The Xytunes Blog

Scroll Control

2011-01-17T14:08:00.004-05:00

Ohey! So I finished my most recent course not too long ago, and popped it up on Twitter. If you're still checking up here for step-related updates, that'd be a better place to go. The most activity this blog seems to get is spam comments about "interesting articles." ¬_¬ (It's a trap?) As such, I'm probably going to close it out at some point in the future. I set up a twitter account just for StepMania-related stuff if you don't want the occasional quips and retweets from my normal feed.

The course:
...for StepMania 3.95 CVS
...for StepMania 4 Alpha 5

The songs (two new and two updated):
Y&Co. is dead or alive - New
GOLDEN CROSS - Updated
VOX UP - Updated
Anisakis -somatic mutation type "Forza" - New

Main Twitter account:
http://twitter.com/XYTN

Step-related stuff only
http://twitter.com/Xytunes

Projects:

2010-04-02T07:42:00.003-04:00

I have them.

Read books (about 10)
Resolve residual moving issues
Organize my photo library
Organize my music library (~300 of ~2100 through pass one)
Finish stuff for school
Work on art stuff
StepMania
- Songs (about 70)
- Courses (about 6 in various levels of completion)
- Make backgrounds
- Revamp website

So yeah. I keep myself busy. To the best of my knowledge, no one really follows this blog / checks up on my StepMania stuff, so I'm not very motivated to work on it (or if I am, I'm not motivated to update the site). Of course, I'm sure that doesn't encourage people to check the site, vicious circle, etc. I'm not really emo about it or anything, just throwing it out there in case there IS someone following this stuff. (If so, please let me know somehow. Email, comment, whatever. It'll give me a reason to try and share more frequently if nothing else. ;))

Hope everyone had a happy April Fools Day! :)

I done moved!

2010-03-08T20:38:00.002-05:00

I got a new job and moved across the country. Those two things have been keeping me busy. I'm starting to find time to StepMania here and there, but yeah.

I did get a start on redesigning my site. If I can make it easier to update, hopefully it'll happen more frequently. ;P

Okay, not long before I have to go. I'm working on Y&Co. is dead or alive, so back to that! :)

Status Update

2009-10-26T15:34:00.001-04:00

Hello people interested in my StepMania stuff! I haven’t updated my blog in a while and my web page proper in even longer, and I wanted to take a minute to let you know what’s up. In short, I’ve been busy, and StepMania is but one of many things I try to fit into my free time. When I do get the ball rolling, it still takes quite a while to get something done of the level of quality I want. Sometimes I spend a good while working on a song before realizing that it’s just not going to work without being boring to dance. I also usually keep quiet about what I’m planning in case just such a scenario arises. What I can tell you is right now I have about 70 songs in my StepMania folder. Many of them are only half-done or ideas that may or may not pan out, but yeah. I also have ideas for roughly three courses of varying mod intensity. Stuff is happening. I’ll try to get some files completed and uploaded soon, though. :)

No Such Thing as the Promised Land Redux

2009-06-11T14:37:00.003-04:00

So over the past while I've been working hard to finish No Such Thing as the Promised Land, and today I went to upload it and found... it was already there! o_O Well, I've spent a lot of time retooling the steps: The hard chart is a bit easier now, and there an expert chart that's harder than they old hard steps. There are also beginner, easy, and medium steps, so it should be all done except for double steps (which I don't plan on doing for a while -- there're too many songs I haven't finished on single yet). So... it's not a totally new song, and it's not the banquet I had mentioned in my last post, but it actually took a good deal of time -- longer than I was expecting; it's a slow, technical song -- but it's something. Enjoy! I'll be trying to get some more stuff out the door soon, but makin' these things can be slow work.

Food Analogy

2009-05-08T23:06:00.002-04:00

Basically, if step files were edible, I would want serve snacks frequently. What I'd actually be doing is starving you, then putting out a huge banquet. As such, another banquet is in the works. Yeah. I guess it's just annoying to upload and update for every file, so I get backed up and do it all at once. Leave a comment or something if you're impatient -- maybe it'll hurry me up. :)

DistortioN

2009-01-13T00:22:00.002-05:00

DistortioN is up! :D It took quite a while to put it all together, but I think it was worth it -- I'm pretty happy with the results. :) HYPE THE CORE and Smell Like This are up, and One More Lovely and Go Berzerk have been updated. On an unrelated note, and AA edit is up now, as well.

Braggadocio

2009-01-04T02:28:00.001-05:00

Braggadocio has been updated with more steps and images. Special thanks to MC Frontalot for posing for the picture at PAX! :)

What's In the Works?

2008-10-27T18:23:00.002-04:00

Here's what currently simmering:

A Braggadocio update is coming. MC Frontalot was even kind enough to pose for a picture to use in the background at PAX! :D
DistortioN, my next course, is under construction (GET IT?!). I'm about 2 2/3 done. There are a couple other courses waiting in the wings, but they're gonna take the back seat until this gets done.
All the things I'm planning on doing in the moment have, at the very least, beta steps. The should be a bunch of stuff going up after I have a chance to comb through it once more, but they may not be soon.

Happy/Hardcore

2008-07-29T16:42:00.002-04:00

A new course, Happy/Hardcore, is up! It uses two songs from DDRMAX and two from ITG3. While it's not quite as intense as Mod Party, it still has it's share of craziness. :D

Still Workin'

2008-07-24T15:07:00.001-04:00

This is a quick note to let you know that I am still working on some stuff. I'm down to five songs that don't have complete steps, and I'm trying to get them knocked out ASAP.

MOON

2008-06-12T15:02:00.002-04:00

There's a new edit up now for MOON from DDR SuperNOVA. Also, I corrected a typo in Mod Party. Progress! :) Also, I'm very happy to report that I have only about two song left that have no steps of any kind. :D I plan to knock them out first, then go back and polish what's made it past that first going over. Then after I get that batch of songs done and uploaded, maybe I'll finally be able to go back and make the rest of the charts for what up there now! Or make some images! Or some new courses! Oh, the possibilities~! :P

GET IT ALL

2008-06-07T17:24:00.001-04:00

I was gonna make steps to GET IT ALL, and then I found out that Konami already had. Wups. ;P I already had the hard chart mostly done, though, so I finished it out, and it's up now as an edit. :)

Mod Party Redux

2008-06-05T02:22:00.001-04:00

Well, a bit over two years and two months from when this first went up, Mod Party is back. I've tweaked it a bit, and more importantly, fixed the sync to work with what I believe to be the official files from ITG2. Enjoy! :)

15 New Songs!

2008-05-04T03:05:00.002-04:00

As I type this, I am uploading some new songs. :D This updated bumps the number of songs I have up from 21 to 36. :o (The USB port at the Break was finally fixed, so I could test some stuff! Yay, motivation! :P)

The new songs are:

AA
All Right
Beautiful Days
Blame
Blood Doll
Blue Blazes
Braggadocio
Captain Falcon's Theme
Dance Dance Dance Dance vs. Tell Me
fun
Get Edgy
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
Mystic Mansion
No Such Thing as the Promised Land
VANESSA

Additionally, many old songs have had their previews updated such that they loop a section of the song if you idle on them on the Song Wheel. I also re-zipped my files; there should no longer be any extra folders or files included.

I really should try to break these updates down into smaller chunks -- both so they can be more frequent, and so they don't eat so many hours of the day when I finally sit down to do it -- but I don't like releasing stuff I haven't tried. At any rate, there's more stuff now, and I am very happy if you have enjoyed!

Stuff & Things

2008-04-02T17:50:00.002-04:00

Just a quick word to let you know that I still have some stuff in the pipe. It's hard for me to playtest stuff at the moment, as my pad's control box broke, and so did the USB ports at 8 on the Break's ITG machine. :{ Still, I have five songs with at least one chart close to done, and hope to have them up in not too long. :)

Le Graphiks

2008-02-08T20:51:00.001-05:00

I updated the graphics for Le Disko today; it has a background now. :)

Would you like edits with that?

2008-01-02T01:12:00.000-05:00

I finished up three edits today. o_O When it rains it pours. ;) The three new edits are for Freeway Shuffle from DDR SuperNOVA 2, Spin the disc from DDRMAX2, and TwinBee ~Generation X~ from DDR Extreme. Yay, stuff! :D

A Sizable Update!

2008-01-01T03:42:00.000-05:00

I finally made myself sit down, polish some stuff, and get it uploaded. Though many have only the single hard chart done, the number of songs available has jumped from 6 to 21! :D The new songs are:

9 o'clocks
ALFARSHEAR
Angel Island's Mushroom Hill
Baby Seal
Canned Heat
Dodo's Coming!!
DUE TOMORROW
ErAseRmoTor maXimUM
Gradius
INJECTION OF LOVE
Murmur Twins
One More Lovely
platonic-[tripleX] (written as such so I don't get branded a porn site :P)
rainbow rainbow
Ride on shooting star

The webpage itself is updated with links, but doesn't have all the images it should. I think it's starting to get a bit image-heavy, though, so I'm thinking of using just text or making the images smaller. Oh well, that'll be for another time. For now, enjoy the new stuff, and happy new year!

Works in Progress

2007-11-26T20:18:00.001-05:00

Okayso. Over the past year I started making a list of songs I think might be cool to have in StepMania. Over the course of the past few weeks, I synced them all up. No steps yet, but they're all in there now. There are about 70 total. Some are 5+ years old – things I started on, but never polished up – and some are brand new. Hopefully I'll be able to get a couple of them out sooner rather than later, but in the mean time, know that there's stuff goin' on. :)

HIGH is up!

2007-09-23T23:18:00.000-04:00

I finally finished tweaking HIGH. It even has a background and banner! :) Enjoy!

HIGH

2007-09-12T03:15:00.000-04:00

Today I made medium steps and a background and banner for HIGH. :D With bit of luck I'll be able to look it over and make sure there's nothing really stupid wrong and get it uploaded tomorrow. :)

--EDIT--
This is why you should never use words like "tomorrow." :P I am still tuning it, and hope to have it up "soon," which is a word I dislike in that it really means nothing more than "at some point," but this way it's harder for me to be late. ;P

...and a few updates.

2007-08-10T00:53:00.000-04:00

I figured I'd update the files I had uploaded to include time signatures while I was in StepMania. Yay for new features. I tried to match where the real measure lines would fall as best I can. Yes I know the song isn't really 16/4 on that measure and 1/4 on this one. ;P I also decided to abandon the version number system in favor of dates; hopefully that'll make it easier to see if you have an outdated file. :)

Le Disko is Le Done! :D

2007-08-09T23:56:00.000-04:00

The title says it all. No images yet, but Beginner through Hard steps. :D

Le Disko

2007-08-09T01:27:00.001-04:00

Holy crap, I think I actually made progress on Le Disko today! It just keep feeling wrong. It was too hard at times to be an 8 and to easy to be a 9, and I think I finally have it smoothed out a bit; it's a fun 8. :) Hope to have it for you soon~! Stumped on good ideas for images, though. ^^;

Edits!

2007-07-29T22:08:00.000-04:00

Edit get! There are now twenty edits available on my site! :o When it rains it pours, I guess. ^^; Got some non-edit stuff close to done, too, so hopefully that'll show up in not too long. :)

Sync

2007-07-19T00:58:00.000-04:00

Today I spent some time working on a bunch of songs, in many cases fixing the song's sync. I'd really like to get at least one step chart done for each file on my computer -- I have ~40 songs under consideration, right now, plus others I want to try that haven't made it into SM yet. While I'm sure not all of those will work out in the end, I'm also sure that some of them will, and I'd like to get something up for each of them. I hope to have two new files for you on Sunday. Two of the three new things I made recently have their tweaks, and should be good to go as soon as I make sure I playtest them. With some luck the third one (and maybe some other stuff?) with be primed for testing by then, too. :)

Sweet!

2007-07-15T22:46:00.002-04:00

I found the edits that vanished on an old backup! Yay! :)

I did go to the Break yesterday; the songs I wanted to try looked good, but I want to tweak some stuff before I upload them. I doubt this'll happen tonight, but hopefully it won't be too long.

ZMOG BULLETS!

2007-07-05T23:26:00.000-04:00

It appears all my non-ITG edits are gone. Oh well, they were old and could have used improvement, anyway.
I took a look at Mod Party today in StepMania 4. Most of the stuff makes the transition nicely, but there's a bit of tweaking to be done, too. Some of the effects I think may be a but too extreme, and some of the effects don't work without everything looking like ITG2. Also, the step files I based the course around were not synced correctly -- that is, they're synced to themselves, but not to the f'real ITG2 files, so everything's off from if you try to play it in ITG PC of using the simfile you have more than likely. I have correct ones now, and will get to updating it at some point. Life's gonna be a-changin' in September, so hopefully I'll have more free time then and will be able to work on this stuff more.
I made some new edits and half-finished a couple different stepcharts for new songs I wanted to try out. We'll see if anything develops.
Hopefully I'll get to the Break next Saturday (the 14th), so if I haven't double-checked Le Disco and Canned Heat before then, you should expect to see them or on the 15th.

The edits go poof!

2007-07-03T20:53:00.000-04:00

So it seems that every edit I ever made for StepMania that was in another song's stepfile -- i.e. I made an edit for un deux trois that was in the file as challenge steps since it had none -- has vanished. How and why would this happen to all the files? The read me files I used to put with the edits are still in the folders, but the steps themselves are no where to be found.

:(?

Here's some good news, though: Two new stepcharts for two new songs should be appearing soon. :)

The website am updated!

2007-05-28T02:14:00.000-04:00

So I updated some stuff on the website now. The most noticeable thing is the new logo. Thank you, StepMania team, for encouraging use of the logo. :) And thank you, Plaguefox, for making such a nice logo and uploading the .psd file. :D A whole bunch of behind-the-scenes, organizational stuff happened, too. Additionally, I'm now uploading files as I finish steps rather than after I've finished ALL the steps / images / etc. This should mean more stuff than three things a year in the future. ;) There's still a lot I want to do, but I don't have the time to put into it right now. :s Hopefully soon. :)

I did upload a new song today! Go Berzerk (hard and challenge) is now up and ready for play. :D I also fixed the sync for the three posted songs. It would seem the version of StepMania I've been using was throwing things off, but switching to 4.0 has matched the sync with that I had been using to get things to play in ITG, so I have a bit of faith that it is now correct.

Lastly, all four of the available files are playable on an In The Groove 2 machine. :D

An update

2007-02-16T00:51:00.000-05:00

Hi. I just wanted to make a post saying that I didn't loose interest in this stuff, or fall of the face of the planet, or slip into an alternate universe. My job has kept me busy and leaves me not much time for step making. I do sit down and mess with things now and again, but it's usually in short bursts. I'm planning on reorganizing my site such that I'll have a place for partial releases so I can release SOMETHING more than yearly. =_= Unfortunately, even that takes time. ^_x;

But yeah, I still think about this stuff frequently. If you want to hurry me along, drop me a comment or send me an email or something. :) Knowing someone's interesting in seeing something appear would probably help my wanting to post stuff, rather than just keeping it for myself. ;P

Attention music game community:

2006-11-20T19:36:00.000-05:00

Happy 20th November! :)

ROSS

2006-10-24T20:29:00.000-04:00

So I'm working on getting some stuff clipped and arcade-able. Working on Ride on Shooting Star, ATM. Trying to make fun steps rather than hard steps. I think it's coming along quite well. :)

ITG2 R21

2006-10-18T00:25:00.000-04:00

So In THe Groove 2's latest revision lets you play custom songs. :DDDDDD! THERE'S some motivation.... :3

Hooligan Spirit

2006-09-25T20:37:00.000-04:00

Hooligan Spirit seems to have some step potential.... ;D

In The Groove

2006-08-29T14:48:00.000-04:00

So you can play my stuff (or any song you have for StepMania) using the newly released In The Groove PC/Mac edition! There are instructions on StepMania.com.

About this I am very excited. :D

The busy!

2006-08-13T14:31:00.000-04:00

I have the new computer. StepMania is up and running. Song syncs don't seem to line up between versions 3.95 and 4. x_X Some ideas are in my head. Many things to do. Hopefully some kind of thing I shall have for you in not too terribly long.

2006-07-07T16:43:00.000-04:00

I suppose I should have mentioned that my computer exploded a while ago, and I have nothing to run StepMania on until the new one comes in (which should be soon). Still, I'm trying to do that find a job thing, and it consumes much of my time. ^_x;

BRIGHTNESS DARKNESS

2006-06-05T01:31:00.000-04:00

BRIGHTNESS DARKNESS is done and available on my site. Enjoy! :D

Almost....

2006-06-04T02:38:00.000-04:00

My next song is almost complete. I just need to finish the double easy chart and it's good to go. It should be online within the next 24 hours.

Here's to hoping!

2006-05-29T21:16:00.000-04:00

I've been productive; my next song should be ready within a week. :)

Busy is me.

2006-05-23T11:53:00.000-04:00

I worked on a few songs today, but I'm still a ways off from showing any of them. :x It's summer now, but finding a job and moving are keeping me busy. ^^;

A few things

2006-04-27T13:29:00.000-04:00

I updated AVE DE RAPINA; the sync was just a little bit off. It should be okay now.
1st Samurai is about 99% done. I even added a whole new chart to it! :D Just need to double-check it and add the genre to the .sm file and it should be good to go.
I've started on 9 o'clocks. Turns out I was using 32nds where I should have been using 24ths, so it needs a little work yet.

AVE DE RAPINA

2006-04-22T20:31:00.000-04:00

AVE DE RAPINA is done and has been uploaded to the site. 1st Samurai is almost done. :)

:D!

2006-04-09T02:37:00.000-04:00

It's done! :D YAY~! Now I just need to make a banner for it and uploaded it shall be! :D

Final stats:
1077 lines
About 22 & 1/3 pages
44K (39,515 bytes)

Three down, one to go!

2006-03-28T22:53:00.000-05:00

The third song is done! :D

Current course stats:
586 lines
~12.25 pages
28 K (22,870 bytes)

Just one more....

Gak

2006-03-17T17:35:00.000-05:00

Two songs done. 284 lines of mods (not including the defunct third song). No wonder it is taking so long! :P

Progress

2006-03-08T13:50:00.000-05:00

So I was wrong: The first song was NOT done. It had a few minor errors that are now fixed, and I polished it up all nice, so now it should be done. ;) The second song is about half done at this point, and the third is most done, but off-sync. x_X Well off I go to work on it some more. :)

I still exist...! o.o

2006-02-27T22:30:00.000-05:00

Slowly making progress, just for the record.

Game Start

2006-02-04T17:23:00.000-05:00

The first song is done! :D

Welcome!

2006-01-31T13:44:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the Xytunes update blog! If all goes according to plan, you'll be able to check here and find out what I'm working on that's dancing-game related. Thanks for stopping by. :3

I'll get the ball rolling right now by telling you that I currently have a course in the works. It will consist of four songs from In the Groove 2 and it'll have lots and lots of mods. >:3 Should be fun to play AND fun to watch. XD Right now I'd say it's about 20% done: Of the four songs, I'm about halfway through one and another just needs to be tuned up. However, I haven't really started working with the other two yet beyond some experiments. ;)