Tecnical help needed

[xamaco]

Hi all,

I need words of wisdom on dance mats and software

Sorry if I'm going to be a bit long, but please bear with me...

With my brother we create exposition booths at big fairs. We only deal with large companies: The exposition booths we create can be quite expensive. We try to make funny and attractive booths.

For one of our next fair, we're going to build a booth for a medical company. And here my brother had an idea our client accepted: Let's have a dancing mat

Something I didn't mention yet is that my brother and I have a major defect: We're French and we work in France In France DDR is not well developed. French people are a bit afraid of being ridicule. I don't know why, 'cause DDR makes you have fun and makes people around you have fun too :-) But so it is... Result is we're probably going to have to import the stuff.

I'm already looking at companies renting Arcade DDRs. That would be ideal: Sturdy and with the renting company taking care of installation and maintenance. But, so far, no one has the stuff

Alternatively, we're going to use a game console (or a PC), a software, and a dancing mat... And that's where I need your advice:
- The dancing mat will have to be strong and reliable
- It would be nice if the dancing mat had lights flashing on it
- Software: Ideally we would like to put the music we want on it (the client is a bit stiff on this: No cheezy pop ). Is there software allowing to do so? If not, which software includes the widest variety of music? I'm aware of music rights to be respected: We'll deal with it in all legality: I don't think our client would show much humour on this if we didn't...
- Software would need to have an easy level
- If possible, software should be able to loop on a level/game without intervention between each gamer. If not, someone will take care of this, but I would rather avoid this...
- For the Console/PC, we'll choose it depending on the software
- Note that all hardware/software will be used for only a few days: We'd rather avoid a too big investment...
- Let me know if I'm wrong or you have better ideas on this

Thanks for your advice,

Xavier


PS: For testing I bought Dance Dance Revolution for PS2. I had to hijack the console from my son and it was hard. But it was even harder to dance... Damned, I was in a sweat in no time... My arms were moving all around... The fact I was laughing madly didn't help

PS2: I'll try to post a few pictures after the show...

[Synaesthesia]

As far as software goes, I guess your best bet would probably be StepMania. It's an extremely popular simulator, and it would allow you to add any song you want, and write your own stepchart for it. I personally don't know how you'd configure it to loop the way you want, but the people over in PC/Simulators might know. As for pads, I don't know any off the top of my head that have lights, but pretty much every controller known is located in Bemani Controllers in one of the announcement stickies.
_________________

im a lasagna whale

G_G

[xamaco]

Sorry to bother you again, but besides the graceful (and alledgly tricky) Synaesthesia, I got no answer to my plight. And I'm sleepless because of it (and a few other things): Maybe I'm in the wrong forum ?

If not, I would just need to know which heavy duty dancing-mat you would recommend... ... God, or Buddha, or whatever you like will repay you in a lot of bonus points

Thanks to all and extra karma bonus point to Synaesthesia,

Xavier

[xamaco]

And oh! Before I forget, preferably with flashing lights on it... I love flashing lights

[AA Bob]