Team D5R

12:32pm: Team D5R @ Groovemania '08
Hey guys, Dany here announcing D5R will definitely be going to Groovemania 2008 in January, in Montreal at an arcade called Amusement 222 Laval? Never heard of it but it's supposedly quite popular.

They even announced this tournament on GROOVESTATS so you know it's gonna be huge. Hope to see you all there.

4:40pm: Lighting a DDR Pad
Hi guys, Gordon here.

I posted a guide on how to light a DDR pad on DDRFreak.com's forums here:

http://www.ddrfreak.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=8649364#8649364

10:21pm: Remember September Pictures!
hey guys, Trin here!

Sorry there's no real Remember September tourney post up here yet.. maybe me & Metroid11 will cobble one together later =P But instead for now, here are pictures of the event!






( Remember September Pics )


Highlights:

- 1st place goes to LilQ
- 2nd, 3rd & 4th go to Admstyles, Kelly & Pickles - congratulations everyone!
- Metroid11 came out with 15th place & what a way to go - tying not one but TWO rounds with Brian! Very cool ^_^

Unfortunately we couldn't stay till the end of the tourney (which is why I don't feel qualified to write a full-fledged post), but I hear the party at Niko's later that night was some crazy fun O.O

Okay.. that's all I feel like typing right now. =P

All comments are welcome!

8:49pm: Summer Speedy Tourney results!
Hi everyone, Gordon here!

Well, the tournament was really exciting! There were some very close matches, and overall the tournament was a success! 21 people showed up for the tournament, including two of Kaitlin (Pui-Puni)'s friends Zaku and Eti from the Montreal ITG team "Team Kawaii"!

The tournament was won by Brian, he also came from all the way from Montreal for the tournament. He got the top qualifier seed, and despite a couple of close calls, won the tournament in the end.

Coming in second place was Figgy, and third was LEET.

The qualifier was particularely hard for this tournament. It was Summer Speedy mix (not a big surprise), on Hard, with Stream and Skippy mods turned on. The average score was around 92%

Me and Dany ended up playing against each other, and after a VERY close match, Dany beat me on the 3rd random song. He went on to place 4th in the tournament, while I placed 6th.

It was too dark to really take any videos, but there's lots of pictures!



Click here for the aftermath thread on RGCanada.com


( Summer Speedy Tourney Images )

9:23am: Summer ~Speedy Mix~
Tournaments Galore!



There is *another* tournament coming up Funland Arcade, Toronto, and we're sure to be there. This one is called "Summer ~Speedy Mix~", clearly named after the 13-footer in ITG2. The tournament is being run by KoolJapanese.

This tournament is an expert-division tournament similar to WTFHAX. It is an insert-mod tournament, meaning the player choosing the song is also allowed to customize the stepchart with any combination of inserts like Big, Quick, Skippy, Echo etc.

KoolJapanese has also been able to get RoXoR to sponsor the tournament! So there's sure to be some good prizes at this one!

Here's the specs for the tournament:

Name: Summer~speedy mix~ Tournament
Date: Saturday, July 29, 2006
Time: Registration starts @ 10:00am, Qualifiers start @ 10:30am
Location: Funland Arcade, Downtown Toronto, 334 Yonge st. (Yonge & Dundas)
Cost: $10 registration fee
Style: Swiss Pairing / Double Elimination

Allowed insert mods:
No Mines, No Holds, Simple, No Jumps, No Hands, Stream, Quick,
Skippy, Echo, Wide, Stomp, Planted, Floored, Twister, Add Mines

Prizes:
1st place - 60% of pot + Roxor prizes
2nd place - 30% of pot + Roxor prizes
3rd place - 10% of pot + Roxor prizes

This tournament is gonna be awesome :D


Click here for the official tournament rules
Click here for the discussion thread on RGCanada.com
Click here for registration

Or, contact the tournament director at kooljapanese@hotmail.com

4:11pm: Pink Fuzzy Bunnies Goes LOLOL Results
Trin here! Sorry for the delay, folks. The first all-girls tournament happened Saturday in Toronto at Funland, and what an event it was! 10 girls showed up to compete, all of them accompanied by friends, boyfriends, parents, and other hangers-on. The prizes picked out by the tournament director, Diane, were wonderful. First prize was $50 + ITG3 Theme Prize Package, & second prize was $20 + ITG2 Theme Prize Package. Throughout the tourney, raffles were held for smaller prizes.

The main point of interest in this tourney was that all songs must be played on random. This means that any song you play regularly (i.e. songs you whore) won't be as easy or familiar, since all the notes will be placed randomly on the screen. This truely was a sight-reading tournament, where understanding difficult patterns and not losing your footing are key to winning.

The qualifiers started a bit later than expected, but with only 10 participants, Niel - who travelled all the way from Ottawa to help organize the tourney - quickly got the seeding charts underway and the first round began!

The qualifying song (not on Random) was Typical Tropical. Pui Puni ended up 4th in the qualifiers, while I ranked only 9th. This meant that Pui got a buy into the next round, while I competed in the first round against Vicky! Both songs were quite close, with me picking Solina and losing 94.74% to Vicky's 95.50%. The second song booted me into the loser's bracket, as I lost playing Bumble Bee, 90.84% to 91.15%. Close!

Pui Puni ended up playing Candice, a very good player. She unfortunately lost 62.38% to Candices' 91.23% playing Energizer, and again playing Pick Me Up And Tango, with 93.15% to Candices' 96.20%.

Our losers brackets rounds went as follows:

Trin vs Annie
Zodiac[H]: 92.29% - 96.08%
Hardcore Symphony[H]: 75.48% - 93.35% (Annie wins)

Annie vs Pui Puni
Hand of Time [E]: 76.61% - 9.61%(F) (first 10-block! Annie and her crazy stamina. =P)
Mellow [H]: 96.76% - 95.31%(Annie wins again!)

Neither of us did spectacularly in this tourney, but such is life... we both need more practice =P

The final winner of the tourney was Diane - also the organizer (and buyer of the crown and prizes, haha XD) it was a very close tie between her and Mel. Congratulations to everyone that entered this tough tournament! Hopefully we'll see more girls tourneys like this in the future. =)

After all the excitement at Funland, me, Dany, Aaron, Gordon, Kaitlin & Phr34k went out to eat a Fune, a very classy Japanese restaurant. It was delicious.



So without further ado, here are the pictures from the tourney =P

( click for pics! )



For more on tourney aftermath, go here.

For more videos and pics of Pink Fuzzy Bunnies, go here.

10:09pm: TEAMD5R.COM
Mantis here.

Just letting eveyone know that teamd5r.vze.com has now been moved to teamd5r.com.
The old site will be removed shortly.

1:28pm: DDRCanada is now RGCanada
Random news update about DDRCanada.com.

As of July 7th, 2006, our old beloved forum has been moved to a new server. After some serious server difficulties and downtime, Phr34k finally decided to move the forum to the new server which is hosted at http://www.rgcanada.com.

The new site has been christened Rhythm Games Canada (You know, since ITG isn't really DDR :P)

DDRCanada.com is now just a redirect.

1:25pm: Pink Fuzzy Bunnies goes LOLOL
Hi everyone, Gordon here!



Yep, there's another tournament coming up. This one is being run by InspectorKen and Aya on DDRCanada. It will take place down at Funland arcade in downtown Toronto on Saturday July 22, 2006. Or... tomorrow :P. Again, sorry about the short notice.

It seems like giving tournaments names that are puns on ITG songs is starting to really catch on. This tournament is called "Pink Fuzzy Bunnies goes LOLOL". A pun on two songs in ITG3 - "Pink Fuzzy Bunnies", and "Less Than 3" which has the line "LOLOL" in it.

But enough of the history, what's making this tournament so special?

It is an ALL GIRLS tournament! It is the first advertised all-girls tournament to run in Funland Arcade. Kaitlin and Trin will be entering, and the rest of us are going to watch.

The tournament is shaping up to be really good, it is attracting a lot of attention, not just by the girls but by spectators who want to watch. This tournament might serve as a way to get the girl ITG players to come out of the woodwork and join a tournament where they don't have to worry about the pressure of competing with the rest of the guys.

So, here's the tournament specs:

-Date: Saturday July 22, 2006
-Format: Double Elimination, swiss pairing, best 2/3 rounds
-Entry fee: $10
-Location: Funland Arcade @ Downtown Toronto, 334 Yonge st. (Yonge & Dundas)
-Registration: @ 10 - 11 am
-Qualifier: Begins at 11 am [song to be announce at the tournament]
-MODS: ONLY 'random,' and speed mods are allowed
-Song Difficulty: Songs are to be a minimum of 5 blocks

Potential qualifiers:
- Typical Tropical[H]
- Bubble Dance[H]
- Bumble Bee[H]
- Crazy[H]
- SpaceMan[H]

Click here for the official tournament posting on DDR Canada

Click here for registration

Or email the tournament director, InspectorKen, at silent_wanderer84@yahoo.com

7:36pm: JISIO Aftermath!
Hey everyone! Trin here. The ITG tournament in Ottawa was fantastic, with a great turnout and a better-than-expected location in the Midway arcade. Thanks to Devin's organization (huh?) and Niall's scorekeeping, all went smoothly from beginning to finish and we ended up being ahead of time!





Our first big surprise was that we would be having the tournament outside on the back patio of Midway. With the combined strength of a whole bunch of expert ITGers, the machine was wrestled outside, piece by piece. It turned out to be the best location of all!

The winners of the Expert tourney were: Ricky in first place, Devin in third, and.... our own Metroid11 in second place! Congrats to everyone that entered - there were some very close scores. In particular, Dany won his last round against Devin by a mere 0.05% playing Kiss Me Red Expert. The scores were 98.82% to 98.87% - The crowd goes wild! XD Frosty555 ended up in 12th place overall and Mantis was close behind in 14th. Not half bad guys =)

The Intermediate tourney began in the evening after the Experts had finished off. Due to a leg injury that happened only the day before the tourney (I'm sure lots of people saw me limping around >_<) I couldn't enter the tourney as I had planned, but Pui Puni played her best and went on to win second place in the division! Way to go Pui! Her final match was against Jenn and she managed to pull a 97.86% on Summer in Belize on Medium against Jenn's 95.65% - a close one. Waldo snagged first place, and then the tourney was over.

After grabbing some much-needed food, the guys decided to go Gokarting and had a great time smashing into one another (getting out some of that left over tourney-agression, I would assume =P) and I managed to snap a couple of pictures before they took off. ^_^

After the tourney, the food, the gokarting and the cleaning up (thank GOD we didn't have to move the machine back into the arcade) me, Dany, Aaron, JD and Josh headed back to Devin's house, where he generously put us up for the weekend =) There then ensued much drinking, singing and partying - and we have wonderfully incriminating pictures of it all!

So congrats to everyone who participated XD And now for the pictures!! (I know that's what you all *really* want.. =P)


Warning: VERY image-heavy cut

( JISIO pics from D5R )

For a complete version of events, check out the Advanced Tournament Results and the Intermediate Tournament Results

Also visit the JISIO Tourney Aftermath!

7:13pm: July Is Summer In Ottawa
Hi everyone, Gordon here.

Devman is hosting a tournament at Midway in Ottawa and we're planning on going. The tournament has been named "July is Summer in Ottawa". A play on July and Summer in Belize.

So far the tournament is shaping up very well. It's scheduled to take place at the Midway family entertainment center in Ottawa, on July 8th, 2006.

This tournament is going to be 2-tier, with a medium/hard division, and a hard/expert division. Difficulty caps will be put on the medium/hard division so that nobody can pick pandemonium and dominate the bracket.

There are so far 19 people registered, with plenty more to come (hopefully).

And the best part, Devman's managed to get the tournament sponsored both by Roxor and DDRCanada!


Click here for more information on the July Is Summer In Ottawa tournament

Click here for registration

1:08am: DDR SuperNOVA Released
Mantis here.

Last night Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA finally became available. Machines are now available for order and will be shipped mid June. Currently, all versions of SuperNOVA are being sold as dedicabs only, meaning no upgrade kits are available for this first shipment. The dedicabs cost approximately $15,000 USD.

Konami's official DDRSN website is available here.

7:36pm: Mantis's Birthday
Today is my 20th Birthday. Just thought I'd mention it since no one has yet.

10:07pm: D5R Minus One
Adam, aka Link, has been dishonourably discharged from Team D5R.

We are not sorry to see him go.

3:38pm: WTFHAX ITG Blender Tournament
Hey everyone, Gordon here!

On Saturday was the long awaited WTFHAX ITG tournament! This could quite possibly have been the tournament of the year (sorry for no news postings about it coming up prior to this one :P). The tournament was an incredible success, run by Phr34K, the administrator at DDRCanada.com.

This tournament had some special rules, that gave it a much deeper level of strategy. Every song was required to have the BLENDER mod on (similar to super-shuffle in Stepmania), and the person choosing the song could put an additional INSERT mod onto their own stepchart (Quick, skippy, echo, wide, stomp, simple etc.). This allowed players to take a difficult stepchart and make it easy, or take an easy stepchart and make it next to impossible.

Phr34k even went through all the trouble of making a trophy for this tournament! It was a blender, painted gold with a plasma-orb science thing inside of it! When you plug it in it lights up! This is the first tournament I've ever been to where there was a trophy for the winner.



The tournament also boasted one of the largest prize giveaways in the history of Ontario DDR tournaments. In addition to a large pot, the tournament was sponsored by Roxor and prize packages were available from them too. First place prizes added up to more then $300!

Some very popular faces showed up at this tournament. Most of the posters on DDRCanada, and Team Gwai Lo showed up, as well as a number of very highly skilled players who just appeared out of the woodwork. Pickles, if not the best player then one of the best players in Canada, came down from Winnipeg to compete.

The only thing that didn't go well was the right side pad was not as sensitive as the left side. It became so bad that the players for each round switched pads every song to help even it out.

The tournament started off with the qualifier Reactor (Medium) with the Skippy, Wide and Quick mods turned on. I placed 7th in the qualifiers and Dany placed 2nd! I beat my first opponent, Zidane, but lost to Wilson in the second round, due to my own stupidty picking a song that's wayyy too hard for me. I was amazed, Wilson actually beat it! In the loser's bracket, I faced the SAME person I beat in the first round and beat him again. I feel really sorry for him >_> that's not a fair way to get eliminated from a tournament. I got beat in my final round of the loser's bracket against Jamie, who just generally out-played me :P. I came in somewhere in the top 16 players.

Dany did much better! Overall he came in 4th place in the entire tournament. He won in his first round against GipFace, but then faced off against Rikidi in the second round and lost. In the loser's bracket, just like I got matched up with my original opponent, he got matched up with GipFace again! But GipFace had disappeared and so he won by default. His next round was against Mike B, and he won when Mike failed his own song. He played JD next and pulled out a victory, again JD failed his own song, but we think it was because he was on the bad side of the pad. He went up then against Jamie, the person who eliminated me, and won against him. Next he paired up against Aves, who was a very strong player. Dany pulled out his wildcard, Vertex^2 on hard, and managed to force Aves to fail the song, and knocked him out of the tournament too! Finally Dany went up against Pickles, who, to his credit, beat him in both songs :P. Dany ended up finishing 4th while Pickles went on to win the rest of the tournament.


A picture of the winners! Good job guys.


Overall a very successful tournament! Phr34k is hoping to be able to run another one in the future, so we'll all be waiting for that.

Check out metroid11's livejournal for his version of events.

Click here for the tournament info post on DDRCanada
Click here for the aftermath discussion on DDRCanada
Click here for pictures and videos for the tournament

A few more pictures under the cut!

( WTFHAX pics )

2:11am: Mantis Simfiles Update
Two new simfiles for you guys to check out!
While you're there, join the forums!

11:39pm: Niagara Falls Tournament Results
Hey everyone, Gordon here.

Due to some very bad weather, we couldn't go to the Niagara Falls tournament!! *cries*

It's really sad, because apparantly down there the weather was okay. The tournament ended up becoming "triple" elimination instead of double due to lack of participation. The worst of the weather hit downtown Toronto, so maybe they got held up too.

Thanks to Niko for hosting the tournament! And Congratulations to Swift, BarX and Figgy for taking home the prizes.

Here are the results, as reported on Team Gwai Lo:

The winners were:

1. Swft
2. BarX
3. Figgy
4. Blair
5. NeoBlarrg

So, instead of going to the tournament, we ended up going down to Aurora to play some ITG, and all of us got some new accomplishments! I passed Hardcore Of The North [E], and Adam finally passed Euphoria [E], almost taking the highscore on the machine (and almost destroying his calf in the process). Pictures AND videos coming soon!

Click here for discussion on the Niagara Falls DDR tournament

12:28pm: Link's new LJ account and the upcoming tournament!!
Hey everyone, Link here. I just wanted to let everyone know I made a new LJ account "Linkontario" and that I will now be using that one instead of my old one! I also just started a groovestats account not more than a month ago for those of you that done know, my username on that is also Linkontario! Madness eh? Lol. Check out my terrible stats and compare them with yours and you can find the ultimate songs to own me on in this upcoming tournament! Whos in? I cant wait! Niagra Falls here I come!!!! *flys away*

7:57pm: Looks like our feet are famous!
Hey, Dany here, just want to mention (and I believe I should have posted this earlier so you all could have tuned in x_x) recently on a visit to Funland in Toronto with resident DDR/ITG player JD (Dynamite/Ex-Rave) we stumbled upon a women from CBC Radio, nicknamed "Contest Girl" talked to us and wanted to "interview" us to be on the radio on Saturday January 28th on the show "GO".

She paid for us to play DDR, and made us play We Will Rock U on heavy. She recorded the sound of our taps and the song itself, and also asked us to mess up! Just so we don't sound so on beat and perfect, and more realistic. So we just made up our own steps to the song to "mess up" and she thought it was great!

Saturday morning rolled around, and I listened to the show. Turns out the topic of the show was cool ways to exercise and lose weight (I guess that's where the DDR comes in.) It took about an hour and ten minutes before they played our segment, and they briefly talked about DDR (comparing it to Simon Says =\) then said that contest girl and the host of the show Brent Bambury went down to play DDR (obviously not true =P) and then played me and JD starting the game, picking the song, and playing it! They then dubbed over their voices, saying things like "WHOAA this is hard!" and "Ohh man I can't do this!" making it sound like it's them playing! XD

So in the end... I suppose the whole world now knows my famous feet. =D

7:17pm: Fascination MAXX
Mantis here.
For all of you ITG difficulty whores out there wishing DDR would become harder like ITG, your wish has been granted.

I got a chance to play Fascination MAXX today, and I have to say its steps coupled with the BPM changes rank it at about a 12 on the ITG scale.

If you feel like trying it out for yourself, click here to download a low quality Fascination MAXX simfile for Stepmania. I apologize for the low quality, as the mp3 is an audio rip from ATEi and the background it just an in-game screenshot.

11:24pm: DDR SuperNOVA Machine Pics, Video + SONGLIST!!
Mantis, AGAIN. BIG BIG BIG update on DDR SuperNOVA!
First of all, the following pics are from ATEi:



Secondly, a brand new in-game video is now available at GameSpot.com!
Click here for the two minute in-game video of DDR SuperNOVA!

And most importantly, I have the current confirmed songlist. Please note the list isn't complete yet, since there are not yet 300 songs confirmed, and we are promised to have over 300 in the final version.

( Click here to see confirmed song list! )

A note about Fascination MAXX: This is the new MAX song for this mix. The BPM varies between 100, 200, and 400 beats per minute. There are over 600 steps on Heavy in the song. This is also the Extra Stage song (if you AA your Final Song on Heavy).

Estimated release date is currently May 15, 2006.

9:56pm: 765+ West Virginia Schools Use DDR to Fight Obesity
"State and school officials there have struck a partnership with Redwood City's Konami Digital Entertainment Inc. to use its Dance Dance Revolution in all of its 765 public schools, Konami announced today. The innovative plan, the first statewide program to employ the dance video game, is intended to attack West Virginia's youth obesity problem.

"The program in West Virginia will roll out in the coming weeks at 103 middle schools and junior high schools and will reach the remaining schools by the end of the 2006-07 school year. The games, which will run on Microsoft Xboxes, will be incorporated into physical education curricula and after-school programs."

No surprise, DDR is actually going to be used in the phys-ed classes for middle schools and junior highschools in West Virginia! The school board decided to put DDR into all 765+ of it's schools in an attempt to fight their youth obesity problems.

>_> Almost makes me wish there were more fat people here in Newmarket!

Click here for the full article on SFGate.com

Click here for the discussion on Team Gwai Lo

1:21am: In Play's 2nd Anniversary - FREE DDR!
Mantis again.

For everyone who lives in the Toronto area, come on over to our little town of Newmarket for In Play's 2nd Anniversary.

The event is being held on March 3rd, and the main feature is all non-ticket dispensing games are free (meaning free DDR / Drummania) AND all ticket machines are on double-payout. There may be free snacks like at the Grand Opening, but Sarah (the co-owner) hasn't decided yet. Also, Subway (where I work) might be catering, but again I have to discuss this more with Sarah.

More information soon.



--edit-- (Gordon)

Information on In Play can be found on the Our Locations page.

In Play's official website is available here.

12:59am: New DDR SuperNOVA Information!
Hey everyone, Mantis here.
New in-game screenshots of the ATEi version of DDR SuperNOVA, along with some new details about the game, have been released:




Apparently, it was announced at ATEi that DDR SuperNOVA will also be hitting Japanese arcades. The new version of DDR will feature a massive songlist with over 300 songs, dancing characters (like in earlier versions of DDR and in the recent Ultramixes) and Battle mode (a newer version of Magic Dance mode from Disney Mix). Oni and Nonstop mode will also return. It will also support home-version connectivity features, including allowing to import edits.

Check back here for more news on DDR SuperNOVA when it becomes available!

1:41am: Kaitlin's Birthday
Today is Kaitlin, aka Pui-Puni's 19th birthday today! HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAITLIN! Congratulations, you can now drink in Ontario :P.

8:42am: Niagara Falls ITG Tournament
Hey everyone, Gordon here.

I'd like to make a little announcement concerning an upcoming tournament! It's an ITG2 double-elimination tournament being hosted by Niko from Team Gwai Lo. The tournament will take place on Saturday, February 4th, in exactly two weeks, and hopefully most of D5R will be attending! It's looking to be lots of fun. A lot of forum members from Team Gwai Lo will be there, and after the tournament everyone is going out to Boston Pizza.

The tournament will be hosted at:

The Great Canadian Midway
4946 Clifton Hill, Niagara Falls, Ontario
905-358-3676
(Mapquest map)

Time: Starts at 1:00pm, arrive 11:30am to register.
Cost: $10 + buy your own tokens
Questions/comments: Email Niko - niko (DOT) k (DOT) 1337 (AT) gmail (DOT) com
Qualifier: Zodiac [Expert]

Prizes are looking good too! It is a 60/30/10% distribution of the pot for first, second and third place. Right now first place is looking to be somewhere in the $120 range. There's about 20 people signed up for the tournament right now.

Anyone who wants to go, give Niko an email, or post on the forums! Let us know you're coming.

Click here for a discussion of the tournament on Team Gwai Lo

7:07pm: DDR SuperNOVA Location Test
Ever since DDR SuperNOVA was announced last Thursday, a lot of talk has been going on that is was only a hoax.This was mainly due to the fact that Konami had made no official announcement of the game and that the news first broke on DDRFreak, a website notorious for its April Fool's Day jokes.

I'm pleased to imform you that there is now definite proof of DDR SuperNOVA's existence. Not only does it already have a US patent, which can be viewed on the US Government Patents Database website, but today an employee from the Konami Corporation of Europe posted the following letter announcing that an in-progress version of DDR SuperNOVA will be appearing at this year's ATEI 2006, which is being held January 24 - 26 in London:


Dear All,

Konami Corporation of Europe BV (KCOE) are proud to present the latest manifestation of the Dancing Stage / DDR machines – Dancing Stage SuperNOVA (European title).

ATEI 2006 (Jan 24th to 26th 2006 in Earls Court, London) is the fist place in the World that anyone will see the game. The game on show will be approx. 75 percent complete. It will be launched later in the year through the KCOE European distributor network.

We have listened to player’s feedback and included points where possible, to be able to create a product that we feel offers something for everyone, whether a hardcore player or a new player.

At this time the only information I can give you about the machine is:

• The game is a Global version (not regionally specific, therefore US and EU are the same versions).
• There will be a huge track list on it (at this time we are speaking to music licensors therefore the list is not complete).
• There are new modes and game play.

As the name suggests this is going to be big!!!!

Please try to come to ATEI to sample the game and let me know your thoughts and opinions on it.

After the show we are planning on testing the machines in Europe although the locations of the test have not been finalised at this time. I will try to update you all ASAP.

Best regards

James

Mr James Anderson
Product Planning Manager
Konami Corporation of Europe BV.


I'm sure this news will prove to be exciting for all you skeptics out there. Check back in a few days for detailes on what happened at ATEI.

12:59am: ITG NAT05 Results
The finals in Las Vegas are now over. The final standings are:

1st Place - LilQ
2nd Place - DamienKC
3rd Place - DukAmok
4th Place - Omid

1st prize was an ITG2 Dedicab arcade machine. In addition, the top three will go to the World Championship Tournament in Germany.

On another note, In The Groove 3 and In The Groove 2 Home Version were both announced at the finals. The new home version may be playable on multiple consoles rather than the PS2 alone.

8:14pm: Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA


Hey everyone, Mantis here.

I'm excited to announce a brand new DDR mix will be hitting North American arcades in the near future. It is called Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA. This is an official Dance Dance Revolution designed by Konami and distributed by Betson Enterprises, Konami's North American distributor.

No other details have been released to the public as of yet, but I will keep you all informed.

-- Edit --

There is a discussion about DDR SuperNOVA on Team Gwai Lo here.

11:43am: ITG Accompishments in Aurora
Hey everyone, Gordon here!

Me and (most) of the rest of Team D5R went down to ITG's cineplex today! Kaitlin is in Montreal and Aaron couldn't make it, but me, Adam, Trin and Dany went down. It was fun!

I got a whole pile of new scores!





And everyone else got amazing scores too!

We're definately getting a lot better at ITG :P.

Anyways, that's all for now!

4:07pm: Random hilarious video
Dany here, I found this video on our friendly boards at DDRCanada, and I just knew I had to post it.

An excerpt from the new movie, "Grandma's Boy".

I thought DDR hilarity had all been used up... I suppose I was wrong. XD

7:39pm: Team D5R's new webhost!
Hey everyone, Gordon here!

This is just a quick post to inform you that Team D5R how has a new webhost!

Actually, the webhost is the same as Aaron's personal simfile page he just made, Mantis-Simfiles.com (see the post below). He is paying for the domain and webspace for the while now and that means we can get rid of our old netfirms host (at least for a little while).

What does this mean? Well, our bandwidth problems are now gone. We can host our own simfiles, AND, most importantly, there are no more google ads at the top of the page!

Pretty cool, huh?

Stay tuned for our newest section, DDR clipart! Featuring over 2400 clipart DDR images you can use to spruce up your own website.

And while you're waiting, go check out Mantis-Simfiles.com.

3:14am: Mantis Simfiles 2nd Generation
I would like to announce the grand launching of Mantis Simfiles 2nd Generation. It has all the features of the previous site plus many more!

Please pay a visit: www.mantis-simfiles.com

5:21pm: Another Birthday
Today is Dany's 16th birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

3:07pm: ITG in Aurora
Hey everyone, Gordon here!

Team D5R went down to Aurora's Cineplex on Sunday evening. Me, Adam, Kaitlin, Trin and Dany took turns playing ITG. Unfortunately, Aaron couldn't make it with us since he had a staff party to go to for his work, but we'll be going again soon!

So many amazing accomplishments! Dany passed Euphoria (Expert) for the first time with 69.xx%, and! I passed Determinator (Expert) with 71.xx%! Both of these songs are 12 feet, some of the hardest songs in ITG! Adam's PA is getting a lot better too, starring a bunch of songs, and getting over 96% on a couple of expert songs too!

We also met up with one of Kaitlin's friends, snotrawket. He's pretty new to DDR, nevermind ITG, but he's picking it up pretty fast and has a lot of enthusiasm for the game! It was a lot of fun playing with him.

Afterwards, after having dinner at Swiss Chalet, we headed down to Fairy Lake. It turned out they were doing these sleigh-rides through the park area. There were lights and decorations setup all over the park, and when we got back there was a heated tent for us to warm up in!

( Click for pictures )

Trin, meanwhile, made an AWESOME discovery about ITG's arrow gradings!

( Click for pictures )

As you'll see in the pictures, "Excellent" and "Great" arrow gradings actually have a dash either before, or after the word. For example it might say "-Excellent", or "Excellent-". These dashes show if you were LATE, or EARLY when hitting the arrow! A dash on the left side means early, while on the right means late. The dashes don't show up on a "Fantastic" grading because a fantastic means you were exactly on-time. This is an amazing discovery because that kind of feedback will help all of us become a lot better at ITG!

Nicely done Trin, all in all, a very successful day indeed!

1:47pm: Video of the day!
( Devin is not human. )

What's just sickening is that he does almost as well without the bar too O.O.

1:06pm: NEW ITG2 Dedicabs in Newmarket/Aurora!
Hi everyone, Gordon here!



We had heard rumors that a new famous players was opening in Aurora, but it finished a LOT faster then any of us expected! So, out of curiosity, I went in and checked it out.

( YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE WHAT I FOUND! )

In other news, me and the rest of D5R have been really bugging In Play to get ITG2. Combined with some free sign work from my friend, they agreed to ship it in. We've been waiting several weeks now for it and it's still a bit up in the air, but they say it's landed and we hope it'll come in within the next week! We'll be sure to keep you posted.

7:03pm: ITG Music in Commercials
Hi everyone, Gordon here.

Who doesn't want to see ITG music in random commercials? Though, really it should be the other way around. The commercials came first!

"Sweet World" is a fun song that is featured in ITG with some incredibly fast gallops, but the music was originally written by "Omega Men" and has been licensed by several different companies for commercials.

Here's some entertaining ones:

A classic, the Geico "Robot" TV ad:
      Dial-up    Broadband

And more recently, the "True Match" product line by Loréal:
      Flash

9:03pm: New Mantis Simfiles
Aaron (aka Mantis) updated his webpage and added some new simfiles!

For those of you who don't know, Mantis is our resident simfile artist. He's made dozens of high-quality DDR simfiles from a wide variety of music, and is now hosting his best ones on a sister-site to Team D5R.

Download Mantis Original simfiles here!

1:08am: Birthday
Today is D5R member Amethyst's 20th birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TRIN!

11:07pm: NAT05 ITG Eastern Regional Results
Hi everyone, Gordon here.

The ITG Regionals went amazingly! After a long haul down to Ottawa, we got to see some of the best players in Ontario! It was a long drive and a long wait, but it was well worth it in the end. Me and Adam stayed with Kaitlin's family for the weekend, while Dany stayed with Devin.



( (More on the tournament) )

Aftermath discussion, writeup, and photos/videos are available at DDRCanada.com

My photos from the tournament can be downloaded here.

Check the Team D5R Video Blog for tournament videos!

5:20pm: Dedicab at Funland
Hey everyone, Gordon here!

Funland Arcade has finally gotten in their dedicated ITG2 cabinet! It's actually been there for about a week now but I haven't been down in a little while! There were some strange wiring problems with the right side arrow triggering the start button, but it's all fixed up now!

Also, there's been news bouncing around that Skygames, at Fairview Mall (the first arcade to get an ITG dedicated cabinet) might be closing down soon! As of right now, they're still open, but within the next couple of months they are expected to close down due to lack of business.

So it's a happy day, and a sad day, all at the same time.

Discussion about the dedicab in the Funland Players Thread on TGL
Discussion about Skygames @ Fairview closing down on TGL

----

On a completely unrelated note, I will be going to the Ottawa ITG Regionals as well! I talked with the tournament director and he agreed to put me in the qualification list due to some of the quirks in how the Fairview ITG tournament ran. I'm coming to Ottawa guys! :D

-Frosty555

4:25pm: The journey to Ottawa
Yes, I'll make my first official post, since this is quite the subject to make it on!

Dany here. You all know that I recently made it to 8th in the ITG2 tournament, and y'all know that means I head to Ottawa this month for NATO5. =D Just wanted to tell everyone I'll be making a diary-type thing either during or after my trip. It will include pictures, notes, comments, and just my life as it was in Ottawa! I'll tell you how the tournament went, and overall how the kick ass trip to Ottawa went.

12:30am: Mantis Simfiles Update
Hey everyone, Aaron here.

I've spent the last few days updating Mantis Simfiles. There are some new songs to download,including a brand new song from Beatmania IIDX Happy Sky. You can also now leave comments in the new Livejournal I've set up to work with the site.

2:10pm: Salieri Strikes Back!!
Hi everyone, Gordon here!

Just thought I'd share a video of my most recent accomplishment in Stepmania. This one is pretty damn impressive!


Click to see Video

This video is also available from the Team D5R Video Blog, and you can upload your own videos too!

4:50pm: Dany's going to NAT05!
Hey everyone, Gordon here!



Roxor games is doing an international tournament spree! It's called NAT05, the In The Groove® North American Tournament 2005. Tournaments across the United States and Canada will be held, and the best players will move on to larger, more regional tournaments in a grueling battle to find out who is the best ITG player in all of North America!

Now to stop making this look like a reality show... let me explain how it works:

The beginning stages are local tournaments hosted in arcades across the US and Canada. The local tournaments have specific rules and regulations to follow, and are hosted at arcades with dedicated ITG cabinets. There were three tournaments held in various places across Ontario.

The top contestants from the local tournaments go to Regional tournaments, and so on until the grand chamionship takes place in Las Vegas on January 16th, 2005! The grand champion of the entire of NAT05 will win a DEDICATED ITG CABINET!

Team D5R went to the local tournament at Fairview Mall, Toronto (courteously hosted by none other then JD from Team Gwai Lo!), and me and Dany entered the tournament. While I got eliminated in the third round of the tournament, Dany progressed into the fourth round, and he managed to secure a spot in the regionals!

Dany's officially going to Ottawa to compete for Team D5R in the NAT05 Regionals! Congratulations Dany!

Click for pictures from the local ITG tournament at Fairview Mall
Click for the tournament discussion on Teamgwailo.org
Click for the official NAT05 discussion on Roxorgames.com

1:04am: Team D5R's hitcount THROUGH THE ROOF!
Hey everyone! Gordon Here!

Normally I don't do this, but I had to share this:



Beginning September 19th, 2005, Team D5R's pageload count has officially risen to an average of 450 page loads per day!! An average of 150 unique users per day!

Absolutely incredible! At this rate, I'm gonna have to get a pay host to support all the bandwidth!

12:06am: Well, I DID reply to one so I figure I have to post it here!

Comment here and...

1. I'll respond with something random about you.
2. I'll tell you what song/movie reminds me of you.
3. I'll pick a flavor of jelly to wrestle with you in.
4. I'll say something that only makes sense to you and me (hopefully).
5. I'll tell you my first memory of you.
6. I'll tell you what animal you remind me of.
7. I'll ask you something that I've always wondered about you.
8. If I do this for you, you must post this on your journal. You MUST. It is written.

As a side note, since this is generally an entry that is only really valid to people personal to us, so I have enabled comment screening.

10:33am: TGLLite goes permaboard!
Hi everyone, Gordon here!

Our former forums, TGLLite, have been hosted on a free forum service called Forumer.com. They're a very generous forum host that provides free phpBB technology to anyone who wants it.

However, TGLLite promised a permanent website and board quite some time ago to all of it's members. That time has finally arrived! TGLLite has now reverted to their original name, Team Gwai Lo. They're not lite anymore!

The new forum is at http://www.teamgwailo.org

3:34pm: DDR EXTREME @ York Lanes
Hey everyone! Gordon here!

Many months of Trin's incessant nagging have finaly paid off! York Lanes's Campus Cove, in York University's Keele/Steeles campus has added a DDR EXTREME to their campus cove! I was down at the university on Saturday and found it there. The pads are in wonderful condition! My very first song I AAA'd Senorita (Speedy mix)! This is now my 2nd AAA I've accomplished! Unfortunately, I don't have a picture, but there were lots of spectators who will back me up :P.

The machine is a DDR EXTREME, completely unlocked, but with no memory cards. The volume is balanced with more treble then bass, but since the arcade itself is overall very quiet, It is just perfect. You can hear your feet as you play as well, which, in my opinion, is an important part of AAAing songs.

On the flip side, Orbit has lost their second DDR machine! We went to orbit and discovered that the second machine is gone, and the first machine is having coin slot problems! There will be no DDR at orbit for the next few days :(. I wonder if the DDR machine that left Orbit is the same one that has appeared in the cove?

I'll have some pictures of the cove and a new entry in our locations page soon, since this is going to be a DDR spot I'm gonna be frequenting quite often!

-Frosty555