Comparison of dance pad video games

Last updated June 21, 2024

This is a comparison of dancing video game series in which players must step on panels on a dance pad in time with music. Step placement and timing is indicated by rising arrows overlapping fixed targets.

General information

	Developer ^{[nb 1]}	First release ^{[nb 2]}	Latest release^{[nb 3]}	Panels/pad ^{[nb 4]}	Modifiers^{[nb 5]}	Courses^{[nb 6]}	Bombs^{[nb 7]}	USB Card ^{[nb 8]}
Dance Aerobics TM	Human Entertainment	1987 ( Dance Aerobics )^[1]	N/A	10	No	Yes	No	No
Dance Dance Revolution	Konami	1998 ( Dance Dance Revolution )	2022 ( Dance Dance Revolution A3 )	4^{[nb 9]}^{[nb 10]}^{[nb 11]}	Yes	Yes^{[nb 12]}	Partial ^{[nb 13]}	Yes ( X to X3 )
Pump It Up	Andamiro	1999 ( Pump It Up ) ^[2]	2023 (Pump It Up 2023 Phoenix)	5 for single, 10 for double^{[nb 14]}	Yes	Yes (Fiesta to XX)	Yes	Yes (NX2 to XX)
Dance Maniax	Konami	1999 ( Dance Maniax )	2001 ( Dance Maniax 2ndMIX append JPARADISE )	0 (4 hand sensors)	Yes	Yes	No	No
3DDX	NGG Entertainment	2000 ( 3DDX )	N/A	4	?	?	?	?
EZ2Dancer	AmuseWorld	2000 (EZ2Dancer)	2004 (EZ2Dancer SuperChina)	3 (2 hand sensors)	?	?	?	?
ParaParaParadise	Konami	2000 ( ParaParaParadise )	2001 ( ParaParaParadise 2nd MIX )	0 (8 hand sensors)	?	?	?	?
TechnoMotion	F2 Systems	2000 ( TechnoMotion )	( TechnoMotion The 2nd Dance Floor! )	8	Yes	No	No	No
Dance: UK	Broadsword Interactive Limited	2003 ( Dance:UK )	N/A	8	?	?	?	?
EyeToy: Groove	London Studio	2003 ( EyeToy: Groove )	N/A	0 (6 virtual hand sensors)	No	No	No	No
In The Groove	Roxor	2004 ( In The Groove )	2006 ( In The Groove 3 )	4^{[nb 9]}^{[nb 10]}	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
MC Groovz Dance Craze	Mad Catz	2004 ( MC Groovz Dance Craze )	N/A	8	?	?	?	No
Dance Praise	Digital Praise	2005 ( Original Dance Praise )	2007 ( Dance Praise 2: The ReMix )	4^{[nb 9]}	No	Partial^{[nb 15]}	Yes	No
StepMania	MIT License	1998 ( StepMania )	2021 (Project Outfox & Serenity Edition)	3-10	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Performous	GPL License	2009	2010	8	No	No	Yes	Yes
Dance 86.4 Funky Radio Station	Konami	2005 ( Dance 86.4 Funky Radio Station )	N/A	3	?	?	Yes	?
Mungyodance	Emphatic Games (MGD/MGD2); Monakai (MGD3)	2006 (Mungyodance)	2008 (Mungyodance 3: The Third Rave)	4	Yes (limited)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Cyber Coach	Quick Controls Ltd	2007 ( Cyber Coach )	N/A	8 ^[3]	?	?	?	?
Pump It Up Pro	Fun in Motion	2007 (Pump It Up Pro)	2013 (Pump It Up Infinity)	5^{[nb 14]}	Yes	Yes^{[nb 16]}	Yes	Yes
StepManiaX	Step Revolution	2017 ( StepManiaX )	N/A (ongoing updates)	3 (Beginner) 5 (Easy, Hard, and Wild) 6 (Dual) 10 (Full and Team)	Yes	No	Yes	No Uses QR Code

3 or more simultaneous presses

Some games have 3 or more simultaneous presses. This is supposed to be accomplished via pressing two arrows with the feet and the extra arrows with the player's hands, hence the name "hands". Using carefully positioned feet to hit multiple arrows at once (also known as bracketing) is also another method and is the most common method for much harder songs as time goes by.

Dance Dance Revolution: No hands officially. A single song in Dancing Stage 1.5 (Uh La La La Maniac Single) features one hand due to an oversight, a single song in Ultramix 2 (Skulk Challenge Single) features at least one hand but the chart is unused and inaccessible without hacking the game, and four songs in Solo 2000 ^{[ citation needed ]} feature at least one hand. Hands are also disallowed in Edit Mode, though a glitch can circumvent this^{[ citation needed ]}.
Dance Praise: No hands officially, although some songs feature glitches that require three or four panels to be pressed simultaneously.
In The Groove: Having 3 or 4 arrows at once is common. Bend Your Mind Double Expert is the only song to use six panels that must be pressed at once, requiring using knees as well. It is worth noting that on machines which were converted from DDR to ITG, it is usually more difficult to hit hands because one must apply much more pressure to get steps to register; this is because DDR cabinets were not originally designed with hand play in mind.
Pump It Up: Yes. In Five-Panel (Singles) songs above the level 13, to press three arrows at once (Triples) is fairly common, albeit often done with the heel rather than a hand. In Ten-Panel songs (Doubles) above the level 17, to press four arrows at once (Quads) is not uncommon, but once again, hands are often not involved. In some boss songs, you might have to press five (singles) or six (doubles) arrows at once, in which case you do have to use the hands, but more than this (eight or ten) has been mostly discontinued (except for some boss missions and gimmick "another" charts)
StepManiaX: Various songs have multiple 3 or more arrows as well, usually in the form of involving the center panel where it is central to the other panels. Some songs do contain 3 or more panels that don't use the center panel.

Notes

↑ The developer is the company or individual that has produced/created the game.
↑ The first release is the commercial release within the video game franchise that is earliest in time.
↑ The latest release is the commercial release within the video game franchise that is most recent in time. This may be the latest version if there is only one game in the series or the latest sequel if there are multiple games in the series.
↑ The number of panels per pad refers to the number of inputs that are utilized in gameplay after the start of a song/level.
↑ Modifiers are changes that can be made to modify the game's step routine that usually either increase or decrease difficulty. Such changes may consist of modifications to note scrolling speed, changes to the design or integrity of the notes, and alterations to note positioning.
↑ Courses, often termed "Marathon courses," are sets of multiple songs that are played back-to-back without intermediate rests for the player to select the next song. During course play, life meters for subsequent songs are often directly impacted by the life meters from the songs previously completed. Thus the second song in a course set may begin with the same life meter as the player remained with at the completion of the first song in the course. Courses are often constructed thematically.
↑ Bombs are notes that scroll onto the screen along with the note-markers that the player must avoid stepping on. Often, stepping on a bomb penalizes the player's dance gauge by having it reduced. In some games, derivative elements called "Attack Mines" or "Mod Bombs" may be used to trigger changes to the gameplay that the player might find distracting.
↑ USB card availability refers to the capacity of video game systems in the series (typically arcade systems) to read character or song data from an external removable USB drive.
1 2 3 4 panels per player: left, down, up, right.
1 2 By selecting Doubles mode, one player can play with two pads, or 8 panels.
↑ Note that in the now-defunct Solo series, only one pad is used. For this reason, Doubles mode cannot be played. However, two panels were added to the standard four: up-left and up-right. The player can choose to play using 3 or six panels.
↑ Removed in the 2013 release of Dance Dance Revolution , Revived in Dance Dance Revolution A20 .
↑ The latest arcade, PS2 and Wii versions feature bombs. Universe 3, however, lacks them.
1 2 5 panels per player: up-left, up-right, center, down-left, down-right. The Center panel is square, and the corner panels are rectangle (height > width).
↑ Partial. (Dance Praise 2: the ReMiX introduced Custom Playlists. Similar to courses in DDR and ITG, Custom Playlists are custom-made lists of songs to play through.)
↑ Progressive Mode, allowing several songs to be played with a continuous life bar, and modifiers that change between songs and even during songs.

Related Research Articles

Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) is a music video game series produced by Konami. Introduced in Japan in 1998 as part of the Bemani series, and released in North America and Europe in 1999, Dance Dance Revolution is the pioneering series of the rhythm and dance genre in video games. Players stand on a "dance platform" or stage and hit colored arrows laid out in a cross with their feet to musical and visual cues. Players are judged by how well they time their dance to the patterns presented to them and are allowed to choose more music to play to if they receive a passing score.

StepMania is a cross-platform rhythm video game and engine. It was originally developed as a clone of Konami's arcade game series Dance Dance Revolution, and has since evolved into an extensible rhythm game engine capable of supporting a variety of rhythm-based game types. Released under the MIT License, StepMania is open-source free software.

Pump It Up is a music video game series developed and published by Andamiro, a South Korean arcade game producer.

A dance pad, also known as a dance mat or dance platform, is a flat electronic game controller used for input in dance games. Most dance pads are divided into a 3×3 matrix of square panels for the player to stand on, with some or all of the panels corresponding to directions or actions within the game. Some dance pads also have extra buttons outside the main stepping area, such as "Start" and "Select". Pairs of dance pads often are joined, side by side, for certain gameplay modes.

<i>In the Groove</i> (video game) 2004 video game

In the Groove is a rhythm game developed & published by Roxor Games, and is the first game in the In the Groove series. The game was shown in an official beta-testing preview on July 9, 2004, and was officially released in arcades around August 30, 2004. A PlayStation 2 port of In the Groove was released on June 17, 2005, by RedOctane.

DDRMAX Dance Dance Revolution 6thMix is the 6th game in the Dance Dance Revolution series of music video games. It was released in the arcades by Konami on October 19, 2001, and for the PlayStation 2 on May 16, 2002, in Japan. 6thMix contains a total of 42 songs, all which made their first arcade appearance on this release. 11 of these songs debuted in various console releases prior to 6thMix. All arcade songs from Dance Dance Revolution to Dance Dance Revolution 5thMix were removed in 6thMix, although many of the Konami originals from those games would later be revived in future arcade releases.

<i>Dance Dance Revolution</i> (1998 video game) 1998 video game

Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) is a music video game, developed by Konami, released in arcades on September 26, 1998, in Japan. Dance Dance Revolution is a unique game involving dance and rhythm that defined the genre. It involves timing and balance by having players use their feet instead of their hands like typical video games. In March 1999, the game was released for North American arcades, and for European arcades under the name Dancing Stage. Players and game critics were caught off-guard by the game's addictive qualities winning the new franchise many merits to its design.

In the Groove 2 is the sequel to Roxor Games' 2004 arcade game In the Groove. It was released to arcades officially on June 18, 2005. It was available as an upgrade kit and as a dedicated cabinet developed by Andamiro. The price for a dedicated cabinet was $9,999 USD and the upgrade kit was US$2,999.

Dance Dance Revolution ULTRAMIX 3 is a music video game developed by Konami and the tenth entry of Dance Dance Revolution released in the United States. It was released on November 15, 2005 for the Xbox. About 70 songs are available in total in this version. The game was announced in a press release by Konami on May 17, 2005, and unveiled at the E³ expo in Los Angeles that same day.

<i>Dance Dance Revolution SuperNova</i> 2006 video game

Dance Dance Revolution SuperNova, released in Europe as Dancing Stage SuperNova, is an arcade and PlayStation 2 game in the Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) series of music video games. It was produced by Konami and released through Betson Enterprises. The game was released in Europe on April 28, 2006, followed shortly by a North American release on May 15 and a Japanese release on July 12.

Cyber Groove is a Taiwanese dancing game, by Front Fareast Industrial Corporation, played on a Microsoft Windows computer. It was released in January 2000, and can be played on either the keyboard or a dance pad.

<i>Dance Dance Revolution Disney Mix</i> 2000 video game

Dancing Stage featuring Disney's Rave is a music video game released in Japan in arcades on November 30, 2000. On the same day, it was also released for the PlayStation, but under the name Dance Dance Revolution Disney's Rave. It was later released in September 2001 North America as Dance Dance Revolution Disney Mix and in Europe and Australia as Dancing Stage Disney Mix. It is based on Konami's Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) series with animated Disney characters and electronic dance music remixes of past Disney songs. They also include a few non-Disney songs that were popular at the time of the game's release. It is considered to be one of the rarest DDR game released in arcades.

Dance Praise is a series of dance video games developed by Christian video game developer Digital Praise, with a particular emphasis on Contemporary Christian music. The series began on Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X computers, and later expanded to iOS devices. The series' first title, Dance Praise, was released on September 29, 2005 and gained popularity in the Christian gaming industry.

<i>Dance Dance Revolution Extreme</i> 2002 video game

Dance Dance Revolution Extreme is a music video game by Konami and is the eighth release in the main Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) series. It was released on December 25, 2002, for Japanese arcades, on October 9, 2003, for the Japanese PlayStation 2, and on September 21, 2004, for the North American PlayStation 2. This game is the ninth release in North America, but despite having the same name as its Japanese counterpart, its gameplay and soundtrack is significantly different and won the Video Music Awards in 2005 on MTV for Best Video Game Soundtrack.

<i>Dance Dance Revolution X</i> 2008 video game

Dance Dance Revolution X is a music video game developed by Konami. A part of the Dance Dance Revolution series, it was announced in 2008 for Japan and on May 15, 2008, for the North American PlayStation 2. The arcade version was announced on July 7, 2008, July 9, 2008 in Europe, and July 10, 2008, for North America. Released to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Dance Dance Revolution, DDR X sports an improved interface, new music, and new modes of play. The arcade release featured an overhauled cabinet design with a widescreen display, e-Amusement and USB access, and an improved sound system. Despite such new design of its arcade cabinet, upgrade kit to change the edition of DDR on its first generation arcade cabinet from SuperNOVA2 to X is also available. The PlayStation 2 release has link ability with the arcade machine, multi-player support over LAN, and other improved and returning features such as EyeToy support. DDR X was called a "truly global version", with a multi-regional release by all three major Konami houses.

<i>Dance Dance Revolution</i> (2010 video game) 2010 video game

Dance Dance Revolution, released in Europe as Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party 4 for the Wii version and Dance Dance Revolution New Moves for other versions, is a music video game in the Dance Dance Revolution series, with this entry developed by Konami's American division. Unveiled at E3 2010, it was released for the Wii and PlayStation 3 in North America on November 16, 2010. A port of this version for the Xbox 360 was also released on April 12, 2011. It is also the only game in the series to be released for the PlayStation 3, as well as the final game in the series to be released for the Xbox 360.

Dance Dance Revolution Extreme has a robust soundtrack. It includes many licensed tracks as well as in-house original music that was written and performed by Konami staff.

<i>Dance Dance Revolution X2</i> 2010 video game

Dance Dance Revolution X2 is a music video game, and a part of the Dance Dance Revolution series. The arcade version of DDR X2 was revealed by Konami on November 20, 2009. The sequel to Dance Dance Revolution X, X2 began public beta testing on November 25, 2009. The game was released in Japan and Asia on July 7, 2010, North America on December 31, 2010, and Europe on May 13, 2011. It was the last arcade installment of Dance Dance Revolution with international releases until Dance Dance Revolution A.

The music of In the Groove includes 136 songs for arcade and home releases. A few additional songs were confirmed to be present in the now-cancelled In the Groove 3. Some artists are common to Dance Dance Revolution. In fact, a few song revivals can be found in In the Groove, but with different stepcharts.

StepManiaX is a rhythm game developed and published by Step Revolution, a studio formed by former developers of In the Groove, ReRave, and Pump It Up Pro. It is considered a spiritual successor to the In the Groove series. The name is a nod to the legacy of the open-source simulator StepMania, as many of the original StepMania developers were involved with the project. StepManiaX is derived from the same codebase, with modifications made to support the new game types, lights, touch support, connectivity, and the custom Android operating system and hardware that dedicated units run on.

References

↑ Dance Aerobics Release Date . GameFAQs. Retrieved on 2008-11-30.
↑ "Pump It Up History". Arcade-History. Retrieved 2008-08-20.
↑ "Cyber Coach". Archived from the original on 2016-10-03. Retrieved 2020-07-26.

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[1] The developer is the company or individual that has produced/created the game.

[2] The first release is the commercial release within the video game franchise that is earliest in time.

[3] The latest release is the commercial release within the video game franchise that is most recent in time. This may be the latest version if there is only one game in the series or the latest sequel if there are multiple games in the series.

[4] The number of panels per pad refers to the number of inputs that are utilized in gameplay after the start of a song/level.

[5] Modifiers are changes that can be made to modify the game's step routine that usually either increase or decrease difficulty. Such changes may consist of modifications to note scrolling speed, changes to the design or integrity of the notes, and alterations to note positioning.

[6] Courses, often termed "Marathon courses," are sets of multiple songs that are played back-to-back without intermediate rests for the player to select the next song. During course play, life meters for subsequent songs are often directly impacted by the life meters from the songs previously completed. Thus the second song in a course set may begin with the same life meter as the player remained with at the completion of the first song in the course. Courses are often constructed thematically.

[7] Bombs are notes that scroll onto the screen along with the note-markers that the player must avoid stepping on. Often, stepping on a bomb penalizes the player's dance gauge by having it reduced. In some games, derivative elements called "Attack Mines" or "Mod Bombs" may be used to trigger changes to the gameplay that the player might find distracting.

[8] USB card availability refers to the capacity of video game systems in the series (typically arcade systems) to read character or song data from an external removable USB drive.

[ddrppp-10] 1 2 3 4 panels per player: left, down, up, right.

[ddranditg-11] 1 2 By selecting Doubles mode, one player can play with two pads, or 8 panels.

[12] Note that in the now-defunct Solo series, only one pad is used. For this reason, Doubles mode cannot be played. However, two panels were added to the standard four: up-left and up-right. The player can choose to play using 3 or six panels.

[13] Removed in the 2013 release of Dance Dance Revolution , Revived in Dance Dance Revolution A20 .

[bombsddr-14] The latest arcade, PS2 and Wii versions feature bombs. Universe 3, however, lacks them.

[puiandpro-16] 1 2 5 panels per player: up-left, up-right, center, down-left, down-right. The Center panel is square, and the corner panels are rectangle (height > width).

[17] Partial. (Dance Praise 2: the ReMiX introduced Custom Playlists. Similar to courses in DDR and ITG, Custom Playlists are custom-made lists of songs to play through.)

[19] Progressive Mode, allowing several songs to be played with a continuous life bar, and modifiers that change between songs and even during songs.

[9] Dance Aerobics Release Date . GameFAQs. Retrieved on 2008-11-30.

[15] "Pump It Up History". Arcade-History. Retrieved 2008-08-20.

[18] "Cyber Coach". Archived from the original on 2016-10-03. Retrieved 2020-07-26.

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