This exciting news is rocking everyone's shoes throughout Oahu, when it was announced a couple of days ago from one of our admins on the Dance Dance Revolution Hawai'i Facebook group. What came as a shock, is that the majority of the current scene has yet to compete against one another, as the last tournament was from a time before many current players took this hobby up. Mentioned in a previous post, I had won the last one, but since then had stepped-down from frequently playing. Am I here to defend a title? Not exactly.

There is much speculation to be had, as not only is this the revival of Hawaii's tournament scene- but a national first as well due to the intriguing and enigmatic format, this tournament is not anything we and many others in the Continental US has ever come across before. Similar to how it's done in E-Sports, and most traditional sports for that matter, this tournament is not a one-day affair, rather an entire season/series starting from the qualifiers, all the way up to the finals. The entire duration is estimated to be at a one-month minimum, upwards to 3 months time.

The following image does not exist online as only sections are visible at a time in Dance Dance Revolution A's Encore Extra Stage song/game theme "Ace for Aces". I was requested by another admin to color-correct and piece this final image together from multiple pictures and do not own any rights to this image owned by Konami Digital Entertainment. My edit isn't marvelous, but I think it turned out pretty well.

"If ENDYMION is cleared on BASIC or higher with at least a AA+ grade, then ENCORE EXTRA STAGE is triggered." -Remy Wiki

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The Importance of This Tournament

It's not absurd to hear about a gaming competition, as they are taking place all the time, on different systems, regionally, and some at the international level. As far as the community and dedication of Hawaii's rhythm game scene however, we have been overlooked for over a decade. We're not a "big deal" enough to our mainland counter-parts, and not even a blip otherwise. "Dr. Neel" (Who's actually a doctor in real life!), did manage to get himself ranked as #131 in this past year's KAC (Konami Arcade Championships), which is the world-wide yearly competition. Some people are starting to look at us- Yes, we have grass huts and dancing skills.

From what our tournament coordinator/Admin Neel had to say; "I may not know the local scene as far back as some of you, but Hawaii has one of the best scenes I have ever seen. The aim of this tournament is to put us on the map. We have a lot of dedicated players, we should be recognized." Hopefully the other states can begin to take us a little more seriously. We haven't spawned any "World-class players" perse, but apparently, we may be the first to hold a tournament that could actually revolutionize others in the future.

Hawaii is one of the few places in the US where you could go to an arcade on any random day, and bump into several people without making previous plans. Impromtu hangouts, and bonding with those who share your passion are the norm here, and after travelling to many arcades throughout the US, I've come to realize that this is not a common thing in most other places. We have an actual scene, and it's one of a kind.

Meet-up and dance battle for Neel's Bday @ Dave and Busters this past Wednesday.
From left: Peyton, Neel, myself. Second row: Marc, Carmie.

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Your Typical DDR Tournament

Almost every tournament I have seen can be held in a span of one or two days, back to back matches, up to 10 hours and beyond. The three formats I have seen are known as; single-elimination, the more popular double-elimination, and round-robin. Single-elimination uses one large bracket with all players, and the loser of each individual match is disqualified. Double elimination makes use of two brackets (winner & loser) and you must lose twice to be disqualified. Although it is possible to lose once, and still place first, it is highly unlikely.

Then we have round-robin, where competitors must play every other competitor in the tournament, and the lowest score(s) get disqualified. Each style has it's pros and cons, and similar to D&D (Dungeons and Dragons), you can expect to run into "house rules" that are specific to one tournament but not in another.

From Wednesday against Neel. Can you tell who won? If we look at the number score alone at the top (higher combo counts towards this score) I would have won, but if we go by EX score (each hit being a different weight) I would have lost. Playing with Peyton's card "TATSUMI".

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According to the rules, which can be downloaded
https://www.facebook.com/download/941843272633466/Hawaii%20DDR%20Ace%20Winter%20Spring%20Tournament%202018.pdf?hash=AcrK7AAV78pSyCPe

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The qualifier to seed the brackets uses normal score, but the tournament itself is EX.

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Reasons a Tournament Doesn't Work as Intended

There are a lot of things that can stand in the way of a fair and fun competition comprised of all-backgrounds and skill levels. The "Hawaii DDR Ace Winter Spring Tournament" aims to solve many issues when hosting video game tournaments. Issues encountered include but are not limited to;

• Not being able to compete on a specific date due to prior obligations (work/school)
• Fear of being matched against players who are clearly above your skill-level and entering not being fun
• Being burnt out after playing for an entire day straight, only to throw at the semi-finals/finals
• The "pressure to perform" allowing for a loss to occur, despite being able to normally clear a target song/score with ease

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Asked for My Help

I was estatic when Neel asked me to assist him in making this competition a success. I've had my fair share of tournament hosting in the past, but he had something a little different in mind. My goal is to get as many people to compete as possible, from every generation and skillset of players that I have come to know over the past several years. To accomplish this, I would be reaching out to people via message, text, or by phonecall, to raise the event's hype- and to come through on it. This was to include myself entering the tournament as well. Oh boy, I've been contacting my fellow rhythm gamers to build up my dream roster!

As this will be an ongoing thing, I will be documenting my experience, not only from a third-person perspective, but as a competitor. In the posts to follow, there will be photo, and video to explain what is happening in a specific round as this particular event is meant to evolve as the mayhem slowly unfolds in the community. I've already heard rumor of a national broadcast, and other live streams of this event. Maybe I will make a stream myself, although that's not my biggest concern! I need to know; will I get to make new friends, and listen to some amazing music?

The qualifiers were actually announced on his birthday, everyone present was given one extra day to learn the songs, before they were posted for everyone else.

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Qualifier Song Elimination

Using a random song generator, fine-tuned to randomly generate a song set from DDR A within a set difficulty, Neel has announced the first 5 songs of the tournament. Until this coming Thursday, the entire community of 199 people (as of current) has a chance to vote one out. The one with the second highest amount of votes will be used in the event of a tie-breaker. The remaining 3 songs must be played by every person when this poll is over, and the scores submited to receive our seeds for the tournament.

Something tells me that the song I want removed is staying in...

Strategy already comes into play, before we even begin. We can see that everyone is voting out the "11", or hardest song from the set. I actually listened, and checked the charts for all the songs and chose the one I liked the least based on how it sounds. We also have the option to collude with those not even entering, but are in our group to sway the vote if desired. Not everyone voting is playing in it, and not everyone competing has cast a vote! It's interesting to view a competition with a large number of variables, as long as there are no rules against it- Anything goes.

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Wanna see what we do? Here are a couple of our community YouTube Channels!
(Links to playlists: Technical and Freestyle play)

• "ELUOTE" (Ryan Tan)

• "MIYOSHI" (Shello Kona)

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I wonder what will happen in the coming weeks. Realistically, I expect to only make it to the second or third round at best. As this story develops, it will become apparent why! Prepare yourself for tales of friendships, rivals, and the lives of those who play these games intimately. Dancing is an activity for some, but an entire lifestyle for others!

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