Indulgence
By KaW
Simfile by Insane Steve

I found this song while browsing a list of songs and simfiles for In the Groove, with the title "Pandemonium (Remix)" -- I'm not sure if this is a remix of Pandemonium or if the version of Pandemonium in In the Groove was actually remixed from this song (I think it's the latter), but it sounded like a cool song to create steps for, so I did. While the song itself is musically 169 BPM (or thereabouts), Pandemonium in In the Groove is 330 BPM, so to pay tribute, I double-timed the simfile to about 338 BPM (exactly 338.74). Enjoy!

BPM: As stated, exactly 338.74, listed as 338
Difficulty: 2/5/8/11 (No Challenge steps)
Beginner stays on quarter beats
The other three difficulties use quarter and eighth beats. There's strong syncopated beats in this song, which I figured would make better sense to use in the Light simfile than straight quarter notes, which I don't think would make as much sense.

Beginner steps, for the most part, fall on the first beats of alternating measures. At some points, the arrows only fall every four measures (normally the jump parts -- which only consist of LR and UD jumps). There is one section of up-steps every measure (the part with the... interesting sound effect about 2/3 into the song), but for the most part this is perfectly designed for beginning players. It would probably be a 1 if not for a 338 BPM speed... I'd recommend .5x for beginners.

The Light steps, for a 5, are admittedly a difficult sight-read due to the syncopated beats. The steps fall mostly on the 1st and 3rd beats of each measure, although there are a few parts with a 1st, 4th, 7th 8th note pattern to the background. There's also a few jumps near the beginning on the eighth eighth note of the measure. You'll probably miss a lot of arrows if you assume them all to be on the beat.

The Standard steps are a medium difficulty 8, made easier if you are used to the Max series or any other song that goes 300+BPM. These steps follow the background a bit better (and with more overall steps) than the Light steps. There's a couple of parts with consecutive 8th notes (no more than 2 in a row, though) and more sections with quarters on every beat. This is a bit more jump-heavy than the Heavy steps, although I tried not to go overboard with the jumps like on like three-fourths of the sims I see.

The Heavy steps try to follow the beat as well as I could. There may be a few parts with an arrow or two that seems extraneous to you, although to my ear, the simfile goes pretty much strictly to the song. The song is pretty much a full out series of not entirely straight rhythms with almost no letting up except for a small section 2/3 the way through the song. I rely more on streams than jumps to add the difficulty to this set (the exception being a small step-jump section right before the break), and I tried to make the steps difficult, but not awkward to play on a pad. There's also potential fatigue; with almost 800 arrows, and the two longest eighth note streams right at the end of the song, this sim is probably more tiring than anything on DDR.

No Challenge steps -- I think the Heavy steps are difficult enough for a decent majority of the players, even on keyboard (although I designed the steps to be as pad-friendly as I could think of... if something in the simfile seems really awkward and out of place to you, tell me and I'll see if I can fix it). Besides, if I did Challenge steps, they'd be about a 13 difficulty and have a bunch of extra eighth notes that don't particularly go with the song.

I don't think there's sync problems. I AAAAed the Beginner steps 2nd try, which would be hard for me if the steps were off-sync. If your ear is better trained than mine and you think there's a slight sync problem, tell me and I'll fix it.

Enjoy. If you wish to comment or send advice on how I can make better simfiles, please e-mail me at insteve@gmail.com, or just post on the Bemanistyle website.

~Insane Steve

EDIT 1: Turns out the author on the sound file was wrong. Author, bg, and banner fixed.