Cirque du Lykan is a stream pack by Zaia.
It is named after the W Motors Lykan HyperSport. This pack marks the beginning of the contemporary Zaia pack formula that would dictate my work for years to come. This pack came with a companion book that can be downloaded here.
It was followed by a direct sequel, Cirque du Enzo, in 2018.
This pack was resynced by mute.
| Pack Director | Zaia |
| Stepartists | Zaia, Zeph |
| BPM | 170-200 |
| Songcount | 50+1 |
| Blocks | 9-17 (13-17 target) |
| Type | Stream |
| Format | Singles |
| Release Date | Jan 06, 2014 |
¶ Structure
The pack is structured in a typical stream pack manner, with two lowers included for most simfiles. Charts rated 16 and 17 mostly got a single chart, but there were some exceptions. Like Cirque du Veyron and Cirque du Zonda, this pack is restricted to a bpm range, which allowed similarly-structured content to remain in one place.
Charts were organized in a way that allowed a player to play an entire set within the pack - from warm-up to peak to cooldown, the pack was made large enough to be able to support this. This structure was borrowed from Cirque du Veyron and expanded for a larger difficulty spread. My reasoning is that similar content reduces variables that enable more energy to be allocated to performance; when the chart structures and styles are similar, the bpms and blocks are similar, and the music is similar too, this optimizes playability and places a focus on grinding.
Internal progressions were a new concept I wanted to implement into this pack. This means that there are paths of progression between charts and across bpms and difficulties that progressively increase in difficulty, but progress can be gauged by repeatedly playing the path. A simple example of this may be Kita Khyber path: A simple path could be drawn by playing all the songs in the pack by Kita Khyber and by playing a number of the charts between the three simfiles. One such path may look like this:
(START) Valiant SH → No Other Choice SM → Royally Screwed SH → No Other Choice SH → Valiant SX → Royally Screwed SX → No Other Choice SX (END)
Gradual changes in bpm and stream volume/density slowly stack difficulty, and this particular path takes advantage of bpm overloading (playing a shorter, faster simfile to prepare for a longer, slower one, where both charts are rated in the same difficulty block).
Many paths were built into the pack, and they can be found by choosing an anchor point and looking for content around that point. Some anchor points in Cirque du Lykan included paths by artist, paths by bpm and paths by difficulty block. For example, nominating the 180-190bpm range gave access to 20 songs and a difficulty spread comfortably from 10 to 16. For a player whose operational playing level fell within these limits, playing only from those 20 songs could constitute a complete and solid training set for them.
The concept of progression paths would continue to be developed in nearly all of my later packs that had lower charts, including: Cirque du Zeppelin, Helblinde, Helblinde 2016, Betwixt & Between, Rebuild of Sharpnel, Cirque du Enzo, Dragonforce Kaioken, Cirque du Miura, Petriform's Factory, Saitama's Ultimate Weapon, Saitama's Starter Weapon, Zaia's Dance Dance Rebuild, Tachyon Eta and City Pop.
The description field contains the stepartist name as well as the five-point qualitative sub-block rating.
Thirteen compilation courses were included with this pack:
- Boss Rush (SX only): Orbital Strike, Forgotten Ancient (Remix), World End's Yama Xanadu, Artemis, Alive in the Darkness(completing this in course mode would reveal the location of Imagine Breaker)
- Best Music (SX only): Gateway to Psycho, Paradise Lost, Division 4, Disconnected, Ascension to Heaven
- This is “silphur8's Picks” in the pack spreadsheet
- Originals (Two difficulties available): Air, 3y3s, Quadraphinix, One More Lovely, Vertex Beta, Destination of the Heart
- This is “Classics” in the pack spreadsheet
- Fastest Songs (SH/SX mix, single difficulty only): Respectful Potential, Higan Retour (Idling Mix), Cyber Sparks, Love Wars, Blue Zenith (SH), Vertex Beta (SH)
- Helblinde (SX only): A Reyvateil's Curse, Grief & Malice, Memoria Reborn, Gateway to Psycho, Orbital Strike, Disconnected
- The pack spreadsheet incorrectly lists “Ecstasy 2007” as the third song
- J-CO(u)R(s)E: (SX only) Orbital Strike, Paradise Lost, ApolloN, Forgotten Ancient (Remix), Division 4
- Option A (Two difficulties available): Tower of Saints, Valiant, A Reyvateil's Curse, Himiko, Quadraphinix, Unlimited Spark!
- This is “Option B” in the pack spreadsheet
- Option B (Two difficulties available): Monolith Renaissance, Azul, Memoria Reborn, Reunion, Critical Crystal, Future Destination
- This is “Option C” in the pack spreadsheet
- Option C (Two difficulties available): Hardcore Overdoze, Crystal Wind, Cyber Sparks, St. Scarhand, No Other Choice, Red Lucifer Rising
- This is “Option D” in the pack spreadsheet
- Option D (Two difficulties available): 3y3s, Respectful Potential, Unlimited Spark!, Love Wars, Himiko, Creation
- This is “Option E” in the pack spreadsheet
- Good Choice: Pure Ruby, Reunion, Atmos Break, Azul, Thor, OMAEEE, Hollywood Galaxy
- This is “Option A” in the pack spreadsheet, and appears as “silph's picks” in-game, and the .crs file is named “Silph's rejects”
- Atmos Break is incorrectly included in the mix and banner. The course should only be 6 songs in length
- OMAEEE is incorrectly titled “Omaeeee” in the banner
- The banner incorrectly lists Ascension to Heaven as part of the course in place of Hollywood Galaxy
- Quick Stages (Two difficulties available): Atmos Break, Royally Screwed, Destination of the Heart, Creation, Valiant, Galactic Astro Domination, No Other Choice, One More Lovely
- This is “Short Songs” in the pack spreadsheet
- Underclock (Two difficulties available): Beyond the Stars, Pure Ruby, Atmos Break, Air, Squartatrice, Thor
- This is “Slowest Songs” in the pack spreadsheet. The filename is named “Shortest”
¶ Development
Cirque du Lykan's origins begin as far back as Q4 2010, as a folder of peacemeal 170-200bpm 13-15 block simfiles written by me and a local friend B1uEM4oM4o to grind streams on. This folder was titled “FFF47 Pack”, as the music genre we were stepping for the pack was primarily high speed freeform trance, or what we interpreted various songs as being. The “47” is a reference to artists of this type of music who were often found on sites like Newgrounds that had numbers at the ends of their names - most notably Dimrain47, but also artists like Spy47 and Nighthawk22.
The “FFF” stood for “Fucking Fantastic Freeform”.
At the end of December 2010, my computer's Power Supply Unit failed, leading to my PC and simfiles becoming instantly inaccessible. This meant that any ongoing simfile projects were immediately frozen in place, since I didn't have the money to buy a new PSU. I ended up borrowing a laptop off a friend and starting new simfiles from scratch on that computer, and leaving FFF47 stuck in limbo on the PC's HDD.
Cirque du Beast was essentially the next stage of evolution of FFF47, where a handful of its songs were shortlisted for that project. Only Protosphere actually got in, since I wanted to step new songs, and the others remained in reserve for Cirque du Brute (Beast's cancelled sequel).
The concept of a more expansive bpm-focused project didn't start to take true form until after Cirque du Veyron's success and during Zonda's development. The core proposal I made was “A Cirque du Veyron but 170-200bpm instead of 200-230". It was during the music-hunting process for Zonda that I found music that would be suitable for this other pack. At the time (August 2013), it was to be titled Cirque du Agera, after the Koeniggsegg Agera, and be 20 songs in size. After merging in FFF47's songs, which I now had access to, the songlist quickly expanded to 30, then 35, then 40, then 45, and with Comiket 85 taking place in December, new dj TAKA and Ryu☆ (as Seiryuu) songs pushed the songlist to its final size of 50. It was then renamed to Lykan (because I didn't like the ambiguity of the pronunciation of the “R” sound in “Agera” - rolling the R might make it sound strange, and not rolling it made it sound awkward and this was a variable I could do without).
Rediscovering Helblinde for the first time since Dropbear Awareness Pack's Ego was a fortuitous turn of events and featuring his music boosted Lykan's profile significantly. He had several preview versions of songs on his SoundCloud for his upcoming album “Life Starts at 200bpm”, all of which were absolutely perfect candidates both musically and structurally for the pack. I felt like I'd uncovered a goldmine of potential content - one which I absolutely would capitalize upon to the maximum degree over the next year.
As development continued, I wanted to experiment with something that I had already been doing mentally, and had some notes scattered around here and there to keep track of. These notes recorded the lengths of streams in units of measures of various songs I often played, and I had played some songs enough times to have the lengths of their streams memorized. I wanted to develop a system that could formalize these notes and turn them into information that could be easily communicated and understood. The difference with these preliminary notes was that I had not been keeping track of the lengths of the breaks between the streams, and only the lengths of the streams themselves.
One of the critical requirements of this system was that both stream and break information could be condensed into a single line of text and be accurately parsed. The system I came up with and implemented into use can be seen here. It is fundamentally nearly identical to the current system in place, but with only a single symbol to denote the size of break. The rationale was that the more /es were present, the greater the literal distance between the streams, and thus, this distance could communicate the length of break. The biggest problem with this formatting was that the /es would blend into one another and it became difficult to be able to count how many there were. You can see how unwieldy it is, especially when many breakdowns are visible at once. This issue wouldn't be addressed until successive packs, and it would be a long time until it reached its current form.
Another, less notable area of growth was the change of the decimal ratings to a five-point qualitative system, consisting of: Low→Low-Mid→Mid→Mid-High→High. I felt that turning the scaling towards something more qualitative than quantitative could chamfer the edges off of some of the ratings debate.
¶ Artistic Influences and Chart Design
Cirque du Lykan's charts are, by current standards, fairly basic in design and fairly dated, but have aged well if compared against their contemporaries. One of my design strengths is symmetry and balance, and I was able to put this on full display in this pack, especially through songs that had repeated sections, and make more adventurous pattern combinations that weren't as viable in Veyron and Zonda.
The design ethos continues to be inspired by SHARPNELSTREAMZ v2, and in this instance, the slower simfiles. World Sound had proven to be a major hit with players and had demonstrated that I had a high affinity for patterning that felt comfortable to play, which enabled me to write high-volume charts that received greater levels of engagement. All I had to do was follow that formula, but I gave myself some room to experiment and see in which directions I could push without compromising on that playability focus.
¶ Graphics
Lykan is the first time I try to make a graphic that tries to be more in-line with the meta. The core inspirations for the composition of this one were Tachyon Delta and Tachyon Epsilon, and the result is a bit of a cross between the two. I liked the abstract outer space art of Epsilon and the science fiction typeface of Delta and merged the two. The result is simple but interesting to look at. I applied a filter in PhotoShop called “Angled Strokes” across the image to give it a more “painted” appearance. This is the beginning of what I like to call my “portrait era”, in which I apply those PhotoShop brush stroke filters to everything.
The alternative art, which is a shitpost face art, was the original intended art for the pack (it was the artwork made first). It depicts Zeph and I riding in a Lykan HyperSport, zooming down a road whilst passing by Peru and the United States, and a sign by the roadside that reads the name of the pack. The Australian flag featured is from an episode of The Simpsons: Bart vs. Australia. I was particularly proud of the editing of the shadow thrown on the landscape behind the letters, but I made the smart decision to relegate this to an easter egg art and to produce the one that got used.
¶ Songlist
Cirque du Lykan contains 51 songs. One of the songs was a “hidden” bonus song
| Song | Artist | BPM | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3y3s | Seiryuu | 191 | |
| A Reyvateil's Curse | Helblinde | 200 | |
| Air | Shiki | 178 | SM, SH and SX have FS |
| Alive in the Darkness | Lv.4 | 180 | A secret version of this simfile exists with a lyric file that points to the location of Imagine Breaker. To unlock it, you had to play the 17 boss rush Course and this was the final song |
| ApolloN | Sun3 | 185 | |
| Artemis | Sun3 | 200 | |
| Ascension to Heaven | Xi | 200 | Correct artist styling is “xi” |
| Atmos Break | D-Mode-D | 175 | |
| Azul (Remix) | mezCIA | 195 | |
| Beyond the Stars | NeXsard | 170 | |
| Blue Zenith | Xi | 200 | Correct artist styling is “xi” |
| Creation | MGD Assault Force | 190 | |
| Critical Crystal | Seiryuu | 191 | |
| Crystal Wind | MaxXx65535 | 187 | |
| Cyber Sparks | Tatsh | 192 | |
| Destination of the Heart | Renard | 200 | |
| Disconnected | Helblinde | 200 | |
| Division 4 | Betwixt & Between | 180 | |
| Ecstasy 2007 | Trancesept | 190 | |
| Forgotten Ancient (Remix) | Alabaster | 186 | Sped up from 162bpm |
| Future Destination | Renard | 200 | |
| Galactic Astro Domination | Dragonforce | 200 | |
| Gateway to Psycho | Helblinde | 200 | |
| Grief & Malice | Heblinde | 200 | |
| Hardcore Overdoze | Euphoria | 182 | |
| Higan Retour (Idling Mix) | Zun (Arrsun 3) | 200 | |
| Himiko | Suzaku vs Genbu | 185 | |
| Hollywood Galaxy | dj TAKA | 186 | |
| Imagine Breaker | Helblinde | 200 | Hidden bonus simfile |
| Love Wars | Prim | 200 | |
| Memoria Reborn | Helblinde | 200 | SM has FS |
| Monolith Renaissance | Affinity feat. DJ Amuro | 196 | SM, SH and SX have FS |
| No Other Choice | Kita Khyber | 194 | |
| OMAEEE | DJOrochiKazuya | 198 | |
| One More Lovely | Risk Junk | 200 | |
| Orbital Strike | Helblinde | 180 | |
| Paradise Lost | Thanatos | 188 | Correct title is “Paradiselost”. Sped up from 172bpm |
| Pure Ruby | Shiki | 178 | |
| Quadraphinix | Sharkey | 180 | |
| Red Lucifer Rising (Ver-0) | S.S.H. | 192 | |
| Respectful Potential | xKirby | 200 | Correct artist styling is “X Kirby” |
| Reunion | Tatsh | 184 | SH and SX have BR |
| Royally Screwed | Kita Khyber | 194 | SM has FS |
| Squartatrice | gmtn vs. Kozato | 180 | |
| St. Scarhand | Akimo | 180 | |
| Thor | XeoN | 180 | |
| Tower of Saints | Beridzebeth | 194 | |
| Unlimited Spark! | t+pazolite | 185 | |
| Valiant | Kita Khyber | 186 | |
| Vertex BETA | Silvia | 200 | |
| World End's Yama Xanadu | t+pazolite | 190 |
¶ Reception and Retrospect
Cirque du Lykan released to critical acclaim by both hardcore and casual stamina demographics, as well as tech players who wanted shorter, lower-intensity stamina to precision attack on. The focused bpm and difficulty range, as well as the inclusion of Medium and Hard charts, as well as shorter average song lengths, gave the pack great accessibility across all spectrums of players and helped improve turnover rate. The music choice and variety has been praised and opinions have remained highly favorable towards the songlist.
The pack has received significant presence in event packs, due to its ability to target specific content gaps.
Some criticism was directed towards the unorthodox syncing method of the pack, and the pack received a conventional resyncing by mute.
The development and utilization of the Stream Notation Breakdown System in this pack has since become a foundational mechanic of the modern stamina metagame and has redefined the relationship between player and content. It has enabled quantitative ratings systems metrics to be developed and given players the means to accurately assess their playing abilities across bpms and difficulty blocks. For content creators, it has also allowed precise refinements to chart structures to pinpoint target difficulties and fill content gaps within blocks.
¶ Trivia
- I found some videos of some of the songs when the pack was still FFF47:
- Australian community member silphur8 wrote the companion book, under my general direction. All of the statistical analysis was something he did independently.
- The alteration of the stream notation in the book from
/to.was not an approved decision - Differences between the course names and info also seem to have been made without my awareness, but this is more attributable to miscommunications
- The alteration of the stream notation in the book from
- Some charts have techs in them
- The footswitch use remains inspired by BB Revenge (Gensokyo Midnight pack). Mine markings only indicated the first instance of the footswitch and relied on repetition of the motion after that
- The triple stomps in Reunion remain unaltered from the FFF47 version
- A small Lykan HyperSport can be seen in the background art, shooting out the tip of the orbital station
- The artist of OMAEEE, DjOrochiKazuya, is the artist currently known as T2Kazuya, whose original music has been featured in projects like Club Fantastic
- The Betwixt & Between pack is teased in some subtle as well as not-so-subtle ways. It was in the concept stage during Lykan's post-production finishes and was intended to be my next pack. Division 4 served as the teaser simfile, and an explicit confirmation of the pack is supplied in the book
- Division 4 and Grief & Malice were featured in the Intel West Stamina + Speed tournament, which took place a month before the pack's release
- Measures 54-56 of Galactic Astro Domination feature a segment that intentionally offsets all the notes by a 192nd to change their color for the guitar solo. High speed bpm changes and stops are used to maintain consistent sync caused by the offsetting of the notes.
- Cirque du Lykan is considered a nexus point for future spin-off packs that are able to trace its lineage back to it
- Helblinde received a trilogy of packs in Helblinde, Helblinde 2016 and Helblinde PDTA in 2014, 2016 and 2019 respectively
- Betwixt & Between's dedicated pack released in 2017
- The official sequel, Cirque du Enzo, retains all of the key elements that define Lykan's identity and expands upon them