DDR competitions
Two DDR competitions were recently hosted by the WV Games for Health office in Morgantown. These competitions were held as part of Mountaineer Week at West Virginia University.
Our suggestions for running a DDR tournament
We offered undergraduate students an opportunity to compete in the WVGFH Tournament. Once everyone signed in we set up 4 televisions with two DDR dance pads. The platform we used was DDR Supernova 2. We started out with a total of 24 competitors. For the first round we selected an easy song but still challenging enough for beginners. We started with a faster song (150bpm or higher) on the basic level. We recorded the scores of each competitor during this round and participants with the 20 highest scores remained. Round Two: the next song was still on basic but an even faster song was selected. This time the individuals with the top 16 scores remained in the competition. Round three: The difficulty level was moved up to the next setting: standard, and a song in the 100 – 140 bpm level was selected. Again the individuals with the 4 lowest scores were eliminated from the competition. At Round four: 12 individuals remained. Difficulty level remained the same but a song above 150bpm was selected. This time the top 8 scores remained. Round five: 8 players left, we moved the difficulty level to “heavy” and a slower song was once again selected. The players with the top 4 scores remained in the competition after this round. Round six: The difficulty level was adjusted to the ability level of the competitors remaining. In our situation, all four competitors were experienced DDR players and requested moving up to the next difficulty level for the next song. We recommend considering this only if all players remaining are experienced. Otherwise, continue increasing difficulty level incrementally. Therefore, for round six: difficulty level was set at Expert and a song was chosen at random. The players with the two highest scores competed in the final. For the final round the players requested playing in the double setting (i.e. one person, two dance pads). We permitted this request and the difficulty level was set at Heavy and a song chosen at random. The winner of the competition was the individual with the highest score after this round.
Things to consider: we have experimented with single elimination head-to-head duels but found that this is not always fair depending on who the players are matched up with. Therefore we switched to this format and found that it allows players to remain in the competition longer and develop their skills.
Always consider the overall ability of the group when determining whether or not you should move up to the next difficulty level. The final three rounds could easily be navigated at the heavy level. However, this may not always be the case.
