What is Soflan? - Rhythm Game Terminology

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There are many ways to make a rhythm game chart hard. But only one involves frantically changing bpms, rapidly attempting to figuratively or literally trip you up. It's become so common that there's a word for it : soflan. Come learn about where the term came from and how players handle it in rhythm games!
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[@alibiisntreal]

DDR has a way to combat soflan, that being the lane covers. theyre used for slow sections so you dont get overwhelmed by the amount of notes on the screen

[@losermanwins4338]

Gotcha. I was having trouble finding information about what you're allowed to actually do during a song. I heard you're not allowed to actually change speed mod during the song, just before the notes show up, and I wasn't aware DDR had a function for actually turning off the lane cover, let alone mid song. Thanks for the correction!

[@alibiisntreal]

@@losermanwins4338 ofc! here is it in action, more of a bpm change than soflan but still kzbin.info/www/bejne/oXLIe4isgdyfr6c

[@bwnzix]

@@losermanwins4338 yea i discovered this during one of the kac, where one player just lean up to the machine to turn off the lane cover mid song and it looks very funny

[@reillocb]

I have never understood how this helps ppl. Ig my brain is broken

[@Ulication]

@@reillocb Less visual clutter since less notes are visible, and many players won't read directly at the arrow receptor line but instead closer to the middle of the screen

[@BiFoxxo]

One thing to note about Ace for Aces is that the soflan is actually different for every difficulty of the song, so you have to memorize the speed changes of whichever difficulty you play, not just the song

[@HURGIIDX]

Camellia and Nanahira put out a track called "Confusion Girl Soflan Chan" and the song has 183 BPM changes and 252 time signature changes. You can see them being counted in real time in the small window above the note lane in this clone hero chart for it. kzbin.info/www/bejne/eaWuYXZmrsiMY9k It is absolute insanity.

[@JaceITG]

7:55 Sudden+ though??!? Being able to slap lane cover on/off during pauses is so helpful; it singlehandedly carries my ability to read OT"P" lmao

[@parfein]

Really great video! I didn't know that the keysounded notes in Shockwave Syndrome correspond to stops. A few extra notes - In SDVX Exceed Gear (the latest version), a number was added next to the BPM/LANE-SPEED numbers that appears when a soflan is about to occur, showing what BPM and LANE-SPEED the chart will go to. Introduced in SDVX III, there is a song by Camellia ft Nanahira called Konran Shoujo♥Soflan-chan!! (混乱少女♥そふらんちゃん!!), which is all about soflan. It ranges from BPM 32-259 and centers around the gimmick, with over 100 BPM and time signature changes, though only 33 are reflected in the chart. It also makes an appearance in pop'n music, which handles soflan similarly to DDR. Back in the day when soflan was more sparse, DDR and Pop'n players used to put towels over the top part of their screens to reduce the visible lane size, then take it off during a speedup. This makes reading much easier because in the slower sections, you become less overwhelmed by the lower scroll speed, while still being able to use it for the faster parts.

[@Ulication]

camellia always fucking around with bpms and time signatures in his songs resulting in the most cursed charts

[@p3pgamingofficial]

*forgets the song literally named soflan chan

[@Itashafan]

Lmao 😂

[@novalaxia]

very surprised you covered Y&Co in that way. I've seen a couple of players (most notably CORIVE) play the chart on non-random/MIRROR - this allows them to hold down the start button on Lightning cabs during the speed-up, hitting the blue key with their thumb, and alternating between hitting the white keys and floating in real time to offset each other to make the transition back to normal speed way easier. definitely one of the more wild techs in recent memory lol

[@deogenerate6008]

Yeah was definitely thinking about this too. Remember losing my god damn mind over how clean that tech was when CORIVE played and I've kind of adopted it myself now lol

[@DJruslan4ic]

Soflan in SDVX is basically charting to include the start button

[@cowgba]

True. I respect the idea in theory but I don't like it in execution. It just isn't fun to me to play a chart that's super easy and then suddenly the scroll speed triples for the last 30 seconds (cough cough Elemental Creation Kamome Sano Remix in SDVX cough). I think incorporating scroll speed changes into a chart - within reason - can make it feel more dynamic and exciting, but when it jumps dramatically I find it annoying.

[@lovelymayapop]

@@cowgba slowdowns are better than speedups

[@The_Grace_God]

​@@cowgbalunatic rough party?

[@redstonecommander5190]

12:29 gosh dang it shockwave syndrome sounds extremely violent with all the effects filters and random notes played at insane speeds

[@cruzloops]

New video from Losermanwins 🎉 Been waiting since I found your channel talking about iidx about a year ago Hope to see more content soon

[@prospektiVox]

surprised you didn’t mention n/a on iidx, the chart has a ludicrous soflan section that plays exactly like mei

[@wigglytby]

Soflan is actually a great description of both my musical style and charting style in Guitar Hero, since when I make charts, I'll often change the beat lines to match up with stutters, unison impacts, and other effects. Since scroll speed isn't affected by BPM in Guitar Hero, this doesn't have the effect it would in other games (which is a good thing, since these BPMs can often get into the thousands, and can change very rapidly). I haven't written a full-on soflan song in a while, but it is definitely something I enjoy doing, especially for comedic effect.

[@darktetsuya]

'the jump to 318BPM is actually a bug' ... yeah add that one to the list, haha. I guess I do remember hearing 3rd Style CS had its fair share of bugs? CHAOS is definitely one of my first thoughts when talking about this sorta thing. don't have any SDVX experience but that was neat to see.

[@Gaousensei]

I feel dumb not knowing Sudden+ also did that, I thought the lane cover only helped with making the lane more readable.

[@BBHood217]

I've never had much experience with soflan since I mostly played Gitadora which practically has no soflan because the scroll speed is always constant and BPM only determines the density of notes.

[@baritonetenor]

your videos are such comfort food really interesting and entertaining in a really mild way which is just so good

[@eemeli7093]

edible videos 🤤🤤

[@RadeonVega64]

6:04 osu?

[@darkorbitman367]

Too bad you didn't talk about popn. In popn you can use sudden, but you have to hit a number on a keypad, which is significantly harder than in IIDX. As someone who plays both popn and IIDX, popn songs are much more likely to have soflan in them, and they are more likely to have soflan be a significant portion of the difficulty of the song since 95% of the time you don't use sudden.

[@Notester82]

Geeeez, what a wacky charting style ;u; Actually pulling off the speed adjustments mid-song and playing the sections must feel pretty rewarding, meep! Noice overview of Soflan stuffs!

[@MusicalArmageddon]

0:23 talking about songs and charts with BPM changes shows footage of a chart with absolutely no BPM changes whatsoever why

[@deogenerate6008]

me when the iidx section starts: "please don't make me think about hanakanmuri please don't make me think about hanakanmuri please don't make me think about hanakanmuri"

[@michaellyga4726]

ITG MFs when the chart says no CMOD: 😨

[@defunct0sjlkf984]

very unfortunate that you didn't mention Re:son D'etre from SDVX, it has nearly *FIFTY* BPM changes.

[@BearBreaks]

15:05 man, that was epic.

[@baylego]

Fun video, a lot of effort keep it up

[@nanahyakuman]

awfully late to the party but ongeki features negative scroll speed on occasions! afaik you never have to read a map in reverse but there's some funny holds in some songs where the play field starts scrolling in reverse halfway through (happens at the end of take)

[@a2rhombus2]

I absolutely despise this style of charting. It's the biggest reason I turned off bpm changes in stepmania

[@Str0t1s]

i feel sometimes DDR players have to built different to play shi like that i can play with my fingers but not my feet

[@Kolyasisan]

Never been in-time to your new upload before It's pretty peculiar that even Konami has accepted the terminology as of iidx 27

[@CtrlAltDft]

very informative, thank you!!!

[@BearBreaks]

*ppl who play arcaea having nightmares with arcahv

[@redstonecommander5190]

18:41 what it’s out of control

[@redstonecommander5190]

Konami, you mad lads!!

[@arcturus0389]

Am i wrong or, is Soflan interchangeable with SV (Scroll velocity), i know a few charts in games like Quaver where the BPM in the song is consistent, but for sake of emphasis, or to complement the beat of the song, the scroll velocity is changed, sometimes resulting in slow downs, speed ups or stops (sometimes even rewinds, in the case of Time Traveler by KNOWER) are these... not the same thing? Sorry if it's a really stupid question, i'm just new to the term soflan specifically, and, looking at the charts in the video, it reminds me a lot of SV charts

[@kyousakee]

I'm just thankful they don't do Soflan in Gitadora.. :))

[@Zapdatt]

Damn, I was literally in the process of making a video about sof-lan... Good stuff though

[@mystak3n]

*laughs in -3/4*

[@Yume_R4515]

Where's ENDYMION ?

[@Rsixsix]

Sound Voltex looks f*cking awful to play and sounds atrocious. Stepmania had a good solution for solflan in the form of constant speeds like C200 or C400 which totally negated having to worry about stops or drastic speed changes. I wish they would have done that in the arcade games.