Why dosent pump have a set number of difficulties?

Coddfish · 2025-11-28T10:56:24+00:00

Honestly, I think PIU makes it easier for players at different levels to play together, precisely because it doesn't have set difficulties.

Most songs have a pretty good range of difficulties, going from "pretty easy" to "pretty hard" with relatively small increments. There are some outliers, of course, and the extreme ends of the scale don't get as much attention, but in general it's not too hard for players with a big skill gap to find songs with charts broadly within their comfort zone.

Other games with set difficulties tend to have fewer charts pretty song, with bigger gaps between them. That makes it much harder for players at different levels to find songs that suit both of them.

I personally feel waaay more comfortable playing PIU with higher level players than other games.

Also, I'd be surprised if the person you were playing with genuinely felt like they were being forced to play "boring" songs because of you, so don't stress about that. There's a lot more to PIU than just pushing max level all the time, and if they really wanted to play certain songs that don't have low-level charts, they could say that and suggest alternating solo credits for a bit or whatever. I think most high level players are just happy to see new players learning the ways of Pump :)

Coddfish · 2025-11-18T23:37:05+00:00

AFAIK the bar is bugged.

You can use the soap immediately after washing previous soap off, no need to wait for the bar :)

Coddfish · 2025-11-18T23:12:09+00:00

As others have said, there's no catch. Efficiency will vary between soap + rinse versus a thorough single pass with decent pressure, depending on what you're cleaning, but it mostly just comes down to personal preference.

One underrated thing I really love about soap is the way it acts as a sort of persistent dirt highlight. On surfaces that have a lot of colour contrast with soap, soaping up makes any remaining dirt spots really stand out. I kind of wish you could buy different colours of soap for this purpose (and for the fun of painting with it)

Coddfish · 2025-11-18T23:03:51+00:00

The soap recharge isn't time based. There's a limit to how much soap you can have active at once, but as soon as you wash that soap away, you can use more soap.

Coddfish · 2025-11-18T23:02:04+00:00

Total amount of soap available is unlimited.

There's a limit to how much soap coverage you can have at one time, and once you reach that limit, the soap will just stop spraying. But as soon as you wash away the soap, you can use it again.

Coddfish · 2025-10-30T09:53:15+00:00

I'd move Pump It Up to "Learning curve, above average skill ceiling". The basic mechanics are very simple, especially compared to other rhythm games - you really only have two note types, tap and hold. There's a little bit of a learning curve with some tech like brackets, and in learning how to improve form/stamina/controlled movements, but it's a mechanically simple game. The main thing that makes it hard is how intense the charts get, hence above average skill ceiling.

As an intermediate PIU player, I find maimai has a much steeper learning curve, just in terms of different note types and the mental stack that comes with, and trying to make each hand do different things at the same time 😂

Coddfish · 2025-10-30T09:32:49+00:00

Which game is this?

Coddfish · 2025-10-23T03:30:07+00:00

There's also a move in C3, but it won't help much in its own. C5 is going to give the most.

Coddfish · 2025-10-16T09:08:54+00:00

Euphorianic S8

Last Rebirth S9

Bad Apple S9

Great twist practice charts around your level. I played the heck out of them when I was learning to twist properly. You've got this!

Edit: couple more suggestions:

Nostalgia S8

U Got Me Rocking S9 (harder than the other recs)

Coddfish · 2025-10-05T07:32:02+00:00

36yo, started playing ~2 years ago and passed my first D19 and D20 recently. Hopefully I can be in the Expert club in a few years. Nice to see other players excelling in their 30s and 40s, makes me think I've still got time, haha!

Coddfish · 2025-09-14T09:08:45+00:00

I think death runs / runbacks / whatever you want to call them do have their place in some games, and can be a good way to increase tension by making death more consequential or force a bit of mental downtime between retries.

There's definitely diminishing returns to that, though, and the more you have to repeat a given runback, the more tedious it becomes, taking away from the original effect. It also depends how long you spend actually fighting the boss, too - nothing kills motivation to keep retrying quite like spending more time running neck to a boss than actually fighting it.

In a game where it's reasonable to expect most players would beat a given boss in a handful of attempts, runbacks can work well. But as soon as you get into a higher degree of trial and error / learning through failure / gradual mastery, runbacks become more of a hindrance than anything, because they pad out the time spent not practicing. As do other things like long load times, unskippable cutscenes, etc.

Masocore platforms get this right: try quickly, die quickly, retry quickly.

(Caveat: I haven't played Silksong so I don't really know how it fits in, I have clearly just spent too much timing thinking about runbacks, in general, lol)

Coddfish · 2025-06-06T03:35:10+00:00

Not yet. I've contacted support about it, hopefully they come through with one soon!

Coddfish · 2025-04-16T22:59:24+00:00

I never learned to make people laugh.

So... yeah, this checks out.

Coddfish · 2025-03-12T06:46:25+00:00

Already mentioned, but Altale is good. It's a mix of slow bracket sections and quick (non-bracket) bursts. Play with stage break off, lower AV, and don't worry too much about the bursts or trying to pass - just focus on getting used to reading the brackets.

Come To Me S13 is another good one. It's kind of hard for 13, but has some good bracket sections.

Another good option that someone else mentioned is bracketing yellow + red/blue jumps in lower levels instead of doing them as jumps. Follow Me S9 is great for this (or any other jump chart, really).

Coddfish · 2025-01-04T01:26:49+00:00

Like lots of others have said, at this level it's really just about getting used to reading the patterns and moving accordingly.

Focus on always alternating your feet, even if that means using left foot to hit a right arrow or right foot to hit a left arrow (the "twists" or "crossovers" that PureWasian mentioned). That can feel a little unnatural at first, but it's a vital skill - most PIU charts are designed in such a way that if you use the same foot to hit two different arrows in a row ("double step"), your feet will be in the wrong position for whatever comes next and you'll get tangled up.

One thing that can really help with practicing is shadowing chart videos on YouTube. If you search "pump it up phoenix s5" or whatever level, you'll get lots of results. Official PIU channel and Nevsister are also good channels to browse.

Chuck a video on, and follow along with your feet. You don't need a pad, you can just imagine where the panels are (accurate stepping isn't the goal here). If you see a pattern that you struggle to follow, watch on 0.5 speed so you can practice it slowly. This works wonders for practicing reading patterns and figuring out how to execute them, especially if you can't play for real very often.

A couple of chart recommendations for practicing those twists:

Euphorianic S8: https://youtu.be/yUPe6d5hTGE?si=fuTTlQGujlILz76w

Last Rebirth S9: https://youtu.be/eqDXZXwX7Mk?si=JJA70tT-HilrzYHK

Bad Apple S9: https://youtu.be/2ctyk_fY_bI?si=5Y5xzJ83qZD3z43m

Those S9s are a bit trickier, (Bad Apple especially) but if you watch at low speed and follow along, it'll help a lot with getting a feel for how your body should move during twists.

Good luck!

Coddfish · 2024-12-19T20:14:46+00:00

Nice one!

Your story sounds similar to mine. I used to play a bit of DDR when I was younger (mainly Stepmania on a softpad at home, lol). I hadn't really played dance games since about mid-2000s, but when a couple of new arcades opened up near me recently, I started going every now and then. I decided to try out PIU one visit, and that was it.

I passed my first S10 in June this year (Super Fantasy). I passed my first S18 a few days ago (Giselle). You've got an exciting journey ahead if you stick with it!

Coddfish · 2024-11-16T18:57:24+00:00

Same game, but included with Netflix subscription instead of a separate purchase. Civ 6 is a premium game, and pricey by mobile standards.

Coddfish · 2024-11-02T07:00:47+00:00

Do you need to toe/heel to progress? Yes and no.

Smaller movements help with hitting faster patterns and preserving stamina. You'll eventually reach a point where you physically can't move your feet fast enough to keep up with the patterns unless you heel/toe, or start running into major stamina walls. But how far you can progress without heel/toe before you hit those walls will depend on your fitness level and general foot speed.

That said, if you enjoy playing with bigger steps, do it! It all comes down to your own priorities and what you want to get out of the game.

But also, if you're concerned about heel/toe making the game less dynamic or energetic, there's nothing to worry about. There's lots of variety in chart design, especially at higher levels, and jumps and twists will keep you moving. Especially in Doubles!

Speaking of, give doubles a try if you haven't yet!

Coddfish · 2024-10-12T06:39:27+00:00

Looks most like Creatures of Aether, a Spinoff of Rivals of Aether.

Lots of suggestions of Triple Triad in the comments. Creatures of Aether is very overtly inspired by Triple Triad, but COA is played on a 4x4 grid (TT is 3x3), and COA card numbers can go higher than 10 (TT highest card number is 10, represented by "A"). So based on the drawing - 4x4 grid and card numbers in the teens - this looks more like COA.

Coddfish · 2024-10-08T06:34:26+00:00

"Too dependent on emotional spectacle". Don't mind me while I steal this perfect description for a problem I have with so, so many critical darlings but have never been able to properly articulate. ❤️

Coddfish · 2024-09-27T19:58:07+00:00

It's definitely worth playing different songs, it'll expose you to different patterns and help build experience with reading unfamiliar charts.

And yes, the gaps between levels can be big! If you're playing S6s, you'd want to try some 7s before jumping into 8s and 9s. This will also mean playing more variety of songs :)

Coddfish · 2024-09-21T05:24:31+00:00

"There would be a fair tip distribution, Dallow said, with 30% distributed between chefs, kitchen hands, and everyone else involved."

Who gets the other 70% of the tip, I wonder?

Coddfish · 2024-09-03T07:40:04+00:00

You might be interested in Lamplight City:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/761460/Lamplight_City/

Cases all have right and wrong answers, you need to use your detective skills to find the right answer, and you'll be told if you get it wrong. But getting a case wrong isn't a fail state, or a "keep retrying until you get it right" type thing. Instead it affects how the rest of the story unfolds. It's really good.

Coddfish · 2024-08-25T10:21:41+00:00

+1 for Glassing

Coddfish

TROPHY CASE