDR 4th Mix, in which both players must dance to
a special set of steps for a song. Steps are a single color (usually green)
and fly out from the bottom-center of the screen to each player's guide
arrows. Players are not necessarily guaranteed to have t he
same set of steps.
Unison is a two-player cooperative dance mode introduced in DDR 3rd Mix.
Both players play a special set of steps on a single set of merged guide
arrows. Players must hit the dance arrows according to their color: Yellow
arrows must be hit by both players simultaneously, while red arrows are for
the left player only and blue arrows are for the right.
Solo Mode is a mode unique to the DDR Solo series, in which two corner
panels (top-left and top-right) are added to the standard orthogonal panels.
The player must read and step according to six columns of arrows instead of
the usual four. Konamix, the third US home release for the PlayStation, also
has this mode.
Mush Mode, presented in DDR: Mario Mix, replaces arrows with goombas, koopa
shells, Spinies (representing mines from In The Groove and StepMania) and
other miscellaneous items and objects from the Mario series.
Versions
Dance Dance Revolution has been released in many forms, in arcades and on
various video game consoles. Although the majority of these releases have
been limited to Japan, localized versions of the game have been released in
Europe, North America, South America, Korea, and other areas of Asia, to
varying degrees of success. Japanese versions have also found their way
outside the country through importing and bootlegging, especially in North
America. According to popular fansite "DDRFreak", as of September 2005, more
than 2100 arcade DDR machines exist in the United States, with over 25% of
them located in California.
The first game in the series was simply titled Dance Dance Revolution.
Subsequent versions in the main line were released as "mixes" — for example,
Dance Dance Revolution 4th Mix — and each release typically introduced new
game modes (see above), a new main interface, and/or a new selection of
songs. After 5th Mix, a sub-name was added to the DDR title — for example,
Dance Dance Revolution MAX 2 — but was also referred to by its mix number
(7th Mix in this case) but numerical installment was omitted on EXTREME
onwards. The most recent version of the game is titled Dance Dance
Revolution Universe.
During DDR's arcade span, several spin-off versions have also been released:
Dancing Stage is the name of the series in Europe and Australia, and
includes Dancing Stage: Mickey's Rave, a special version that includes
techno and Eurobeat versions of popular Disney songs. A special
single-player version titled Dance Dance Revolution Solo includes a modified
dance stage with six pads (including pads on the upper-left and upper-right
corners), and features gameplay with six arrows rather than the standard
four. To date, only two versions of Dance Dance Revolution have been
officially released in North America: Dance Dance Revolution USA,
essentially a localized version of DDR 3rd Mix, and Dance Dance Revolution
SuperNOVA. Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA2 is currently being tested and
is expected to be released in both Japan and North America.
Arcade machines
A standard Dance Dance Revolution arcade machine consists of two parts, the
cabinet and the dance platform. The cabinet has a wide bottom section, which
houses large floor speakers and glowing neon lamps. Above this sits a
narrower section that contains the monitor, and on top is a lighted marquee
graphic, with two small speakers and flashing lights on either side. Below
the monitor are two sets of buttons (one for each player), each consisting
of two triangular selection buttons and a center rectangular button, used
mainly to confirm a selection or start the game. The dance stage is a raised
metal platform divided into two "pads". Each pad houses a set of four arrow
panels arranged and pointing in the orthogonal directions (left, up, down
and right), separated by metal squares. Each "arrow" is a thick sheet of
acrylic glass that sits atop four pressure switches, one at each edge, and a
software-controlled cold cathode lamp. A metal safety bar in the shape of an
upside-down "U" is mounted to the pad behind each player. More advanced
players frequently make use of this safety bar, to help maintain proper
balance, and to relieve weight from the legs so that arrows can be pressed
with greater speed and accuracy.
Some DDR cabinets are equipped with Sony Playstation memory card slots,
allowing the player to insert a compatible memory card before starting a
game and save their high scores to the card. Additionally, the equivalent
home versions of DDR allow players to create and save custom step patterns
(edits) to their memory card — the player can then play those steps on the
arcade machine if the same song exists on that machine. This feature is
supported in DDR 2ndMIX through DDR EXTREME. It was expected that for the
release of DDR SuperNOVA, memory card support would be existent. However,
the division of Konami which handled the production of the memory card slots
shut down, causing Konami to pull memory card support out at the last
minute.
The DDR Solo arcade cabinet is smaller and contains only one dance pad,
modified to include six arrow panels instead of four (the additional panels
are "upper-left" and "upper-right"). These pads generally don't come with a
safety bar, but include the option for one to be installed at a later date.
The Solo pad also lacks some of the metal plating that the standard pad has,
which can make stepping difficult for players who are used to playing on
standard machines. Additionally, Solo machines only incorporate two sensors,
located horizontally in the center of the arrow, instead of four sensors on
each edge.
The rare Dance Dance Revolution Karaoke Mix also has one dance pad, as well
as a smaller screen, and a microphone to allow the player to dance and sing
simultaneously. Similar functionality is available in Karaoke Revolution
Party, released on the PlayStation 2, GameCube, and Xbox.
The promotional materials and cardboard signs that shipped with DDR EXTREME
(8th Mix) suggested that it would be the last release of DDR in the Japanese
arcades. While Konami never made an official statement, fans were led to
believe this was the case by statements such as "We're Starting Over!" and
"Thank you to all DDR Fans!", as well as the unusually comprehensive set of
songs and features in this release. However, on January 25, 2006, Konami
announced Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA, a new arcade release for North
America. The previous day, a version for Europe, Dancing Stage SuperNOVA,
had already been premiered at the Amusement Trade Exhibition International
in London, England. More recently, DDR SuperNOVA premiered at the All-Nippon
Amusement Machine Operators' Union (AOU) show in Japan, making this version
the first worldwide arcade release in the series. The game was released in
Europe on April 28, 2006, followed by the U.S. release on May 15 and the
Japanese release on July 12. Dance Dance Revolution Mario Mix is the only
Nintendo version of DDR so far, containing remixes of many popular Mario
tunes.
Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA 2 has been released in Japan in August
22,2007.
Arcade releases
Japan
Note: Dance Dance Revolution 2ndMIX was updated after its initial release
with a few new songs and to allow it to be connected to and play alongside
Konami's DJ simulator games, beatmania IIDX. While the official name of that
version of the DDR cabinet when standing alone was "LINK VERSION"[1], when
connected to the two beatmania IIDX cabinets that were compatible it was
referred to by two other unique names.[2] Below all three names are listed
in the order they were released.
Dance Dance Revolution
Dance Dance Revolution 2ndMIX
Dance Dance Revolution 2ndMIX LINK VERSION
Dance Dance Revolution 2ndMIX with beatmaniaIIDX CLUB VERSiON
Dance Dance Revolution 2ndMIX and beatmaniaIIDX substream CLUB VERSiON 2
Dancing Stage featuring TRUE KiSS DESTINATION
Dance Dance Revolution SOLO BASS MIX
Dance Dance Revolution 3rdMIX
Dance Dance Revolution KARAOKE MIX
Dance Dance Revolution SOLO 2000
Dancing Stage featuring DREAMS COME TRUE
Dance Dance Revolution 3rdMIX PLUS
Dance Dance Revolution KARAOKE MIX 2nd
Dance Dance Revolution 4thMIX
Dance Dance Revolution Solo 4thMIX
Dancing Stage featuring DISNEY'S RAVE
Dance Dance Revolution KIDS
Dance Dance Revolution 4thMIX PLUS
Dance Dance Revolution Solo 4thMIX PLUS
Dance Dance Revolution 5thMIX
DDRMAX Dance Dance Revolution 6thMIX
DDRMAX2 Dance Dance Revolution 7thMIX
Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME
Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA
Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA 2
Asia
Dance Dance Revolution
Dance Dance Revolution 2ndMIX
Dance Dance Revolution Solo 2000
Dance Dance Revolution 3rdMIX
Dance Dance Revolution 4thMIX
Dance Dance Revolution Solo 4thMIX
Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA
Korea
Dance Dance Revolution 3rdMIX
Dance Dance Revolution 3rdMIX (second release)
Europe
Dancing Stage
Dancing Stage (second release)
Dancing Stage EuroMIX
Dancing Stage EuroMIX 2
Dancing Stage EuroMIX 3
Dancing Stage EuroMIX 4
Dancing Stage Party Edition
Dancing Stage Fusion
Dancing Stage MegaMIX
Dancing Stage Fever
Dancing Stage SuperNOVA
Dancing Stage SuperNOVA (second release)
North America
NOTE: These are the versions of DDR that were officially released in North
America. The majority of DDR machines in the United States and Canada are
imported from Japan or are bootlegs.[3]
Dance Dance Revolution
Dance Dance Revolution USA
Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA
Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA (second release)
Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA 2
Home releases
DDR has been released on PC, as well as a number of video game consoles,
including the PlayStation, Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox, and now
even Xbox 360. Home versions are commonly bundled with soft plastic dance
pads that are similar in appearance and function to the Nintendo Power Pad.
Some third-party manufacturers produce hard metal pads at a higher price.
DDR has even reached Nintendo's Game Boy Color, with five versions of Dance
Dance Revolution GB released in Japan; these included a series of three
mainstream DDR games, a Disney Mix, and an Oha Sta! mix. The games come with
a small thumb pad that fits over the Game Boy Color's controls to simulate
the dance pad.
A version of DDR was also produced for the PC in North America. It uses the
interface of DDR 4thMix, and contains around 40 songs from the first six
mainstream arcade releases. It has not been as well received as the console
versions.
The most common criticism of DDR home console versions is that they tend to
provide a more limited selection of songs than in the arcade, despite the
increased capacity of DVD storage media in more recent releases. In
addition, many fan-favorite songs don't make it to the home versions,
usually due to licensing restrictions. This is especially true of North
American home versions of DDR. Another common criticism points to the
relatively poor quality of most home dance pads, though dedicated fans of
the series can find high-quality pads from third-party manufacturers. Some
also build their own pads from raw parts (see the dance pad article for more
information).
Japan
Game Boy Color
Dance Dance Revolution GB
Dance Dance Revolution GB 2
Dance Dance Revolution GB 3
Dance Dance Revolution GB: Oha Sta!
Dance Dance Revolution: Disney Dancing Museum
Nintendo 64
Dance Dance Revolution: Disney Dancing Museum
Nintendo GameCube
Dance Dance Revolution Mario Mix
Sega Dreamcast
Dance Dance Revolution 2nd Mix Dreamcast Edition (2000)
Dance Dance Revolution CLUB VERSION Dreamcast Edition (2000)
PlayStation game console
Dance Dance Revolution 1stMIX (1999)
Dance Dance Revolution 2ndMIX (1999)
Dance Dance Revolution 2ndMIX Append CLUB VERSION Vol.1 (1999)
Dance Dance Revolution 2ndMIX Append CLUB VERSION Vol.2 (1999)
Dance Dance Revolution 3rdMIX (2000)
Dance Dance Revolution OHA STA!! (2000)
Dance Dance Revolution BEST HITS (2000)
Dance Dance Revolution 4thMIX (2001)
Dance Dance Revolution EXTRA MIX (2001)
Dance Dance Revolution 5thMIX (2001)
PlayStation 2
Aerobics Revolution
DDRMAX: Dance Dance Revolution 6thMIX (2001)
DDRMAX2: Dance Dance Revolution 7thMIX (2002)
Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME (2003)
Dance Dance Revolution Party Collection (2003)
DDR FESTIVAL: Dance Dance Revolution (2004)
Dance Dance Revolution STR!KE (2006)
Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA (2006)
North America
PlayStation
Dance Dance Revolution (2001)
Dance Dance Revolution Disney MIX (2001)
Dance Dance Revolution KONAMIX (2002)
Windows PC
Dance Dance Revolution (2002)
PlayStation 2
DDRMAX: Dance Dance Revolution (2002)
DDRMAX2: Dance Dance Revolution (2003)
Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME (2004)
Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME 2 (2005)
Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA (2006)
Xbox video game system
Dance Dance Revolution ULTRAMIX (2003)
Dance Dance Revolution ULTRAMIX 2 (2004)
Dance Dance Revolution ULTRAMIX 3 (2005)
Dance Dance Revolution ULTRAMIX 4 (2006)
Nintendo GameCube
Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix (2005)
Xbox 360
Dance Dance Revolution UNIVERSE (2007)
Dance Dance Revolution UNIVERSE 2 (2007)
Wii
Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party (2007)
TV Plug-n-Play
Dance Dance Revolution: Disney Mix (2006)
My First Dance Dance Revolution (2006)
Dance Dance Revolution: Strawberry Shortcake (2006)
Similar Games
Screenshot of StepMania, an open-source DDR clone for personal computers
The success of the DDR franchise has spawned many games with similar game
play, for many different systems, such as personal computers and video game
consoles. Most of these games use their own music and step files, and a
variety of both are widely available. Many of these programs hold the
ability to create a step pattern for any song. An example of such a program
is StepMania.
Flash Flash Revolution (FFR) is another game of the same type. This internet
flash game requires no download and is also host to over one million users.
The judging on songs in FFR are not judged by grades such as SM does, but
rather an accumulation of points and credits which may be added to your
account to purchase and unlock new songs.
In the Groove is an arcade dance game based on the aforementioned StepMania
engine, developed by Roxor Games. ITG features a number of gameplay
mechanics used in Dance Dance Revolution, but also introduces new concepts
and mechanics that generally appeal to the experienced player. In 2005,
Konami filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Roxor, claiming that
the ITG conversion kit, which enables arcade machine owners to install ITG
in existing DDR cabinets, violated Konami's intellectual property rights.
This lawsuit resulted in a settlement in which Konami acquired all
intellectual property rights to In the Groove.[4]
One other noteworthy competing product is Dance Factory, a PlayStation 2
program from Codemasters that converts music from any CD into dance steps.
Flow: Urban Dance Uprising by UbiSoft has a Hip-Hop dance theme. A PC game
is also coming out entitled Dance! which, like StepMania, will allow the
player to create homemade tracks.
A partial list of DDR simulators and competing products follows:
Nintendo GameCube
MC Groovz Dance Craze
Wii
Dance Factory
PlayStation
Superstar Dance Club
PlayStation 2
Dance Factory
Flow: Urban Dance Uprising
In The Groove
Pump It Up (Exceed SE)
Xbox
Pump It Up (Exceed SE)
Dreamcast
Feet of Fury (Homebrew)
PC
Audition Online
DANCE! Online
StepMania
In The Groove
Dance With Intensity
Delight Delight Reduplication
Flash Flash Revolution (Internet Flash Game)
e-Lite Music (Internet Flash Multiplayer Game)
Dance Praise
Pump It Up (Dance Floor series)
Arcade
Technomotion
In The Groove
Pump It Up
The DDR phenomenon
DDR is a phenomenon around which subcultures of fans and enthusiasts have
gathered. Tournaments are held worldwide, with participants usually
competing for higher scores or number of Perfects (referred to as "Perfect
Attack" tournaments). Less common are "freestyle" tournaments, where players
develop actual dance routines to perform while following the steps in the
game.
As exercise
Many news outlets have reported how playing DDR can be good aerobic
exercise; some regular players have reported weight loss of 10–50 pounds
(5–20 kg). In one example, a player found that including DDR in her
day-to-day life resulted in a loss of 95 pounds.[1] It is argued, however,
that the cases of significant weight loss have all been stories where a
significantly overweight player loses a few pounds, and then becomes
motivated to take action to lose weight, including dieting and regular gym
attendance. Although reports of weight loss have not been scientifically
measured, many schools use DDR as a physical education activity in
gym,[citation needed] and in Norway, DDR has even been registered as an
official sport.[citation needed]
Many home versions of the game have a function to estimate calories burned,
given a player's weight. Also, players can use "workout mode" to make a
diary of calories burned playing DDR and any self-reported changes in the
player's weight.
Internet fandom
Dozens of fan websites have been created in response to the popularity of
DDR. In the United States, one of the most popular is DDR Freak, which was
originally formed in 2000 to promote DDR in the San Francisco Bay Area. It
has since become an international player resource, featuring DDR-related
news coverage, codes and "step charts" for the various games, a database of
machine locations, Internet forums, an internet radio station and an IRC
channel. DDR Freak's forums are heavily trafficked, and boast over 55,000
members as of July 2005. DDR is also seen in a lot of new music videos such
as Madonna, Jet sring, Mark.S.Taylor, Kirb rock house and others.
Aaron In Japan is another popular website, and is geared more towards "tech"
players. The site's forums tend to discuss specific DDR issues, such as
technique and timing on specific songs or mixes, or reverse engineering of
scoring and grading systems. A large section of the website is dedicated to
storing photographic records of "AAA" grades accomplished by DDR players
worldwide. Several sites have also been created where players can track
their high scores in an organized fashion. The first of these, NNR, is now
defunct, but more recent websites such as DDRecall have filled its place and
include score tracking for In the Groove, a game similar to DDR.
StepMania [2] is a popular open source DDR simulator for the PC, Mac, and
Linux that works with dance pads or the keyboard. It allows players to
create their own stepfiles manually or automatically (via Dancing Monkeys),
and download many more user-created files at websites such as BemaniStyle.
Use in schools
At the start of 2006, Konami announced that the DDR games would be used as
part of a fitness program to be phased into West Virginia's 756 state
schools, starting with its 103 middle schools, over the next two years.[5]
The program was conceived by a researcher at West Virginia University's
Motor Development Center. Caltech allows its students to use DDR to fulfill
its physical education requirements, as students may design their own
fitness program. [6]
Brandeis University also has a physical education class based on DDR. Some
schools, like Churchville-Chili High School located in Churchville, New
York, as well as Hollidaysburg High School in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania,
have also added DDR as a choice in physical education for the students,
although other schools, while initially offering the program, abandoned it
due to lack of interest.
Playing styles
Many DDR players, in order to better focus on timing and pattern reading,
will minimize any extraneous body movement during gameplay. These players
are commonly referred to as "technical", "tech" or "perfect attack" (PA)
players. These technical players usually play the most difficult songs on
the highest difficulty levels in an attempt to perfect their scores.
Other DDR players choose to incorporate complex or flashy techniques into
their play movements, and some of these "freestyle" players develop
intricate dance routines to perform during a song. Freestyle players tend to
choose songs on lower difficulty levels, so that the player is not
restricted in their movements by large quantities of required steps.
In popular culture
With its increase in popularity over the past few years, Dance Dance
Revolution has been featured in many instances of popular culture, including
movies, books, music videos and television shows. DDR has made appearances
in the movies Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen starring Lindsay Lohan,
Imagine Me & You, Grandma's Boy, Music & Lyrics and Wasabi. In music, DDR
appeared prominently in Madonna's music video Hung Up. The Game also
appeared in Vanessa Hudgens debut music video,"Come Back To Me", as her and
her little sister play together in the living room. In Switchfoot's newest
music video, "Awakening", what is meant to look like DDR is played, along
with Guitar Hero. DDR has also appeared on several major TV shows, including
King of the Hill, South Park, Family Guy, Megas XLR, Malcolm in the Middle,
Yu-Gi-Oh, Will & Grace, Metalocalypse, Ugly Betty, Drawn Together and
Tucker. Most recently, DDR was featured prominently on the primetime TV show
Master of Champions, with juggler/dancer Billy Matsumoto demonstrating his
DDR skills while juggling three flaming torches, earning the show's top
honors. Matsumoto was subsequently invited on to The Ellen DeGeneres Show to
demonstrate his act. It is also in the hit TV show on Disney Channel, Cory
in the House renamed as "Step Step Party Tech".
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