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.
Beatmania (ビートマニア) is a rhythm video game developed and distributed by Japanese game developer Konami and first released in December 1997. It contributed largely to the boom of music games in 1998, and the series expanded not only with arcade sequels, but also moved to home consoles and other portable devices, achieving a million unit sales. The Bemani line of music games from Konami is named after the series, was first adopted in the arcade release of Beatmania 3rdMix and kept ever since. The series came to an end with the last game being Beatmania The Final, released in 2002.
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.
Beatmania IIDX (IIDX) is a series of rhythm video games, that was first released by Konami in Japan on 26 February 1999. Beatmania IIDX has since spawned 31 arcade releases and 14 console releases on the Sony PlayStation 2. It is the sequel to the beatmania game series, and is part of the Bemani line of music games.
Bemani, stylized as BEMANI, is Konami's music video game division. Originally named the Games & Music Division (G.M.D.), it changed its name in honor of its first and most successful game, Beatmania, and expanded into other music-based games, most notably rhythm games such as Dance Dance Revolution, GuitarFreaks, and DrumMania.
Gitadora is a music video game series produced by Konami. The series consists of two games, GuitarFreaks and DrumMania, where players use game controllers modeled after musical instruments to perform the lead guitar, bass guitar and drums of numerous songs across a wide range of genres by matching scrolling musical notes patterns shown on screen. Players are scored for successfully-hit notes, but may fail a song if they miss too many notes. The series has featured numerous game modes, and supports both single-player and multiplayer modes where up to three players can perform together. Some earlier versions of the game could also be linked with Keyboardmania.
BMS is a file format for rhythm games developed by Urao Yane in 1998. The format was originally developed for BM98, though the term BMS is now widely used to describe the Beatmania-esque music data system in general.
Yoshitaka Nishimura (西村宜隆), better known as DJ Yoshitaka, is a composer for Konami's line of Bemani games. He has been making solo songs since the release of Beatmania IIDX 11: IIDX Red, though he has had previous Bemani involvement as a member of Osamu Migitera's Des-ROW group. He often composes for the Beatmania IIDX and the Pop'n music series, and then began composing for the Guitar Freaks & DrumMania and the Dance Dance Revolution series in 2005 and 2007, respectively. DJ Yoshitaka still often works with Des-ROW for some Pop'n music songs. In the Reflec Beat series, DJ Yoshitaka regularly appears alongside fellow composer Sota Fujimori as a double act, Venus.
beatmania IIDX 7th Style is the seventh game in the beatmania IIDX series of music video games. It was released in arcades by Konami in March 2002.
beatmania IIDX 5th Style is the fifth game in the beatmania IIDX series of music video games. It was released in arcades by Konami in 2001. The game features 35 new songs, five of which are hidden. New features introduced in this version are auto-scratch, as well as two more Hi-Speed settings 5th Style's songlist featured the first songs that would later become "flashing 7s", here differentiated from regular 7s with a kanji meaning "forbidden".
beatmania IIDX 3rd Style is a music video game developed by Bemani and published by Konami, initially released as an arcade game in Japan on February 25, 2000, and subsequently ported to the PlayStation 2 on November 2. 3rd Style removed the 4-keys mode from previous installments and replaced it with the Light7 difficulty, giving most songs a fully separate, easier notechart. The game also introduced Free Mode and Extra Stage, and featured a new aesthetic.
Beatmania IIDX Club Version was released on April 21, 1999 by Konami to the Japanese arcade audience. It could be linked with a Dance Dance Revolution machine for simultaneous play.
beatmania IIDX substream is a 1999 music video game which had a different songlist and could be linked to a Dance Dance Revolution machine for simultaneous play. If either the Dance Dance Revolution player or IIDX player made mistakes, the other game became more difficult.
Beatmania IIDX is an arcade music video game developed by Bemani and published by Konami. It was released in Japan on February 26, 1999. The objective is to perform songs using a controller with seven keys and a turntable. After the surprise success of Beatmania, Benami conceived IIDX to simulate an actual disc jockey (DJ) live performance. Its arcade cabinet contains a widescreen monitor, speakers, and eight spotlights. Bemani later developed several updated versions of IIDX to increased success. The game retrospectively received a positive reception from video game publications for its gameplay and increased difficulty. A sequel, Beatmania III, was released in 2000.
Kosuke Saito, also known as kors k, is a Japanese DJ and music game composer. He is best known for his work in the Bemani series made by Konami. He has produced music under a number of different aliases, such as kors k, Eagle, StripE, and teranoid.
Tomosuke Funaki is a Japanese composer who has contributed to the Bemani series of music video games. He has produced songs for Beatmania, Beatmania IIDX, Pop'n Music, Dance Maniax, Guitar Freaks, DrumMania, Mambo a Gogo, and Dance Dance Revolution. He collaborated with the Shibuya-Kei vocalist "EeL" to provide original songs for BEMANI under her "EeL" pseudonym. "Orange Lounge" is the pseudonym used for his Shibuya-Kei compositions, with lyrics sung and written by Shizue Tokui. "Nick boys" is the pseudonym for his Hip hop-influenced collaboration with Des-ROW. "Zektbach" is the pseudonym used for his classical music influenced concept pieces by forms of fantasy worlds, usually with choirs and classical instrumentation.
Beatmania IIDX 18 Resort Anthem is a music video game in the Beatmania IIDX series of games by Konami. On April 19, 2010, Bemani fansite Zenius -I- Vanisher reported that Konami had announced the first location test for the newest game in the IIDX series. The location test ran from April 22 to April 26 at the Cat's Eye Machida (キャッツアイ町田) in Machida, Tokyo. Follow-up location tests ran in Chōfu, Tokyo and Kyoto from April 30 to May 6, in Nagoya and Sapporo from May 14 to May 20 and in Chiyoda, Tokyo from June 11 to June 12. The game was released on September 15, 2010 This Beatmania iteration's theme focuses heavily on a futuresque modern relaxation and tropical beach resort concert-like setting, with the interface making use of sleek mechanical components with simple whites and bright colors that are easy on the eyes.
Dance Dance Revolution A20 is a music video game, the 17th installment of the Dance Dance Revolution arcade series in Japan, and the sequel to Dance Dance Revolution A. The game was released on new, golden cabinets on March 20, 2019, in Japan. A software upgrade for older cabinets for Japan and Asia was released on July 24, 2019, with South Korea receiving a localized release on August 1, 2019, and North America on September 24, 2019. A location test in Europe began on October 7, 2019, and ended on March 16, 2020.
