Writing Dance Dance Revolution Freaks Story

[Mitch]

[size=1] This thing was very rushed. I started it about 11 or so last night and worked on it until 1:30. Overall I'd say it's decent, but yeah. Don't be too harsh, because I didn't myself even expect this thing to be that good itself. I still couldn't find a good place for an ending.

The arrows dance on their faces like half crosses of some geeky, digital religion. Their legs hustle and groove as the music beats out and the arrows pass. Some sweat bleeds out onto them, staining their clothes, tainting them with water that oozes onto their shirts and their bodies. This is the new revolution. The new high.

Some of them do it for the fun of it. Some of them do it for the competitive nature of it. Others still do it for too many reasons to name. But for all of them, it's become a premise from them to come back to over and over again, each time satisfied and thoroughly rectified in their love of the game.

Senior Mack Wilz's face seems to brighten up at the single mention of Dance Dance Revolution. Like it's some baby he's grown to nurture and care for. Like it's actually something he physically loves, mentally labors and challenges himself with. And it's not too hard to find that to be true in some fashions.

"It's just so fun," he says. "Plus it's a great workout as well."

Getting a workout from a game, it sounds like something crazy. Something that just doesn't add into video games. But here's DDR, and it's a prime example that there's actually more to video games than no values at all.

The game isn't played with a controller like millions of others. Instead, it's played with sort of a pad. The pad has four arrows on it in its square, two pointing up and down parallel to another, two pointing left and right also parallel to one another. In this grid is where you dance and groove to the music. This is where you pour your heart and soul into it.

On the screen next and close enough for comfort to the pad, arrows just like the ones seen on the pad fly by at varying speeds and combinations. Some point just left as the beat of the music keys their coming. Some point just right, some up, some down. Other times, links of arrows are mixed together in a mesh, causing you to have to coordinate yourself to hit both arrows at once. It ends up getting more trickier than it probably sounds.

It's also obsessive to some as well. Mack, smiling, laughing, recalls that he once played the game so long that he came close to passing out.

"I played for about 4 or 5 hours," he says. "My legs just gave out on me, and I just couldn't play any longer."

4 or 5 hours may sound long, but to some that's the way games like these are. They suck you in, let you escape and just relax for awhile.

Plus there's the group aspect to it. Hanging out with friends, having a good time. For many teens it's one of the higher points of their existence. And many will readily admit that down time is needed to relieve stress.

Junior Danae Bacous also could be considered something of a DDR regular. She goes nearly every day, or every other day, and dances to the beats and jives of the game. She, unlike Wilz, doesn't own a home version of the game, which can be bought in various types for Playstation and Playstation 2 game consoles. Instead, she goes to the Raging Rivers Water Park, where inside they have a small arcade that in one cozy corner has a DDR machine.

"I usually go alone, I'm such a loser," she says. "But sometimes at Raging Rivers there's other people there, and we hang out. Sometimes I even bring my friends."

Whatever the case, it's obvious to see that she too loves the game in one form or another. She even likes the music from the game, which is mostly Japanese music, and has CDs full of music from it, which she listens to often. Some is techno. Most of it is Japanese, since that is where the game originated. There are even different machines of the game that have entirely different songs you can choose to dance to.

"When I went to Washington with some friends," Bacous said, "I got to dance on 6 different machines. Each one had different songs and stuff. It was interesting."

With Raging Rivers the only spot to play the game other than if you own the game, it seems rather far to drive as far as to Mandan to play it. Yet Danae does it, as it's certain others do.

Some even go as far as inventing the game even further, taking it one step further, pulling off wicked tricks and stunts as they pull of and bust their moves to the game all at once. It adds even a more competitive and beautiful edge to the game, like it's its own art. One that isn't going to be lost soon, it seems, as people further reinvent themselves playing it.

"I have improved extremely since I first began," says Wilz. "I used to have trouble on so many songs, but now I can do them. I even do tricks while I do it."

For beginners, Wilz says it's most important to keep up with the beat of the song than with the arrows, because that's what gives concentration and a basis and structure to the game. From there, he says, it grows. You get better and better at it, more addicted.

Wilz and Danae both openly admitted they'd love to be mascots for DDR. Danae said she'd be the "spiky haired dude" that you can choose to be while playing the game, and that she'd do a progressive ad campaign, donning on Subway's weight loss man's song and dance of merchandizing as a weight loss diet.

Wilz said simply he'd do something funny, and wear the costume of the "afro man" you can choose as a character in the game.

The game is even so widely popular that there's even a sort of rip-off web game of it at the address of [url]www.flashflashrevolution.com[/url] where you can play a keyboard-based game of it, using the arrow keys in the same fashion as the pad. It's also addicting in many ways, and endlessly replayable and fun. Whether it's a rip-off or not is thing to be argued, but it is definitely fun. [/size]

[lea]

mitch, do you like ddr?

[Mitch]

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by lea2385 [/i]
[B]mitch, do you like ddr? [/B][/QUOTE]

[size=1] Why? Do you think it's too opinionated or what lol?

I haven't played it at all really, other than flash flash revolution...but it definitely looks like fun.[/size]

[OtakuSennen]

Haha, nice one, Mitch.. I don't recall reading a fanfic of yours before..

OFF TOPIC: I, myself, enjoy the game quite a bit as well. I normally play standard difficulty on Extreme, playing Butterfly, Fantasy by Melissa and Mr. Wonderful..

OK, enough of the off-topic bit.

So this was intended to be an article from a magazine or whatever, style-wise, right?

However, I did notice a little nitpick I could find in there somewhere (Gotta do that with every fanfic I grade. ~_^)

[quote]
She even likes the music from the game, which is mostly Japanese music, and has CDs full of music from it, which she listens to often.
[/quote]

If I were to be your editor for this, I would probably change the sentence to something more along the lines of "She even likes the music from the game, which is mostly Japanese, and has CDs full of the songs from it, which she listens to often."

You said "music" 3 times in the sentence.. A redundancy thing, ya know? However, that's just how [i]I[/i] would write it.. :sweat:

[b]8.7/10[/b] Nice job.

[Mitch]

[size=1] It's for newspaper...it's not a fan fic. And yeah, a lot of sentences need work lol. I wrote this when I was half asleep. Thanks for pointing it out though.[/size]

[Heaven's Cloud]

[color=indigo]It looks like it will be a pretty good piece once it is cleaned up a little. I always wondered who bought or played those Dance games. It seems a bit too active for my video game tastes, usually I play video games when I want to sit on my rump?[/color]