Lights flashing, music blaring, people in motion — I knew I was in the right place. From the moment I walked into Appel Commons last Friday night, the members of Dance Dance Revolution Club were on the move, with the energy meter going through the roof.
The players’ feet were moving so quickly it was as though they were simply vibrating over the pads, not actually picking their feet up and placing them on the different arrows. In tag-team fashion, if one player jumped off the pad to take a break or tie a pair of sneakers, without hesitation, another would jump on and continue the song.
Dance Dance Revolution is a video game where players stand on pads with four arrows, pointing up, down, left and right. As the song plays, arrows move up the screen and when they reach the top, the player must step on the corresponding arrow on the pad, all in time with the music that is playing.
The club’s president, Ethan Peck ’09, says that DDR is healthy and a good way to exercise.
“It helps if you’re good at long distance running,” adds Andrew Mui ’09, one of the club’s equipment managers.
The other equipment manager, Mark Lee ’08, concurs that the physical aspect of the game should not be taken lightly. “It’s going to hurt you if you’re not careful.”
Although they all commented on how physically intense Dance Dance Revolution is, everybody had more to say about how much fun it is, and how the club is about recreation, not sport or competition.
“It’s a nice place to chill on Friday nights,” said Tom Farello ’10, treasurer of DDR Club.
Several traditions have been passed on through the years at DDR club. The collection of infamous Cornell DDR Club videos of years past that is floating around on the Internet via YouTube and on Cornellians’ computers is a hilarious piece of club history. The club’s custom of having everyone sing along to one of the game’s songs in an obnoxiously high-pitched voice is another favorite pastime.
According to Peck, the story behind the making of DDR Club is that about seven years ago, a small number of DDR enthusiasts wanted metal pads for the game. The soon-to-be founding fathers of DDR Club realized that if they formed an official club at Cornell, they might get funding, and with funding comes metal pads.
Five years later, DDR Club has its metal pads, along with three separate video game consoles and three different televisions. One TV is for DDR, another TV is for Guitar Hero and the last one is for Super Smash Bros.
According to Peck, Guitar Hero fits well with the rhythm and music-driven DDR. Super Smash Bros. has been incorporated simply because so many of the DDR people were also in the Super Smash Bros. Club, and when the Smash club became inactive, DDR Club added the game to its repertoire.
I got the sense that Dance Dance Revolution Club is very newbie-friendly, as Peck explained that club members always step aside for non-members when there are lines to get into the game. Peck notes that the large majority of each week’s revolutionaries are people leaving Appel after dinner, who come down the stairs as DDR Club is setting up and getting started for the night.
Peck has his eyes set on serious expansion in the future. His goals for next semester are have more tournaments, increase awareness of the club, run more fundraisers and, of course, play more games, such as Rock Band on Playstation 3.
He also wants to make CornellCon a bigger event on campus. The annual takeover of Robert Purcell Community Center by anime and gaming focused clubs such as DDR Club, Digital Gaming Alliance and Cornell Japanese Animation Society is an import date on the DDR Club calendar.
Spending a night as a member of Dance Dance Revolution Club, I definitely saw some things I had never seen before. One highlight of the night was when a couple of brave souls decided to try the song “Pandemonium” on the expert difficulty level.
Before the song started, Peck turned to me and laughed, “I’ve never seen anyone beat this.”
Clearly he was not exaggerating as the attempt turned into eight people all playing at once — one on each of the four arrows, on each of the two pads — trying to hit the arrows at the right time.
While “Pandemonium” might take an army to defeat, Peck assured me that DDR is not a difficult game to learn and to play. He encourages anyone who’s interested to come try it out.
Smiling, he said, “If my mom can do it, anyone can do it.”