Mania Explorer

[ZaC35712]

Hello! I'm ZaC, a new Mania player and only play for one year.
I play Malody and on mobile phone mainly. Lately I tried osu!mania, StepMania, Etterna and now find FlashFlashRevolution.
I think the Judgment of FFR is easier than the others (Feels like Judge B or C on Malody) and is more suitable for beginners.
I have great interest in exploring the history of Mania community (The evolution of player skill, Development of Dan Course/method to assess skill, Famous players from different periods, etc.)
If you play for a long time or know a lot, Please leave me some information(Thank you)
Will not appear until June 2026 for some reason
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3.10
How did I discover FFR?
Actually, I may have heard about FFR a few months ago, but I didn't pay attention to it (FFR is so old that I thought it should be as lifeless as other old forums). The second time I saw FFR was a few days ago. Before that, I watched a video of Dossar scoring an A on Reincarnation (Ten years ahead of the world, at least in vibro). I am amazed by such mastery skills (Rank the level of Tackyon before 2011). So I asked AI to search for the information of Dossar, AI figured out Some people remark Dossar in FFR. Then I went to the FFR website and found that it is still active. Even Dossar is one of the staff (The Living Legend! ).
So I registered my account

[ositzxz369]

Re: Mania Explorer

the best FFR files are the ones by the musician Venetian Snares

[ZaC35712]

Re: Mania Explorer

the best FFR files are the ones by the musician Venetian Snares

Thanks for your reply! I also find that FFR's song library is small, and only a small portion are BMS or Japanese-made rhythm game tracks. More are European and American songs (pop music, techno or rock). Does this indicate that DDR (FFR) and BMS are different branches of rhythm games? They should eventually merge during the StepMania and osu!mania periods (StepMania prefers European and American songs more, later osu!mania prefers modern BMS songs more).

[Tru]

Re: Mania Explorer

FFR has always required either open source audio or a musician's permission to use their music in the game. This rule is strictly enforced. You can see a list of available permissions here or better here.

Many such permissions were obtained early in the site's history. Sometimes it would only involve some MySpace messages. Sometimes FFR would build an embeddable widget for an artist. The widget was essentially a mini version of the game with a handful of charts of an artist's work that could be embedded on their MySpace page. FFR got a lot of traction from this.

FFR's creator/founder/owner Synthlight and the FFR server itself is in Chicago. This and the permission requirements limited FFR's Japanese-made music to either BMS of Fighters (open source -ish) or a handful of other specific artists we obtained permission from (shoutout to jimerax and ghakimx).

The keyboard Stepmania scene overlapped a fair bit with FFR as well in the early days. There's still some overlap with Etterna. Separate from the main FFR game, FFR used to host community made charts for Stepmania. There was even a way to play some (constant BPM) charts on the site itself (FFR Resonance). Several prominent Stepmania/Etterna packs were organized on FFR, which was one of the largest forums/communities for that at the time with notable splinters like SMGroove, Red Fraction, ODI, Xoon, etc.

[ZaC35712]

Re: Mania Explorer

FFR has always required either open source audio or a musician's permission to use their music in the game. This rule is strictly enforced. You can see a list of available permissions here or better here.

Many such permissions were obtained early in the site's history. Sometimes it would only involve some MySpace messages. Sometimes FFR would build an embeddable widget for an artist. The widget was essentially a mini version of the game with a handful of charts of an artist's work that could be embedded on their MySpace page. FFR got a lot of traction from this.

FFR's creator/founder/owner Synthlight and the FFR server itself is in Chicago. This and the permission requirements limited FFR's Japanese-made music to either BMS of Fighters (open source -ish) or a handful of other specific artists we obtained permission from (shoutout to jimerax and ghakimx).

The keyboard Stepmania scene overlapped a fair bit with FFR as well in the early days. There's still some overlap with Etterna. Separate from the main FFR game, FFR used to host community made charts for Stepmania. There was even a way to play some (constant BPM) charts on the site itself (FFR Resonance). Several prominent Stepmania/Etterna packs were organized on FFR, which was one of the largest forums/communities for that at the time with notable splinters like SMGroove, Red Fraction, ODI, Xoon, etc.

Thank you for your explanation! Now I finally understand why FFR's song library is so small.
Also, Mania has been developing for nearly 30 years. Has anyone ever summarized the entire development history of the community? I think as old players gradually leave, the early community experiences will be gradually lost. If someone wants to rediscover them later, it will be much more difficult.
Also, why is FFR so strict about copyright restrictions? Even though it is a non-profit game. On osu! and Etterna, there are almost no such restrictions. As far as I know, there should be no restrictions at all on Malody.

[Tru]

Re: Mania Explorer

You're in luck asking FFR about the history angle. This forum is probably the only such historical archive of this stuff. Nowadays most communities including FFR only really operate on Discord.

I would recommend looking through this thread. It is a rather huge rabbit hole, sometimes including irrelevant drama and a little patchy but it seems like the best historical compilation

https://www.flashflashrevolution.com/vbz/showthread.php?t=149106

As for the permission requirements, as far as I know this requirement came directly from Synthlight. I speculate a few good reasons for it.
-Copyright claim defense of course. FFR was at one point for profit, or at least intended to be, complete with (eventually) a subscription system for early access to new charts/features and fancy forum title.
-It was a good cross-promotional tool which peaked with the Widget system. You'd have to work with an artist to get them to embed the widget onto their myspace. Shoutout to DrugstoreCowboy.
-Would maybe have been a handy asset for FFR if the potential deals with Konami or Microsoft actually went beyond talks
-Builds up some level of goodwill with musicians. I think osu had a big issue with this not too long ago