dance dance revolution

i have a friend and fellow DDR-enjoyer who owns one of those expensive dance pads and used this whole program called outfox that lets you play tons of different rhythm games, but most notably... DDR!!!!! he doesn't have the space to set it up at his own place anymore, but I DO...! HEH!!!! so he gifted it to me for my birthday and we've been playing DDR together on the weekends!

i don't talk about it much, but DDR supernova is one of my favorite games of all time. i played it at a friend's house often when i was in middle school, so the songs from that game in particular are very nostalgic to me. my favorites are DoLL and Xepher. as an adult i bought a soft pad and a bunch of the old ps2 games (max 1 and 2, extreme, and supernova 2) so i could play it again. i got really into it for a while, but i think the pad got busted (they don't last too long) and after that i moved to a new place where i couldn't set it up again...

i'm not like, good at DDR. physically i have very low stamina because i'm anemic and rarely leave my house. but DDR is the only type of exercise i have ever really enjoyed and would do at the drop of a hat. i was actually worried getting back into it if my body could even handle playing it again haha, but it was alright! i've been taking it slow, and since i'm playing with a friend (he's way more fit than me) we trade off and i get plenty of time to rest. my calves were really sore a couple days after our first session, but they recovered in time for the next one and i got to keep dancing :) if i'm consistent i'll get to build up my strength over time... i want to gain stamina so i can finish a hard song without falling to the floor by the end...!

outfox is really cool. being able to play whatever songs you want (including community-made ones) from one menu is REALLY AWESOME! since you can make your own... i'm gonna look into what the process is... i'm really interested in trying to make beatmaps! i feel like i know what makes them good, so i really want to create my ideal ones to dance to hehe.

the first time we set this up, my friend just brought over his laptop which already had everything installed. but after that i set up one of my old PC towers to become a dedicated DDR machine... he helped me install linux on it (mint in case you were curious) and i was surprised how fast and simply it was able to be all set up! the old pc was windows 7 and didn't really have anything stored on it, so i wasn't worried about anything important getting erased on accident. i don't think i can switch my main setup to linux, but being able to gain familiarity with it on a side pc makes me really happy. linux is pretty neat, there's a lot i like about it already but i think it's mainly because i have someone to hold my hand if something goes wrong haha.

anyway, I LOVE DDR!!! i'm so happy i'll get to play it whenever i want now!!! really living my ideal life... grateful to my dear friend for making this possible and for dancing with me!!!!!!