Commissioned Yuzu fanart by Shiu After over 3 years of waiting, Sega finally released a new Ongeki version. To commemorate the occasion (along with Yuzu's VA's return to voice acting), let's dissect how Ongeki Re:Fresh's new rating system works. Platinum Score Similar to maimai DX's deluxe score but subtracts 2 points for every bell not caught or damage taken. Timing windows for notes can be found at my previous writeup about ongeki's timing windows. Judge Platinum Score Platinum Bre...

A player asked about a weird phenomenon where they up-scored from 99.8056 (SS+) to 99.9999 (SS+) which shouldn't raise your DX Rating but for some reason it did by 5 points. Why does it do that? Image credit by kaito The short answer: The reason why they got an additional 5 points is because there are two multipliers for SS+. One at 99.5%-99.9998%, and another at 99.9999%. Go skip to the end where I show the exact formula if you're interested. Keep on reading for the long answer. We'll go in...

I was asked to briefly explain how MaiMai DX judges slides. This is originally a part of a longer write-up on MaiMai's game mechanics but I figured I should just release them part by part as they're ready. Hope you enjoy! MaiMai's slide notes is one of the game mechanics that sets it apart from other rhythm games. Having slides makes the hand movements dynamic and easy to signal to the player when to move their hands across the screen. Due to cab's touchscreen not being a traditional capacitive...

UPDATE 2023 JAN 6: Revised part about Chunithm's hold tick and added Ongeki's hold tick's timing windows Happy holidays and happy new year to everyone! Before 2022 ends, I'd like to publish a short blog post regarding timing windows and offsets in 3 of Sega's rhythm games. Sorry I haven't posted anything this year. Don't worry, as I have a lot of write-ups in the making that I'll publish in 2023🤞 Timing Windows All three Sega rhythm games are known for their creative twists on rhythm games...

If you played a lot of recent Japanese games, you might have heard of Criware or its full name CRI Middleware Co.. It may be a Japanese gambling game disguised as a cutesy anime mobile game or a AAA action game where you fight God. Chances are, you might have seen their name or logo in the start-up or credits of a Japanese game. As the name CRI Middleware Co. implies, Criware provides middleware for use in video game development. Criware has multiple middlewares for a game developer's audio and ...

I've finally published the code for my simai to sdt converter at my github. The rest of this blog post is mostly about my time developing this Python program. Please keep in mind that not much thought has been given to this post so some explanations may be unclear. The simai chart format was a bit hard to translate to sdt due to two major differences in the two formats: Simai allows BPM changes while sdt does not Some slide patterns in simai require some additional steps before you find the e...

Erratum (10 March, 2021): I have made an error about SRT slide pattern values and have fixed them. Edit (23 March, 2021): I have replaced "slide tap note" with "star note". I also added some more information about star and slide notes in utage charts. Maimai fascinates me because of its unique take on rhythm games. When I played it for the first time, I was caught off-guard by how hard it is to play when the notes are coming from the centre towards the machine's buttons. It was different from...

Not maimai or reverse engineering related but I just created a twitter account. I don't really know what I'm going to tweet there aside from announcing new blog posts but hey it's there. I'm @donmai_me on twitter. Saltpack signed message ...

My first actual post to this blog will hopefully be the first in a series of posts about my findings in Maimai. Hopefully, we will have the knowledge and tools to make custom charts. And appreciate the underlying engine that powers the classic Maimai games from 2012 to 2019 and the new Maimai Deluxe (stylised as Maimai DX) that just released. We'll first start with how Maimai stores game sounds (i.e. music, sound effects, and voices) Let's start with what Maimai is. Maimai is an arcade rhythm g...

Welcome to my small blog! Edit (14 April, 2021): All Saltpack signed messages will now be in a separate private post. The link should be at the bottom of every public post. I'm Donmai. Unfortunately I can't show you anything interesting, yet. This blog will mostly contain my findings in reverse engineering games and probably other software. I'll also sign every correspondence with my EdX25519 key: kex1996qewz7hgxzyrhlvunnspm4wdzt0m9c3xvl9wfaxvrz0pdlm88shhwfc5 Every correspondence will cont...