In the Groove (game)
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| In the Groove | |
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| Developer(s) | Roxor Games |
| Publisher(s) | Roxor Games / RedOctane |
| Release date(s) | August 30, 2004 (Arcade) |
| Genre(s) | Music |
| Mode(s) | 1 player, 2 Player, or Double (1 Player using both sides of the machine) |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: Everyone (E) |
| Platform(s) | Arcade, PlayStation 2, PC |
| Input | Two dance pads, each with four sensors. Six input buttons (pair of left, start, and right buttons), USB memory card reader. |
In the Groove (abbreviated ITG) is a series of music video games that use a four-panel dance pad. The series was distributed by Roxor Games during a time when four-panel dance games in the arcade market were on the decline. As of October 18, 2006, Konami (makers of Dance Dance Revolution) has acquired the intellectual property rights to the series.
The name In the Groove refers to three different things: the arcade version of the game In the Groove, the PlayStation 2 version of the game, and the brand name of the franchise itself. In the Groove 2 is the second game in this franchise.
This article discusses the franchise, with specific respect to the arcade games. In this article, the term "In the Groove 1" refers to the arcade game named In the Groove. The term "In the Groove (PS2)" refers to the PlayStation 2 game named "In the Groove."
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[edit] Gameplay
In the Groove is a rhythm video game in the same genre as Konami's Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) and Andamiro's Pump It Up (PIU). The player stands on a large metal dance pad approximately 33 inches in width and length. The pad is divided into a three-by-three matrix, with sensors at the north, south, west, and east squares of the matrix. These squares are labeled with arrows pointing up, down, left, and right, respectively. The player must use his feet to accurately step on the arrows that correspond to the music and the scrolling arrow patterns on the main display.
Four stationary "target" arrows that correspond to the arrows at the player's feet are displayed at the top of the screen. As the song plays, moving arrows rise up from the bottom of the screen to meet the targets. When a moving arrow completely overlaps the target, the player steps on the corresponding arrow on the dance pad. This moment typically corresponds to a defineable rhythm of the song.
As the player steps on the arrows, the game displays a judgment of how accurate the player's steps are to the scrolling arrow pattern. Additionally, the game will display the player's current "combo", defined by the number of Fantastics, Excellents, and Greats the player has achieved in a row without receiving any lower judgments.
An on-screen meter, known as a "life bar," gauges the player's ability to combo a song. The meter begins at 50% and raises if the player steps on an arrow with a judgment of Fantastic, Excellent, or Great. The meter stays the same if the player steps on an arrow with a judgment of Decent, and lowers if the player gets a Way Off or Miss. The player fails the song if the meter reaches 0% at any point during the song. The player may still continue to the end of the song, but is no longer able to score points. At the end of the song, if the player has failed, the game is over.
An on-screen percentage meter at the top of the screen displays more precisely how close to the player is to achieving a judgement of all Fantastics (see Scoring below).
[edit] Modes of Play
In The Groove offers various modes of play.
Dance Mode is the default mode of play. In this mode, a player chooses a number of individual songs to play (the default is three). After the songs are played, the game is over.
Marathon Mode is an extended mode of play. In this mode, a player chooses a predefined configuration of songs that may also have a predefined script of modifiers whose purpose is to make the song more challenging. Marathon courses typically have four songs, although some have five songs.
Battle Mode is a specialized "versus" mode of play. Two players (or one player against the computer) play three individual songs of the same difficulty. During the song, successfully executed steps fill up a player's "power bar". When the power bar completely fills, a modifier is applied to the opposing player's side.
Survival Mode (new to In The Groove 2) is a mode of play similar to Marathon Mode. For more information, see In The Groove 2.
[edit] History
In The Groove is based on a modified version of the open source StepMania engine, which was originally designed to simulate the Dance Dance Revolution series. While the core engine of StepMania was basically a clone of DDR, the engine has evolved over time to include support for a multitude of different rhythm-based game types. ITG is produced in the United States, and the majority of the In The Groove fanbase consists of players who desire songs and step patterns of a higher difficulty than those found in Dance Dance Revolution. A total of 72 songs are available in the original release of the game, ten of which are unlockable and one of which (Liquid Moon) is only available at the end of a single Marathon course.
RedOctane published a PlayStation 2 version of In The Groove. This version retails for $39.95 and contains four "preview songs" from the arcade version of In The Groove 2. The game reached store shelves on June 17, 2005, and introduced several new gameplay features, including the Novice difficulty, new Marathon courses, and new Fitness and Training modes.
At the Amusement Showcase International 2005 in Chicago, IL, Roxor Games announced that In The Groove 2 would be released with its own dedicated cabinet as well as an upgrade kit for old In The Groove conversion kits. The new cabinet was initially produced by Andamiro, the creators of Pump It Up, another dance-simulation game. However, in 2006, Roxor announced that they themselves would take over cabinet production for In The Groove 2 dedicated cabinets. In The Groove 2 was also made available as a conversion kit for older Dance Dance Revolution machines. In The Groove 2 features 65 new songs, as well as every song and course from the original release of In The Groove.
On May 9, 2005, however, Konami filed a complaint against Roxor seeking, among other things, a preliminary injunction preventing them from selling arcade cabinet conversion kits. See Roxor Games (or "Lawsuit", below) for details.
On January 14, 2006, at the In The Groove North American Tournament Finals in Las Vegas, NV, Roxor Games announced that the arcade release of "In The Groove 3" and the home release of "In The Groove 2" would take place sometime during 2006. ITG3 was to be previewed at the Amusement & Music Operators Association Expo 2006 convention in Las Vegas, NV, though was absent from Roxor Games' presentation area, presumably due to delays in the game's production.
[edit] Scoring details
[edit] Judgments
Similar to other dancing games, the player is judged for how accurately they step relative to the beat of the song. From best to worst, possible judgements are "Fantastic!," "Excellent," "Great," "Decent," "Way Off," and "Miss". During gameplay on all difficulties except Novice mode on ITG2, all judgements except "Fantastic!" and "Miss" are prefixed or suffixed with a dash; a prefix indicates an early step, a suffix indicates a late step. During ITG2's Novice mode, "Decent" becomes "Too Early/Late" and "Way Off" becomes "Way Early/Late". It is possible during Novice mode, however, to get the Too Early judgement, and then step on the same arrow again for a better rating if timed properly.
On hold steps and rolls, if the player finishes the hold or roll successfully, they receive a "Yeah!". Otherwise, the player receives a "Bad".
In the Groove's judgement windows (the amount of time relative to the beat of the song a player has to attain a certain judgment rating) are generally slightly larger than DDR's. Therefore, a "Fantastic!" is easier to get than DDR's equivalent, a "Marvelous!!" (in terms of how many milliseconds a player can be off the beat and still get that judgement), an "Excellent!" is easier to get than a "Perfect!" and so on. However, the "Fantastic!" level of judgement is available in all modes of gameplay, whereas DDR's equivalent "Marvelous!!" is only available during its nonstop or oni courses. However, the Fantastic window on ITG is smaller than the Perfect window on DDR. Additionally, the combined Fantastic+Excellent window is smaller than Pump It Up's Perfect window.
"Way Off" and "Miss" steps take away from the life bar (to the side of the player's arrows), while "Great," "Excellent" and "Fantastic" steps add to the lifebar until it reaches its maximum. "Decent" steps do not change the level of the lifebar. Too many missed steps will deplete the life bar. If the life bar empties, then the round is failed and the game ends (either immediately or at the end of the round, depending on machine settings). During two player games, if one player fails and the other passes, then the failed player can continue to play. During a one player game, most machines allow a single player to continue playing after failing the song, but will automatically end the game after 30 consecutive misses.
[edit] Scoring
For each judgement, the player receives or loses points depending on the accuracy:
- Fantastic: 5
- Excellent: 4
- Great: 2
- Decent: 0
- Way Off: -6
- Miss: -12
And for holds and rolls:
- Yeah: 5
- Bad: 0
Mines, when hit, deduct 6 points, but otherwise have no effect on score.
These points are divided by the total number of points possible for the song or course to make a percentage. The percentage is shown during play and at the results screen.
[edit] Grading
At the end of the song, the results screen displays a grade for each player based on the percentage of points that they got. These are the minimum scores required for each grade:
- 4 Stars: 100%
- 3 Stars: 99%
- 2 Stars: 98%
- 1 Star: 96%
- S+: 94%
- S: 92%
- S-: 89%
- A+: 86%
- A: 83%
- A-: 80%
- B+: 76%
- B: 72%
- B-: 68%
- C+: 64%
- C: 60%
- C-: 55%
- D: Less than 55%, but not Life Depleted
- F: Life Depleted - Round Failed
As of December 7, 2006, according to Groovestats, a popular website for tracking ITG scores, 78 out of 113 Expert difficulty songs currently available on In the Groove arcade machines have been "quad-starred", meaning that someone has reported a score of 100% on that particular song. Every 9 difficulty chart and a number of 10 difficulty charts have been quad-starred, but only three 11 difficulty songs and no 12 or 13 difficulty songs have been quad-starred.
[edit] Technical Details
In The Groove is built on a complete PC system running the Debian GNU/Linux distribution, containing a hard disk, contemporary processor, integrated graphics card, and a USB hub for transferring user statistics and edits onto a flash drive. The software used to run the game is based on the open source StepMania computer program. Anti-piracy measures are achieved through the use of a "serial dongle," which attempts to make sure that, even if the program were copied, it will only execute on a licensed machine. A custom adapter which maps the input to a joystick-like interface, along with connectors to interface the PC with the monitor, audio, switches, and lights, provides compatibility with original DDR cabinets.
As a result of the system's advanced hardware, ITG is theoretically able to store more song and movie data than previous CD-based dance game systems, and has the ability to add new effects by using already-available 3D libraries, such as OpenGL. Additionally, with the introduction of new cabinets manufactured by Andamiro and Roxor, In the Groove 2 is able to run at a higher screen resolution than previous versions of arcade dance games.
However, because ITG is based on commodity PC computer hardware and open-sourced software, enterprising users have found ways to "hack" the game and change settings and theming, add songs, etc. [1] The main hole exploited is in the OS boot sequence; both USB ports are used - first to attach a USB keyboard, allowing access to the BIOS and input for a Linux console, and on the second a USB drive containing bootable Linux. As of 2006, exact knowledge of this procedure is kept limited to small groups of people out of fears of possible score-cheating or vandalization of the ITG harddrive. Existing hacks only use dedicated cabinets because of hardware differences. Similarly, the PS2 version of the game may also be hacked to add new songs.
[edit] Song Synchronization
ITG generally has good synchronization between the step charts and the background music; most charts in ITG have steps fairly close to being on beat with the song. However, this wasn't always the case. DDR tends to have an early bias in its steps, so a player would have to step a few tens of milliseconds ahead of the beat to obtain a perfect score. It was due to this that In the Groove 1's stepcharts were generally synced significantly later, oftentimes to the point where the opposite issue was presented: players generally had to step after the beat in order to obtain perfect scoring. The initial release of In the Groove 2 presented generally better synchronization between stepcharts and their songs than its predecessor, though some charts were still considerably offbeat (notable examples include the charts for the songs Agent Blatant, Amore, and Lipstick Kiss). As a result of these findings, patches (known as revisions or R for short) were gradually implemented that improved the overall syncing and fixed various bugs found in the initial release.
[edit] Songs and artists
Of the many artists and songs found on ITG, here are some of the most famous:
- Kyle Ward, AKA KeeL, made many of the in-house songs found on ITG. However, he never uses his usual alias "KeeL" in any of the songs, and instead uses a different alias for each style of song. His aliases include KaW, Inspector K, Kbit, Symphonious, Banzai and ☺ (Smiley). Most of the songs by him are very difficult on Expert, so all are relatively famous. Arguably the most difficult is "Summer ~Speedy Mix~" by ☺, an ITG2 song rated 13 on Expert difficulty with large streams of 16ths at 185 BPM. Interestingly, all his songs use technology and synthesizers to create unique sounds.
- One Marathon track, called KeeL Over, contains tracks entirely written by Kyle. However, as he never actually uses the alias KeeL in the game, most players miss the pun.
- Many of KeeL's aliases represent specific types of music; for instance, Banzai's songs are tribal house, and ☺'s songs tend to be happy hardcore.
- E-Rotic, a Eurodance act from Germany famous for their sexual innuendo and appearance in the Dance Dance Revolution series, make an appearance in ITG. However, their songs in ITG are tame compared to DDR mixes - only one song, "Touch Me", makes any strong sexual references. Their other songs, including "Lemmings on the Run" and "Queen of Light" (covered by Missing Heart), contain little or no reference to sex at all.
- ZiGZaG created the hardest songs in the game, which are some of the hardest steps ever written. They are "Pandemonium," "VerTex," "VerTex²," and "Energizer." All the songs have incredibly difficult steps, and dancers will often find themselves pushed to the limit on the hardest difficulties. There is some speculation as to whether or not ZiGZaG is one of Kyle Ward's aliases.
[edit] Music
Some notable songs from the ITG series include:
Pandemonium- The most difficult song in the original In the Groove and the first with an Expert difficulty rating of 13, Pandemonium scrolls at 330 BPM and its stepchart, although much less technical than other notable stepcharts, contains constant 8th note streams, jumps, and more often than not, a mixture of the two.
Euphoria- Another very difficult song on Expert, Euphoria contains many 16th note runs, as well as sections with 32nd notes at 140 BPM, forcing the player to "drill" between two panels (one for each foot) at a rate of over 18 times per second, making it one of the most infamous songs in the game. At one point the song slows down to 70 BPM and contains 64th note drills. Although some consider the song easier to pass then it seems (but still very difficult in general), it is extremely difficult to get a good score on.
Determinator - A song of extremes, this otherwise mellow song contains an extended "run" of 24th notes at 147BPM, the fastest single section of any stepchart, barring the extremely short, yet frequent, 32nd/64th bursts in Euphoria. Although this section lasts just five to six seconds, it makes Determinator one of the hardest songs to pass in the game. Determinator also has many shorter 24th note bursts throughout. The stepchart concludes with a second longer 24th note run, which is simpler than the first and lasts about 2 seconds.
Bloodrush- Often considered along with Determinator (see above) to be one of the hardest 12 ranked songs in the game, Bloodrush contains relentless streams of 16th note patterns at 158 BPM, including many difficult patterns involving the feet "crossing over" each other frequently. The "slow" section in the middle is anything but a respite from the rest of the song, containing 32nd notes at 79 BPM in more difficult crossover patterns, which are particularly difficult to read due to the slow scroll speed in this section. Bloodrush was actually slated to have a 13 rating during beta testing, but it was changed to a 12 for the final release, to the chagrin of many players who believe it deserved the 13.
Summer ~Speedy Mix~-The second 13 difficulty song in the ITG series, Summer contains many long 16th-note runs at 185 BPM. In the middle, there is a very technically challenging jump/stream section, and there is a very long run at the end, with seven 8th-note jumps in the middle. However, it is widely agreed that Summer ~Speedy Mix~ is not as technically challenging as Pandemonium or VerTex².
VerTex²- A remix of the song "VerTex", which first debuted on In The Groove 1, it is arguably the most technically challenging chart ever composed for a four-panel dancing simulator. VerTex² frequently changes speeds (from quite slow, 88BPM, to blindingly fast, 555BPM) and has a wide mix of extremely technical and rhythmic steps. Like its predecessor, the song features a high number of mines, which are often difficult to avoid. The final run is considered one of the most difficult patterns in the game. It is telling that the known world record for this song is considerably lower than any other song in the series, currently standing at only 95.44%. Although there are 2 other songs in In the Groove 2 which hold the same difficulty rank (13), many consider VerTex² to be considerably more challenging than the others.
[edit] Community response
ITG is in a sense a product of the DDR community, created in response to the seeming dearth of new releases in the official series. It already enjoys an impressive level of popularity with the more dedicated members of the dance gaming community, although there are still quite a few contentions surrounding it. Briefly, some of these are:
- ITG tends to cater mostly to a small fraction of expert players. The experience for casual and novice players is much the same as that of DDR (apart from the aforementioned technical improvements) and in some cases the easy step charts are viewed to be lacking in quality. There is much debate about the general "feel" of the music and step charts -- some find the ITG step charts severely lacking in variety (the typical song being about 105-120 seconds in length instead of 85-90 seconds probably contributes to this), while others find them fresh and original. The music in ITG is also considerably more western (with an emphasis on techno and trance) compared to DDR, which had a variety of songs from Eurobeat to J-pop.
- While many of the expert players see the increased levels of difficulty found in ITG as a welcome addition to dance games, casual players have a mixed reaction to the harder songs. Many of the expert players find new challenges in the intensity of the songs, while many of the casual players dislike ITG's hardest charts for the same reason, seeing these difficult songs as having no other purpose than to see how fast players can move their feet.
- The "Hands" gameplay concept, where players are required to use their hands in addition to their feet to hit three or four arrows at a time, is considered by some to not work very well with older arcade machine hardware, which was originally built for a game where you only use your feet. On some older machines a considerable amount of force is needed to make a hand slap register, and completing a hold arrow with a hand (as some songs require you to do) is difficult for some players. However, many players consider the newer, dedicated ITG2 cabinets to have much better responsiveness to lighter presses, allowing for easier triggering of Hands.
- There is some controversy as to whether Mines make for an interesting addition to the gameplay or simply make it more tedious. Some players feel that songs such as Hardcore of the North contain an abundance of mines, added merely to give a cheap difficulty boost to an otherwise unremarkable step chart. Other players feel that the mines give a new challenge, prompting the player to adapt a new way of reading stepcharts and allowing for more sophistication in step charts. Some songs, such as Liquid Moon, use the mines to create "hidden steps" on which a player may step to easily avoid them, and some have even used mines to spell something out in the stepchart (Notably Xuxa with "ITG" and Infection with a "K" for Inspector K).
[edit] Lawsuit
Konami filed a lawsuit against Roxor Games on an infringement of various rights on May 9, 2005. Additionally, they amended their complaint on July 1, 2005 to include the dance game "MC GROOVZ danceCRAZE" (a game produced by Mad Catz to accompany their 3rd party dance mat). Konami primarily claims that Roxor has infringed their dancing game patent rights, but also goes on to accuse Roxor of trademark infringement, false advertising and unfair competition.
ITG fans were quick to criticise the lawsuit, pointing out that Konami's Japanese arcade games are illegal in the United States. However, as with the Konami v. Andamiro lawsuit which took place years ago, Konami believe they have a strong case and are prepared to stand by it.
On October 18, 2006, Roxor announced that Konami has acquired the intellectual property rights to the In the Groove series as part of the settlement to this litigation.[2]
