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Video Games in Gym Class - DDR 101?
Saige writes: "When I was in school, gym class was basketball, running laps, and icky locker rooms. Today, kids get to play video games - and get credit for them! No, it is not as bad as it seems. Apparently, someone has become clued in that Dance Dance Revolution promotes physical activity, and a school in California is making use of that. Can I go back and retake gym?"
Just to be informative ;-) If you don't know what DDR is, it's a Japanese Game in Konami's Bemani Series. Bemani games are games that usually involve music and some sort of strange peripheral. Others include Beatmania (turntable) and paraparaparadise (hand sensors). DDR is probably the most popular one and is now on it's 7th mix. I'm really surprised this made Slashdot today. I just read it on www.ddrfreak.com 10 minutes ago.
When I first saw ddr I said "That's the stupidest thing I've ever seen". Then I danced. Don't be afraid to play this game. Just go to the arcade and do it.
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In gym class in elementary school, we learned how to square dance. Every year. We also learned some other dances.
Playing Dance Dance Revolution for a significant length time seriously kicked my butt before I got used to it. Good for your lungs!
You forget the lack of quality control. (No, that is NOT a flesh-coloured jumpsuit!)
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
In my opinion at least. Would the average school gym budget stretch as far as the exhorbitant prices a set or two of maracas go for on ebay however?
More seriously, having read the article I see that they are using the actual $8000 a pop arcade machines, rather than the much cheaper mats for the console versions. Presumably the arcade mats are a lot more study, but is the difference in cost really worth it to them, do you think?
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
one of the few I have seen girls playing in arcades. We need more games that have a broad appeal like that.
Strangely when I was at school I was the only boy in the gymnastics class (an attempt to keep fit). It seems strange that no other boys thought of the benefits of this class!
People are getting fatter all the time (I certainly am) so we need to encourage fitness, but I would be disappointed if this replaced something good with queues for the machine.
Since Q3, my backflip hasn't been equaled in ANY gym class.
Have you ever seen someone jump around like a rabbit for 45 minutes and ending with a tripple backflip into a canyon, while shooting a 3pointer upwards, carrying 150pounds of armour ?
Ha, I can't wait till this shit gets approved for the olympics !
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
a littleSamba de Amigo for a full workout.
I want 2D games back.
Personally I find competitive sports much more enjoyable than mindless exercise on a treadmill or danceing jukebox machine!
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
The principles are easy; you pick a dance track to listen to, and as the song plays, steps scroll up from the bottom of the screen. Your controller is actually a gigantic platform with four directional arrows on it, which you step on in time to the music. All you have to do is match the right arrow to the one scrolling by on screen. Easy, right? I mean, come on, we've all got incredible hand/eye coordination due to all our years of video gaming! No problem.
Here's the mandatory link to DDR Freak, which has some basic information on the game. And for the Python friendly out there, check out pyDDR, a DDR clone for Python.
I hear that in many US high schools they have vending machines that dispense flavoured sugar water. This is to raise money for the school (and large companies). Surely getting rid of some of those would do as much good to improve health as a modest increase of exercise.
This is not that much different than the "mat" for the track and field game that used to be available for the origional NES (Nintendo).
:-)
Used to be pretty good excersize. I remember working up quite a sweat as a kid on one of those, I can see why it may be used gym. After two days of using it, my parents made me take in down the basement to play it.
Ahh, the memories...
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
I'm assuming they'll be using the "American" versions of DDR? I believe most of the good mixes are Japanese (or Korean) and specifically not for export (music licensing issues).
Also, nobody's going to complain that some of the lyrics are possibly objectionable? Oh well, it's California...
"Come on baby do it to me right now, do it to me slowly" is not something my school principal would have accepted in school, i think.
When I was a kid I'd come up with wonderful excuses to mss gym, then I went home and played doom. Whats the difference?
Personally, I like this idea a lot better. Not that I like or dislike punk music, but it just seems so right.
Back when I went to school (Melbourne High, FWIW), we had to take a sport activity. One activity briefly offered was Phasor Strike, i.e., laser-tag. Students would run around in a darkened room with backpacks shooting infrared beams at each other.
This was canned after a year or so after protests from parents. (The fact that a former student of the school made news by going postal and massacring some 7 people may have had something to do with it; OTOH, the mass murderer attended the school before Phasor Strike, and was a product of the culture of militarism in its cadet corps, which nothing was done about. *shrug*)
As for me? I took golf as a school sport. It was a decent excuse to have a leisurely stroll, rather than wrestling in mud with 10 other blokes or something equally unpleasant. Even at the cost of lugging a set of cheap, decrepit-looking golf clubs back and forth on the peak-hour train.
DDR type games are one of those inventions that seem lame, but when you think about, are actually killer apps. For example. I hate dancing, it makes you look like a right prat. I don't see where the enjoyment comes from. But DDR is fun. I know this could be taken even further, with rows and rows of machines in clubs/discos etc. and with different variations on the theme. For example, virtual-DDR, where you use a vr-helmet to shut you out from the fact that people are staring at your bad dancing. The helmet shows you a crowed of people cheering you and if one of them boos or laughs at you, the game will allow you to either draw a virtual pistol out and shoot them in the head, or simply kick them across the room matrix style :) The _real_ crowd watching your virtual view on a monitor, will be to scared to mock you on PH34R of death.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Women don't like to be referred to as 'broads'.
:one of the few I have seen girls playing in
:arcades. We need more games that have a broad
: appeal like that.
Okay, usually it's a game best played after half a bottle of Jack Daniels:-) but on the harder levels you are left sweating and panting by the end.
Of course, it is more an upper body workout - although your glutes get hit a bit when lunging for the low ones.
This video game thing is pathetic. This country goes more downhill every year.
I hated gym class too. Golf, softball, dodgeball and all the other crap they had you do was a joke. I was the captain of my XC team, and gym class destroyed my season junior year b/c of an @$$hole in gym class blindsiding me playing basketball and fracturing my foot.
Sports are great. H.S. gym has always been lame. Video games just add to the lameness. My opinion is if you participate in a sport, you should't be required to take gym class at all. Oh well.
I forgot to mention this in my previous post-
I attended public high school (back in the last century). Our gym equipment was pathetic, particularly the weightlifting equipment and the sports balls. They even had lacrosse sticks that appeared to be made out of bamboo. Public high schools should buy basketballs that still bounce and soccer nets without holes in them before they spend $8000 on a video game.
I'm sorry, but high school sucks enough without arrogant liberals like yourself trying to suck every last pleasure out of life. Come on, being able to get a freakin SODA POP at school shouldn't be a controversy.
"raise money for the school (and large companies)."
Or maybe they are there because people enjoy drinking soda. Please stop seeing life through a narrow Marxist lense. Gosh, Heaven forbid people buying things and enjoying them. Must be a conspiracy...
Brian Ellenberger
Konami (the same people behind Dance Dance Revolution)has been putting out quite a few games that can burn some calories.
Police 911 uses an image tracking system to move your on screen character based on your actual body position. In order to reload during the otherwise typical gun game you need to duck behind something. In order to duck, you have to squat/duck in the real world.
MoCap Boxing has you put on a pair of weighted gloves and actually punch and block in a first person boxing match. This will tire out more than just geeks. I've watched as macho buffed guys with their girlfriends walk up to the machine and brag about how easy it will be. Within minutes they are barely able to keep their arms up.
If game designers can keep coming up with creative and well done games like these maybe the arcade is not as endangered as it has appeared.
Once more unto the breach dear friends...
Why not play twister?
It's equally exhausting and keeps you lean too. Also a coed games of twister is much more interesting.
And there's no need for these silly computer thingies in the gym.
DNA is the ultimate spaghetti code.
I will be impressed when someone develops a "Running Laps" game that kids are fighting to play.
(Apologize to Matt Groening) - every generation or so parents and other authorities get their collective panties in a wad about "Kids aren't getting enough exercise!" and demand that legislators "do something about it" - such was the case in the late 60's when teachers got the orders to corral all us 5th graders into the gym and start doing exercises. Our gym was a very noisy place, bad acoustics, several classes at a time full of kids shouting, screaming, etc. I'm struggling with this routine called 'rocking chair' (12-2-3-4, 13-2-3-4, 14-2-3-4, ...) but the instructor (A Christian fundamentalist type math teacher) sees me lagging behing and shouts something at me. I said "What?" and he shouts again, still couldn't make it out. Finally someone in front of me turns around and says, "He said 'do you think you can do these exercises?'" so I shout back at him, "Yes!". At that he marches around to me and starts with the Sgt. Carter drill routine, like "Drop down and give me 20!!", singled out, public humiliation, the whole sad scene. Once that ordeal was over, after class talking with some other kids I found out what he really yelled was, "Do you think you're too good to do these exercises?"
I've abhored physical exercise ever since.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
It seems my wife (a product of the midwest) had an interesting physical education experience.
They too would dance, but they would dance to the seminol electronic music song, Popcorn! (sorry for the amazon link, but they have a sound sample for those interested...)
Oh wow, this is a great idea for a fitness tape: Moog'ing to the oldies! (someone tell Richard Simmons!)
However this sounds like a MUCH better switch (popcorn gets damn annoying after a little while)-
as long as they can maintain the machine, kudos to them!
But what happens when the songs get old?
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Dodgeball in middle school/HS was fun.
The other three games I liked:
Indoor hockey. I was OK at that, but it was endless amusement.
Indoor soccer. Bouncy ball, NO out-of bounds - INSANE.
"Deathball" - Someone in one of my classes introduced it. WEIRD combination of soccer and handball. More insane than anything but dodgeball.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
DDR is definitely a workout -- at least when you're doing the 3 or higher level songs. It's also the only excercise in which I ever bother to engage. When I was working part-time and taking late afternoon classes I would play DDR for one hour a day three days a week. I lost weight (I'm not overweight, but I'm approaching an undesirable heaviness) and I noticed that I was getting significantly less winded when running from the parking lot to class.
Unfortunately I'm working full time now and my DDR playtime has dropped to zero. Recently some friends were over and the mat got pulled out and I found myself winded after just three songs.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
Well, maybe not most popular in DDR's case, but it's a craze catching on quick...
DDR meets Quake... Run, run, catch up to the mong with your flag!
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
"Apparently, someone has become clued in that Dance Dance Revolution promotes physical activity, and a school in California is making use of that. Can I go back and retake gym?"
Timothy, were you to see kids playing "Dance Dance Revolution" you would know it normally involves the player stringing together 70 or more flawless dance steps in an increasingly complex routine. As I suspect you are;
a) A Nerd
b) English (and therefore devoid of any sense of natural rhythm (speaking as an English person))
I personally would give you credit to go back into a secondary school and dance for the class...
LOL! Sorry dude, but golf is not a sport. It's a game. It takes talent, ability, and a lot of practice, but so does playing the clarinet. That doesn't make it a sport.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying golf isn't hard. It's very difficult to do well. But it's difficult in the same way that chess is difficult.
Playing golf will not get you fit.
From the article, one kid claims to have lost 15 pounds in two weeks. I'd just like to point out that that is impossible to do healthily. The human body is only capable of dropping 1.5 to 2 pounds of fat per week. If a person is losing more than that, then they're losing muscle mass, bone density, and plain old water - none of which are healthy things to purge that rapidly.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
It's probably more expensive, but has anyone seen that pedal-plane game? (You fly a plane around a course - The twist is that you have to pedal it to keep flying!)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
They need to be taught that it is something they need to do their whole life, not just in gym class. Look at the percentage of kids from your gym class that still have a highly active lifestyle? Especially those that aren't involved in sports anymore? It does make a difference.
In elementary school, it will be hard for the kids to see the value of it aside from having fun, but in middle school/high school, they can understand the value of an active lifestyle.
What?
Remember way back when the Onion ran a story about how it was now officially ok to not like Tenacious D? Yeah, I think this story clinches it. For everyone too scared to say it because they're afraid of negative peer pressure:
It's not officially ok to not like DDR.
[o]_O
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
...further efforts by the same school to trick children into getting their education include a recent announcement that the films they show in their Sex Education classes will be produced exclusively by Vivid Video. Additionally, Asia Carrera has been hired by the school to teach a few computer classes.
~Philly
the starting position for wrestling pretty much looks like a gay buttfuck
or in your case, a visit with grandpa.
Don't attach your negative perceptions to a group. I'm sure you feel equally offended by my imagery.
> > I mean, isn't innovation what made [insert your country of origin] great?
;-)
> No, it was mostly the unfettered exploitation and persecution of the people we didn't like.
Ah, you must be from France.
> Sorry, its almost completely offtopic, but without any mod points to call my own, I thought it was worth the possible karma loss to highlight the above AC post. Quality wit display, on a day when I really needed it.
Oops, my bad. You're from Poland.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
*pant pant pant*. ..
Must...go...for...SS...in...Captain...Jack
*pant pant pant*
That happened last Friday. Captain Jack and Dynamite Rave.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
You, obviously, have never even seen DDR.
First of all, it is not a sit-and-play game. Just the opposite - you play by using your feet to step on four directional sensors in time to the music, with steps provided by the game. Even the easy levels can be a workout. The hard levels are amazing to watch, and I can tell are really strenuous.
The whole point of using this game is that it requires a lot of physical activity. Video game doesn't instanenously mean sitting-on-your-behind anymore...
BTW - go find yourself a DDR machine and try it out, it is incredibly fun.
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
I play the game in a basement (that's where the big TV is located) where there are large windows but shades obscure anything that could be seen from the outside.
Playing DDR is the only thing that will cause me to wear shorts (I'm incredibly modest), and I make sure that no one will witness that event (except my boyfriend).
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
If you are "sitting" in front of DDR then you are not playing the game properly.
Sure, there are "hand-held" controllers for the game, but that really defeats the purpose of playing.
OTOH, I suspect that you actually have no idea how DDR works and instead you are spounting off garbage based on your ignorance rather than actually bothering to learn about the subject because doing so would actually require effort.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
I don't know, to me doing DDR in gym class seems every bit as lame as everything else we had to do in gym class, none of which I was ever interested in in the first place. (Note: I've seen DDR and I also have no interest in playing it.)
I would have been much happier if I could have gotten school credit for all the sports I did do, outside of school -- every winter I skied, every summer, I swam, and all year round I rode horseback. (One summer I was even on the local/provincial/national circuit.) Those were the sports in which I was actually interested, not gymnastics and basketball, field hockey and square dancing... Now I just go to the gym as often as possible, but that has nothing whatsoever to do with my experiences in phys ed in school.
It all comes down to this: Unless you're really, really into something before you do it in school, chances are, anything you do in school (and this applies not just to PE activities but to other things like, say, reading [remember "duty reading"?]) because you have to, you're going to if not outright hate it, then like it a lot less than you would have if you were just doing it on your own.
Duty DDR? --shudder-- Makes me think of all those awful books I hated to read in English class, and I love reading.
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
Actually, I have to say, depending on the settings of the machine, DDR can really provide bang for the buck. Here in Edmonton Alberta, Canada, the DDR machines I've encountered have all been a buck for 5 dances, which amounts to about 15 minutes of playtime. So, for two bucks, you get 30 minutes of playtime and a good workout. Compare this to many other games (particularly racers) where you spend two bucks (or more!) and play for about 5 to 10 minutes, depending on your skills, and DDR seems like a pretty good deal to me.
We noticed Pensellnek, the science fair winner, was starting to do really well and checked his locker, sure enough half a bottle of MD 20/20.
In other news:
This math test certainly must have been enlightening, vocational training?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Umm... just OOC, why not get yourself a steroid or Ventolin inhaler, take a pre-emptive hit before physed, and then get some exercise like everyone else? I mean, I understand what asthma is like... I have a pretty good case of it myself. But I'm still an avid cyclist and, occasionally, basketball player. I just keep my inhaler around with me. Plus, I've found that the exercise has helped me strengthen my lungs so that my attacks aren't nearly as severe as they used to be.
Bah. Come on people, go out and buy a soccer ball! Or a tennis racket. Or something.
This is just wonderful. As a society, we're getting fatter and lazier, and more addicted to computers. The solution? Encourage our addiction! Forget about balance, richness, or anything else--just try to use the addiction to mask the symptoms (fat, lazy, unhealthy).
Teaching kids nice and early that computers can solve everything, and that we can't live without them is guaranteed to create a generation that _can't_ live without them, and will painfully discover that they can't solve much of anything.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
I also might even *gasp* learn how to dance!
Or you might just learn how to stomp on four areas of the ground with good timing.
Don't expect any of it to translate well to a ballroom or something, funny picture...
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
I've seen lots of posts that say this is a good thing, because anything that gets fat lazy kids off their collective asses is good. This may be true, but why try to bribe the kids?
Here's a novel thought: The kids are REQUIRED to take Phys Ed in most places. If they don't participate, they fail the class! If they fail the class, they don't go on to the next grade! I think that's as much of a motivator as giving them computer games to play, so they never have to be disconnected.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
It's the new goatse link for kids!
Good points there. Although it might also lessen the objections to "non-conventional" exercise.
:)
I now remember the name. I've played it once at the local movie theater. Interesting game.
I like it because I love flying.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Do you really *need* a machine to be able to get somebody energized and motivated?
Instead of spending 8000$ a machine they should spend 1000-2000$ for good motivational skills classes for teachers.
I don't see how a game like this can have more advantage then a perfectly energized soccer game.
Thats one of the lower quality MODs I've heard. One of the instruments sounds like a car trying to start in a minor key, and its used throughout the whole tune. Don't introduce people to .mod files as something worse than MIDIs...
:-)
If you want to hear a high quality repetitive music MOD, try Bubblegum.
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
...I said "That's the stupidest thing I've ever seen." Then I played. Guess what: it's still right up as one of the top ten dumbest games of all time.
:-P
Look, the idea is sound, the implementation is shit. If you have any "gaming skillz" at all, you worked out how to beat the thing in five minutes.
Diagonal placement of the feet on the four buttons, then rocking each foot as needed. Big feet are not required, because even a slight touch to the button is enough to trigger it. The rim around the buttons gives plenty of space to balance on. No exertion, no effort, no workout... just a little foot-eye coordination. I played for about 30 minutes on 4 quarters (50 cents to play) before I got bored and wandered away. Haven't bothered since.
I mean, really. I see these people jumping around like morons, and while it's entertaining to watch, it's also a sad commentary at how few people realize how trivially easy it is to beat the game by simply changing the play methodology away from the expected.
Yeah, okay, you have to have rhythm, a sense of timing, and lightning fast reactions (on the higher levels), but these are needed for most games anyway.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
You catch more flies with honey than vinager.
The arcade machine has many advantages over the home console. For one, the pads need to be durable, strong, and solid. Home pads really, really don't have the same strength or feel. The arcade machine is also a solid one-piece whereas the console has all sorts of cords and things to be tripped over and broken, a television to smash, and a PS2 to steal. Not to mention those crafty students that would slip in a copy of GTA3 when the advisor wasn't looking.
The arcade machines are vastly superior to the home consoles, in basically all ways. PS2's skip, the pads slide, you can't feel your feet, there is no bar in back to hold yourself up, there isn't a coinbox... Really, for serious usage the arcade machine is the only way to go. Most serious dancers I know have a full machine.
This Sig is a mnemonic device designed to allow you to recognize this author in the future.
Back in my HS days, what sucked about the food & beverage options was that they weren't even remotely on a fair footing.
For drinks, I could either choose from ice-cold soda or a lukewarm milk/juice from the lunch counter. For food, it was either the pizza hut pizzas they had brought in each day, or whatever semi-edible nastiness was being pushed out of the cafeteria. The choice between eating barely edible crap vs. good-tasting food that's bad for you isn't any choice at all.
The problem is two-fold. First, that school budgets are so fucked that administrators feel the need to profit off of kids' expanding waistlines, and second that the budget's so fucked that the school cafeteria system makes absolute crap & calls it food. Also, forced to buy through gov't food surplus programs, local vendors, etc, they're basically dictated what they can & can't make and what they can make it with. Force cooks to use only certain ingredients and there isn't much they can do. Either way, the schools have to be giving kids healthy food -- it;s as important as anything else in school. I don't see any place for soda in schools without soda company profits playing a role.
I heard a story on NPR about a guy who has a milk vending machine -- he goes begging for space at schools, putting his machines in at a loss trying to generate business. Why? Because Coke & Pepsi get exclusive contracts for a school, throwing in fat "sponsorship" checks to boot & shutting other, possibly healthier options out. On top of this, principals are rated higher based on their ability to generate such funding in-house without having to go through the district.
It's called graft, and it's as bad as if a school took the republican or democratic party's money to teach kids from their free history book. It should stop. Kids can have all the soda they want in their lives, but schools should set the example.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
OK. So you figured out how to "beat" the game by not really playing it, got bored, and wandered away. Yet there's all these other people just not as smart as you are... having hours of fun PLAYING the game. Hmmm.
I can appreciate the interest in figuring out how to circumvent a system. It is a part of designing better systems. Games included. But when it comes to games... if you don't play by the rules, you're no longer playing the game. And the enjoyment of a game is in its playing.
It reminds me of people who run auto-aim proxies, bots, and other cheats in various FPS games. And then they claim that they're only cheating because they got bored with the game. Once again, by circumventing the rules of the game (cheating), they stop actually playing the game. And once you do that - why bother?
Hey, dope, I lived with an oriental for 3 years and he told me that "asian" is insulting.
Over here, the only people you see using those machines are orientals. So I guess that's why it appeals to californians: so many orientals there... :) :) :) :)
(Reposted, account being moderated into oblivion)
or in your case, a visit with grandpa.
Don't attach your negative perceptions to a group. I'm sure you feel equally offended by my imagery.
No, I'm not offended by the imagery ... Im not that think skinned, and neither should you be. I think I will continue to speak my mind even if I'm not PC. I have plenty of karma to burn and I know everyone should have a better sense of humor.
keep trying though, I almost chuckled at your joke :)
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
Although that requires a large amount of space in an outdoor setting.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Hey! It's not my problem if you're clueless...