Archive for the 'Flash Flash Revolution' Category
8th Official Tournament: Round 2!
It’s now been a little more than a week since the war first broke out. Even now, after most of the dust has settled and my disjointed thoughts have had time to adequately precipitate within my mind, I’m still not entirely sure as to what exactly gave rise to this foul bloodshed. It’s as if one evening the people that once peacefully resided along the FFR peninsula had gone to bed as per the norm and then for some inexplicable reason had woken up the next morning with an insatiable appetite for carnage and destruction. Some of my co-workers have been whispering about warring states, political factions attempting to commandeer natural resources and the like, but I don’t believe them. I mean, why would we be sending entire divisions to the polar ends of the Earth if this was just a self-contained phenomenon? I know that war can drive entire countries insane and push them to the threshold of depravity, but at the same time I also know for a fact that what we’ve been witnessing thus far goes above and beyond the level of destruction outlined in the history books.
“Ensign Plopadop!” a gruff voice suddenly called out from behind me. Immediately snapping out of my stupor, I took a fleeting glance over my shoulder to see Professor Halogen walking in my direction, his hands clutching onto a tray that held an identical meal to the one that I was presently ingesting. “Spacing out again, are we?”
“Y-yeah, sorry,” I awkwardly replied before taking a spoonful of applesauce into my mouth. The substance was bitter and tasteless, just like the man who soon sat himself down opposite to me.
“Nothing to be sorry about,” he smiled. “Just don’t forget that you have a job to do here. Many people are counting on you, myself included.”
“Yes sir.” I paused before adding, “So, how are things looking?”
Division One: Reset
“There’s been a Reset for Division One,” he listlessly informed me. “The time-space continuum there is quite volatile so it shouldn’t come as a surprise, but seeing it happen with your own eyes is really…well, you’ve read the textbooks, haven’t you? Personally, I think it may have something to do with the Silvuh Faction’s introduction of triples, but we’re still looking into it. Still, having to put up with a Shift on top of the fighting is really going to do a number on every side’s forces, ours included.”
“What are the projected losses?”
“Approximately twenty-seven percent, give or take.”
I mindlessly sipped my vitamin supplement. “Christ.”
Division Two: Wonder World!
“On the brighter side though, the combatants in Division Two have a real wonder world in comparison to their D1 allies. The weather’s been nothing but bright blue skies and there haven’t been any major hitches in the plan as of yet. I know, I know: knocking on wood, but whatever. Much of the fighting is taking place in and amongst the Kagerow River area though so it’s not exactly easy for us to get any precise figures. We were, however, able to sneak in a few biospies and we’ve picked up some traces of dreamy pop core. You know what that means, right?”
“Yeah, low cutoffs,” I replied with mechanical efficiency.
Professor Halogen winked. “Precisely.”
Division Three: Blue Marine
“What about Division Three?”
“Eh, it’s a fairly typical Blue Marine routine. It’s cutthroat, but at the same time it’s only water combat. The biggest problem is that the troops don’t have all that much ozone down there so only those that are familiar with the Elite Ninja technique are able to remain submerged for long enough to make any serious progress on the seabed.” He pauses. “It’s a real shame that we’ll have to lose ParagonX9 Island as a result of the eruption though. Oh well, what can you do, right?”
I had been to ParagonX9 Island once, long before this all began. The mere thought that we were going to destroy so much Newgroundian history in the name of eliminating such a small percentage of enemy forces made me nauseous, but at the same time I knew that there wasn’t much else that could be done. In the Professor’s words, this was, “Simply how it worked.”
Division Four: Walk on Water
“Those bastards in Division Four are having loads of fun I bet,” Professor Halogen scoffed a few moments later. “Must be nice.”
“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”
“The Devs just affixed their newfangled HG7-8 augmentation to most of their rigs.”
“HG7-8?” I confusedly repeated.
“The Walk On Water module. It allows them to keep the water-faring D3 folks safe when they surface for air by allowing them to hover, glide and even climb using the Peninsula’s basin as a fuel source. Apparently they’re having a blast. Over half of them have achieved AAA rankings in their flights, which is a hell of a lot better than what they pulled off in training.”
Division Five: Oops
Professor Halogen’s gaze met mine for a brief moment in time. Both of us knew fully well what was going on with Division Five; after all, one would have to blindfold and deafen themselves from the constant vespam broadcasts if for some strange reason they desired to remain ignorant towards the plights that D5 were suffering through. Jump-jacks, the sheer brutality of which not seen since the AIM Anthem massacre of the old times, had made short work of too many people to count. Even at that moment the precise number of causalities remained in a constant state of flux.
“YoshL has not been a kind god,” Professor Halogen muttered under his breath.
“Has he ever been?”
The man across the way from me emitted a throaty laugh. “Good point.”
Division Six and Division Seven: Beautiful Arrhythmia
“And the other two divisions…how are they faring?”
My companion shrugged his shoulders. “Fine, I suppose. Arrhythmiatic vapors were deployed with little to no success, but that’s the way those sectors work. I don’t know how those lost souls can stand not only working but actually thriving in such a…peculiar place.”
I nodded my head and kept my disagreement internalized. “Yeah, they’re a bunch of weird ones alright.”
Before I was able to question him any further about the status of the upper divisions, Professor Halogen suddenly stood up. Looking down, I noticed that where there had once sat a colossal lunch there now remained nothing more than an empty plate, some dirtied cutlery and a balled-up napkin. “Well, I’m done,” he laughed with sarcastic remorse. “I suppose it’s back to work for me then. I look forward to hearing your report at the afternoon meeting. Enjoy the rest of your meal, Ensign.”
“Thanks, I will.”
It wasn’t until Professor Halogen was long out of sight that I allowed my expression to droop and my fist to come slamming down onto the vacant portion of the table adjacent to my tray.
“Don’t worry,” I attempted to console myself as I vacantly stared downwards into my colorless mess of food. “I’ll stop this. I’ll get you back to where you belong.”
- Plopadop
8th Official FFR Tournament: It begins!
I gave my sincerest apologies in the forums to those that were aware of the tournament’s beginning, but considering the fact that I have received a few messages asking when the tournament started, it would only be fair to apologize to those who were unaware of the tournament being in progress. In any event, I would like to welcome the 488 of you currently signed up to compete in FFR’s 8th official tournament. With a new tournament structure, eight weeks of new files to come, and some new faces entering the proverbial arena, veteran keyboard killers and newbie mash-masters alike will all have something to enjoy. For 104 of you, this will be your first and only round in the tournament. Given the typical submission rate for round 1, it’s likely that some people won’t even notice they’ve been eliminated. For those of you that actually do care about what’s going on, here’s some information.
First off, before I detail the round songs, remember that the current tournament standings can be found on the dashboard located here; this includes the current round song, current divisions, eliminations, and round end date. I’m gonna keep things short and sweet for you guys this time, since many of you have already played your songs.
Division 1: Warmish Walkin’
Let the games begin! The division 1 players will open the tournament with Warmish’ Walkin, a light rock composition charted by easy-chart-extraordinare Silvuh. maidable achieves a very serene and warm environment with rich guitar sampling, while providing some rhythm complexity to make the song diverse and enjoyable. The chart itself is chock full of your typical 4th and 8th notes (reds and blues, for you more casual players) but throws a few 16ths (yellows) in unorthodox spots to trip your sense of rhythm. Despite having a lower speed overall compared to the two previous division 1 tournament openers, this Division 1 opener is considerably more difficult. You will need to have a decent sense of rhythm and balance to stand any chance at achieving a good score — and this is the first of many songs that will introduce some more complex structures. Good luck!
Division 2: Swaying Sunflowers
Silvuh strikes again! As usual, our very own Silvuh brings yet another lower-level file for use of the tournament, but this time, it’s for the division 2 players. Swaying Sunflowers is a very simple-sounding piano tune by runeinc that, like division 1′s song, utilizes many 4th and 8th note streams to bring about most of the difficulty in the chart. However, this song carries a brisk pace, and forces you to handle many jumps for coincidences of multiple piano notes landing at the same time. I cannot quite discern the reason why this song is named the way it is, but it is safe to say that this song is very peppy and happy, which might be quite annoying if you have to torture yourself playing it a few hundred times.
Division 3: Fire
Starting off hot, are we? Who better than to deliver a track titled Fire than dubstep/drumstep master, xKore? Fire is a very short but energetic track that brings about heavy bass and quite percussion sequences. Elite Ninja‘s chart is reflective of the intensity necessary to get the division 3 ball rolling, pushing out some short spurts of 32nds (don’t worry, it’s only 85 BPM) in addition to having a very jump-heavy structure. Fire is the shortest of the tournament songs this round, but don’t let that fool you – it packs a pretty respectable punch in terms of difficulty.
Division 4: Touch Me
Oh baby; maybe Fire isn’t the hottest song around after all. One thing is for certain though: Division 4 gets to open the tournament off with a technical chart for a Gunther song. It takes a mastermind to mix technicality and difficulty well enough with a Gunther song show up in division 4, and I have to say…bmah managed to mix sexy with sexy. Touch Me is a fantastic chart that follows the song very intensely, following all of the repeating synthetic riffs, slow percussion, vocals, and occasionally, some background percussion to really force your fingers around. If you can’t enjoy the chart, just take in Samantha Fox’s sensual voice and remember — touch her, because she wants to feel your body. 
Division 5: Retro City
Now we’re starting to move up to the big leagues. The Master division opens the tournament up with Retro City, an awesome dubstep song by Adventure Club, stepped by simfile judge Razor. Despite being 3 points lower in difficulty than last year’s opener, this chart makes a very valiant attempt at tripping players up, leaving no skill untouched — bits of jumpstream, trills, jacks, bursts, streams, and even BPM changes are ALL present in the chart. In addition to being incredibly busy and complex, the file is nothing short of fantastic in terms of fun factor; nearly every player mentioning their experience in the Master division so far has mentioned this file to be their favorite, and they certainly aren’t the only ones. Cheers to having an absolutely fantastic dubstep chart in game that is playable by a large majority of the forum community!
Division 6/7: Pussy Pump
Such questionable words to be placed on the front page for the public eye! It’s not very often where we can write the word pussy on the front page in a context that is relevant, but here, I get the chance to! Division 6 and Division 7, our guru and still-to-be-named division (psssssst: help the FFR community come up with a good and official name to identify our D7 players! There’s 10,000 credits in for the best name!) get to take on Pussy Pump, by Otto Von Schirach, a demanding simfile stepped by simfile judge samurai7694. A touch above last year’s opener (Spoils, for those of you who forgot/didn’t know), Pussy Pump can be described a number of ways. Bipolar is one, fast is another. This chart brings about some very aggressive jumpstreams and bursts that are found in arguably faster and harder songs, all in an effort to bring down our best keysmashers. Enjoy this hip-hop/breakcore mix, because it certainly is a weird one.
Good luck to everyone in the tournament!
(p.s. I know I’m not as great of a poster as MrPopadopalis, but I try. 
)
ATTN TGB members,
You can pick up your new keycards here! This card is now mandatory for entrance to the building.
Official Tournament Placements!
The official tournament dashboard is now up for you to view. We did our best to place people as accurately as possible, but we are still in the process of finalizing divisions 1 and 2 so please be patient. If you notice any mistakes with any placements please either send myself or TC_Halogen a private message here on FFR. You can also contact us on Skype. My Skype name is Saphira251 his is debit13.
Thanks and good luck!
Token Image Contest Winners!
Hellloooo everybody! So after some rigorous voting, the FINAL RESULTS ARE IN! In total, we had 73 people cast their votes for their favorite token for each song. Thanks to everyone for participating in the vote! Also, thank you so much to everyone that entered into the contest. Not only did some of you come out of it with a good haul of credits, but your competition helped to make some really amazing images for FFR.
Congratulations to all the winners, as well as the other top three finishers! Thank you to everyone for participating, it made the event all the more fun!
I hope everyone had an absolutely awesome time either watching or participating in the contest.
FFR has some awesome images for the newest token songs, so cheers to all of you! Congratulations again to the winners and runners up.
The credits will be distributed as soon as possible, and the images will be placed on the token pages asap.
Thank you everyone!
~Netjet, jimerax, Nick Skyline, Spenner and Silvuh
Notices, News & “Events”
Heya people, Zageron here.
In case you didn’t know, I’m technically the current site and staff manager dude guy.
If you have any questions send me a PM and I’d be happy to help, or forward you to someone who can.
Announcements
Just some announcements, pertaining entirely to my interests!
• The Ultimate Radio Broadcast has started, tune in over the next month or two for an assortment of great music!
– Join us, on your own profile, in prochat for the party!
– See the thread for more details!
• All game engines are current handing out double the normal amount of credits, grind! grind! grind!
– Offer valid until the 26th of January.
• In case anyone was wondering, yes _.Spitfire._ is a new profile chat moderator, so be nice.
• Shoutout to Fluvs.
• Velo quit, and returned, for the 14th time yesterday evening. Goodbye, and welcome back!
This has been a very relaxed and official distribution of knowledge to the public!
Get ready for the Official Tournament as it is just around the corner!
Cheers,
Zageron
Reminders!
Wow we sure have had a lot of front page news lately. I just wanted to put down a few reminders so you don’t forget about the things that have deadlines.
Signups are still open for the 8th official tournament, but don’t wait too long because signups close on the 19th which is only 6 days away!
For full details on the process of the tournament, involving prizes, how to signup, and other miscellaneous rules and regulations, visit the official tournament thread, or click the banner on the top of the page.
The forum awards are also still open so make sure you go get your votes in for that. You do have until January 28th to submit your votes, so there’s still some time, but don’t let that date creep up on you!
Make sure you visit the Forum Awards thread so that you know all the rules before submitting your votes. Once you vote you will not have the opportunity to change them, which means you could lose them if you don’t follow the rules. Remember, no voting for yourself. There have been quite a few people doing so
We are also still accepting local moderator applications until the end of the month. If that’s something you think you may be interested in check out the announcement here for all the details on submitting an application.
Good Luck Everyone!
-psychoangel691 and the FFR Staff
Songs of the Week (January 10th, 2013)
If the near-constant radio and television advertisements that have been taking up a disproportionately massive amount of airtime as of late haven’t already made you more than well aware, today marks the fiftieth anniversary of a day that will forever live on in FFR infamy. It all began as a routine celebration by the bourgeois and ruling classes, one to honor the traditional Christmastime festivities with a quaint twelve day-long song release event. At the beginning of the event the rest of the populous was enthusiastic enough, but as time grew on people began to grow increasingly wary. The songs, which were initially promised to be intended for all, resided at the upper end of the difficulty spectrum and were often times inaccessible to the lower rung of society due to outlandish unlock requirements. When it seemed that all was lost, a ray of hope appeared in the form of a secretive sect comprised of both the working class as well as a select few from the upper echelon who were displeased with how their contemporaries were running their beloved country. The group’s scheme to topple the oppressive regime quickly gained momentum and within a matter of days they had earned nearly unanimous support. It was then, on the eve of the final release, that the Synthlight Castle was treated to a violent uprising. Flames engulfed what was once a proud and noble structure, effectively reducing centuries of history and cherished memories into nothing more than a smoldering pile of darkened ash and formless rubble. Blood tainted Dance2 Avenue a vibrant crimson, and the disembodied heads of all the staff members were carried out on pikes for all to mock and bemoan. Although we as a populous have incurred many hardships since then, the sacrifices made by all those brave stepmen, women and children have nevertheless paved the way for a brighter future for all, a future in which the inequality between players has been made essentially negligible. It is on this day, the eleventh of January, that we celebrate our ancestors’ good deeds with a release of songs that are considerably easier than those that had been featured in the Twelve Days of FFRmas event.
Glaciate by Phantasma (DarkZtar) – Standard [28] / 1:31 / Dance / Artcore
Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Rondo by 40mP (Zakvvv666) – Tricky [33] / 2:19 / Dance / Happy Swing Pop
Garden Party by Blarsa (ichliebekase) – Tricky [34] / 0:53 / Dance / Bouncy House
Dragon Slayer by Richard Jacques (Silvuh) – Tricky [35] / 2:30 / Classical / Orchestral
I See You Staring by Lisa Lavie (psychoangel691) – Very Difficult [48] / 3:58 / Hip-Hop / RnB
Colors of the Wind by Marilyn Byrnes (iironiic) – Challenging [53] / 2:15 / Classical / Piano Solo
Our memorial release kicks off with a little bit of past meets present action. Those of you who are well-versed in FFR history should recognize Phantasma as being the artist behind such classics as Over the Frail Dream and Illumination of the Sky. DarkZtar, who made his FFR stepfile debut in 2008 with a single file but then remained dormant until 2012, brings us a short and sweet file for the song Glaciate. Being the easiest of our easy releases, this file doesn’t feature anything too difficult other than a couple of minijacks and polyrhythms at a relatively slow speed that should be perfect for introducing novice players to some of the sorts of patterns that they’ll be facing as they move their way up the FFR ladder. Check out the Dance section to give this one a try.
Next up on our list of releases is Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Rondo, an upbeat and cheerful piece by Vocaloid artist 40mP that features vocals from the (presumably) fictional idol Hatsune Miku. Don’t be led astray by the fact that stepartist Zakvvv666 has the number of the beast in his username; rather than featuring any outlandish patterns that would engender inexperienced players to flip over their table or desk in a fit of unbridled rage, the steps are exceedingly comfortable irrespective of play style and, aside from a couple of trills and grace notes, are straightforward enough to leave you feeling just as happy as the song itself is. Luckily for those who are lazier than most, Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Rondo can be found just a few spaces beneath our previous release under the Dance section.
It’s a Garden Party! Yes, that’s right folks, gardens from all across the American midwest have become sentient, removed themselves from the yoke of the earth, revolted against their respective homeowners and have gathered at some rich kid’s McMansion to drink Jagermeister and talk about assorted vegetables into the early hours of the morning! Or, at least, that’s what the tone of our next song may lead you to believe. Clocking in at just under a minute, Blarsa’s Garden Party is as blithe and airy as a light garden salad is. Thanks to the somewhat sluggish BPM, ichliebekase’s arguably treacherous decision to include hands, swipes and rainbow notes should be much more manageable for novice players than if they were in, say, a blisteringly fast speedcore file. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, Dance is the location of this file as well.
For those of you who were unlucky enough to play through Sonic and the Black Night for the Wii, our next release may be familiar to you. Richard Jacques’ Dragon Slayer, an orchestral piece that sounds akin to something out of a Hollywood fantasy blockbuster, is both stereotypical yet at the same time unique. Since we’re dealing with relatively easy files this time around, getting a decent score on this file thankfully won’t be as difficult as battling a monolithic fire-breathing monster would be; rather, it’s more like attempting to slay a sickly komodo dragon with a really blunt stick. Silvuh keeps the difficulty low while at the same time maintaining a high amount of energy in his steps that will surely keep players of all skillsets fully engrossed for the entirety of the song. Check out the Classical section for this piece.
When all of the FFR genres meet up and hangout with each other, poor ol’ Hip Hop always seems to be left out of the fun. Even Funk, the suave middle-aged man with dreadlocks all the way down to his waistline, is still respected thanks in part to his service of being the drop-off point for every single new release back in the day. Thankfully for the often cruelly neglected Hip Hop, forum moderator and stepartist psychoangel691 has not remained ignorant to its plights. Although its offerings may not be as vast as its contemporaries Dance2 and Misc, Hip Hop nevertheless has a new addition to its repertoire with I See You Staring. If you’re after intermittent jumpstream runs, minijacks and smooth RnB lyrics courtesy of Lisa Lavie then you’re definitely in the right place, while if you’re not then…uhh…whoa, look over there!
Our final and most difficult file from this batch of releases is Colors of the Wind, brought to us by piano-file extraordinaire and on-again-off-again forum goer iironic. Just as the song style suggests, this is a piano solo piece and thus possesses many of the prevalent features of such sorts of files: variable BPMs, rainbow notes, polyrhythms, grace notes and even a surprise cameljack right at the end. If you’re a fan of pretending that you’re a brilliant composer performing your landmark piece in front of a fully-booked auditorium of men wearing luxurious suits and women draped in the most exquisite of dresses imaginable then you’re definitely in luck. If you haven’t already guessed, the Classical section is your destination if you’re jonesing to play this one.
And with that we wrap up our commemorative releases. As always, stop on by either the respective Songs of the Week topic on the forums or the comments section of this post and share with the other denizens of FFRland your thoughts, opinions or even scatterbrained ramblings about the releases and the like. Keep in mind as well that sign ups for 8th Official Tournament are now underway! Sign up today, lest for some strange reason you actually desire to miss out on what will surely go down in FFR history as being “The Beginning of the End.” What exactly does such an ominous statement mean? Hell if I know.
FFR Eighth Official Tournament: Sign-ups open!
(props to PrawnSkunk for the neat banner!)
GAME ON.
Yup — everyone’s favorite FFR tournament is back after a few short months! That time has come again, where users doubt themselves, complain about sandbaggers, whine about division placements, and play the song a single time before mentioning their resignation from the tournament – only to play the song another two hundred times. Word has been going around about this event starting, and some members have been anxiously waiting for this to begin. In a few short weeks, it will be here. A huge change has been made to the tournament structure, and it is a change that users have requested for years now. For the first time ever: this tournament will be based off of RAW SCORING! No longer will you be victim of falling into the yellow peepee water of doom because your keyboard trashed your best run and you can’t come anywhere near it. A fun fact: had the previous official tournament been raw scoring, powerfull would have slammed the competition with his 17-2-1-4 run on that violent D5 final…
…but that won’t be a problem this time, will it?
For full details on the process of the tournament, involving prizes, signups, and other miscellaneous rules and regulations, visit the official tournament thread, or click the image on the top of the page if you’d like to enter the thread with style.
Happy keysmashing, and good luck!
-TC_Halogen and the FFR staff
