What I Learned from Dance Dance Revolution

What I Learned from Dance Dance Revolution

by Allen Downey
August 7, 2006

As a tall, dorky white guy who is pushing 40, I am forbidden by law to dance in public. But that doesn't stop me from pounding the DDR pad in the safety of my living room.

For the DDR-illiterate, Dance Dance Revolution is a video game controlled by a vinyl pad that lies on the floor and senses footsteps. On the screen, instructions for dance moves scroll by, accompanied by really awful music. Players score points by performing the right steps in time to the music. Becoming a DDR master is like learning to read music from an aerobics video.

Having spent my summer playing an embarrassing amount of DDR, I am ready to report some of the lessons I learned:

The best way to learn is to get schooled

DDR has four levels of difficulty: "beginner," "lite" [sic], "standard" and "heavy." At least, that's what the game designers call them. In reality the levels are "hard," "very hard," "ridiculous," and "I don't know; I've never even looked."

If you're pretty good at "lite" and you move up to "standard", you are going to have a tough time. For a while, you probably won't be able to finish a song (if you make too many mistakes, the game stops and makes fun of you).

You might not think that failing miserably would be a learning experience, but it is. When you go back to "lite", it suddenly seems easy.

Moral: If you want to get better, play in the big leagues.

Tough grading is more fun

DDR gives out old-school grades! Cs and Ds are relatively easy to come by, B is a good grade, and As are rare. But the DDR designers knew what they were doing. Tough grading is more fun.

The problem with easy grades is that there is no up side. If you expect to get an A, then in the best case you are only satisfied, and in any other case you are miserable. But if you have to work hard to get a C, then an occasional A will make your day.

Moral: Game designers know more about motivation than academics do.

All practice is metapractice

After a few months of DDR, I picked up Guitar Hero, a video game where players press chord buttons and strum a plastic guitar while simplified sheet music scrolls by.

I don't like to brag, but I will say this about me and Guitar Hero: I rock! With very little practice, I was ripping through "I Wanna Be Sedated" on medium difficulty ("Hard", of course, is impossible).

Why? Because the meta-skills I got from DDR also apply to Guitar Hero. Whenever you learn something, you are also learning to learn, and learning to learn to learn, and so on.

Moral: Exercise your brain.

Recovery is more important than perfection

When you miss a step in DDR, it can be tricky to get back into it. What starts as a small error can balloon into total failure.

You have to practice messing up. Sometimes it's better to make a small mistake on purpose to avoid a big mistake later. That way, when you are overwhelmed, you can do what engineers call "graceful degradation". Perfection is like glass; when it breaks, it shatters.

Moral: Bend, don't break.

So that's what I learned on my summer vacation. How about you?

Here is a related article called "Top Ten Games that Teach You Something". DDR and Guitar Hero are both on the list.

Other essays by Allen Downey are available here.