Cirque du Veyron is a stream pack by Zaia.
It was the first pack to utilize the Zaia name and also the first to be named after a car- the Bugatti Veyron. A sequel, Cirque du Zonda, was released in 2013.
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| Pack Director | Zaia |
| Stepartists | Zaia |
| BPM | 200-230 |
| Songcount | 30 |
| Blocks | 13-18 |
| Type | Stream |
| Format | Singles |
| Release Date | Nov 25, 2012 |
¶ Structure
Cirque du Veyron is structured as an Expert-only stream pack (this was typical at the time, especially for stream packs). Simfiles are grouped into the 200-230bpm target range and difficulties are generally distributed around 13-18, with the mode at 15.
Patterning is very simple and low-movement to focus the difficulty on stream lengths.
The chart description field contains the stepartist name.
¶ Development
I have always had a history of restepping charts, ever since my first days using the StepMania editor. This pack started as a collection of restepped simfiles to train midspeed stream volume on. The first charts written were the Destination songs, and as time went by, more songs were added piecemeal as my playing abilities grew. After talking about this collection of single charts with others and how they were helping me grow my 200+ speed, and then sharing the charts with them to play, the highly positive feedback to the content motivated me to formally coalesce these charts into a pack and release it. Before then, I never felt strongly about it because virtually the entire pack was resteps for personal use.
Before they were in their own pack, the folder they were in was simply titled “200-230 training folder" and included random simfiles that weren't my own. They were then collated into their own folder, called “Cirque du 200-230”. Sometime around August 2012 or so, I made the decision to make this pack part of the Cirque series.
¶ Artistic Influences and Chart Design
The primary influence on the writing style for this pack was Tachyon Delta, which I'd been playing out of every session for about 3 months. This was the pack notorious for its monodirectional streams, but as it was a Tachyon pack, the speeds were always on the higher end, and when they were slower, they had more volume than I could comfortably handle. I needed a pack with short songs and blocks of 4, 8 and 16 measures to be able to grind back to back, but in the same writing style, and with better control over the bpms (this is why the Destination songs were the first ones written). As I improved on those, I started steppping longer songs.
The “Veyron” part of the name was not finalized until closer to release. For a time, this pack held the name “Cirque du Brute”, the successor to Cirque du Beast, but it wasn't long-lived as Brute was more intended for a true Beast sequel featuring a similar bpm and difficulty spread, which this pack was not. However, this meant I had to find a new concept to take after. Something that piqued my interest were the names of exotic automobiles. They often had interesting and unusual names, and as words they had a good synergy with the “Cirque” name. After brainstorming some words associated with luxury and performance vehicles, I settled on the word “Porsche”.
The reasoning for this was: If this pack was a bridge pack between 200-and-under stamina and Tachyon 240+, it was a kind of mid-range, mid-speed pack. If packs could be cars, the Tachyon packs would be the fastest cars; in this case, these were the Bugatti Veyron and the SSC Ultimate Aero. The midspeed cars, therefore, would be high performance, but not in the super or hypercar regime. A suitable car manufacturer I thought of that fit this theming was Porsche. Ergo, the pack was to be titled “Cirque du Porsche”. However, I did not like the overt brand association with such a well-known automaker and felt it needed to be changed into something less recognizable but still suiting the unusual word requirement. Over the next month, my stance softened on the Porsche→Veyron dynamic, and I elected to start naming the packs after specific car models. Thus, this pack came to be named “Cirque du Veyron”. I liked that the word started with the letter “V”, I liked that there was a “y” in the middle, and I liked that the name was two syllables in length.
¶ Graphics
Initially, I did not have many ideas for graphics, and I was resolute on only doing a fallback, especially as this pack wasn't as “serious” as Cirque du Beast was. However, once the Veyron name was locked in, finding graphics became much easier and all I needed to do was find a wallpaper of a Bugatti Veyron I liked.
I did want to give the graphic a bit of a dance game flair, so I added a trail of notes coming out the back of the Veyron. The text was absolutely a 5-minute job in PhotoShop.
Adding the face to the background wasn't something I thought too hard about. Since the pack wasn't being taken too seriously, the graphics weren't something I cared too much about and I basically approached them as one massive shitpost.
My retrospective feelings about the graphics are a little mixed, though mostly positive. The technical production isn't great, but I never wanted it to be. They leave me with fond memories of the time, and I doubt I'd have them altered to be any other way.
¶ Songlist
Cirque du Veyron contains 30 songs.
| Song | Artist | BPM | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| #est (Sharpest) | NTW | 215 | |
| Abyssal (Get ready to die.) |
Fleshgod Apocalypse | 210 | First stamina 18 I wrote |
| Aztec Templing | Hi-G remixed by DM Ashura | 205 | |
| BB Evolution | AKHT | 210 | BB stands for Big Bridge |
| BB Revenge | AKHT | 204 | Chart has FS |
| Beyond Abilities | Warmen | 224 | |
| Bokura no 16bit Warz | sasakure.UK | 220 | Slowed down from 244 |
| Brandish Headless | S.S.H. | 220 | Correct song title is “Headless” |
| Corrosion | Nighthawk22 | 205 | |
| Dash Hopes | Renard | 225 | |
| Dead Feelings | CORE | 230 | |
| Destination Helios | ZETA vs. Renard | 209 | |
| Destination Rapture | ZaG-X Vs. Renard | 215 | |
| Final Destination | Renard | 217 | |
| Freedom Dive | Xi | 222 | Correct artist styling is “xi” |
| Illumination of the Sky | Phantasma | 204 | |
| Jehovah's YaHVeH | Demetori | 220 | |
| Lawn Wake IV (Black) | The Flashbulb | 217 | |
| O_L | Ueno Yuki | 228 | |
| Perfect Cherry Storm | Sun3 | 200 | |
| Rain (good fucking luck) |
YMCK | 225 | Slowed down from 256 |
| Ridiculosis | TheBoxX | 210 | |
| s!o!c!o!p!o!g!o!g!o! | Sonic Coaster Pop | 209 | |
| Starlight | YMCK | 230 | |
| Steel Bomber | Kommisar | 215 | Sped up from 210 |
| Strangeprogram | DJ Sharpnel | 215 | |
| to Luv me I *** for u | t+pazolite | 220 | |
| Vertex Epsilon | Silvia | 215 | Song is Vertex Alpha sped up from 180 |
| WE LUV LAMA | SHARPNELSOUNDS | 210 | Artist incorrect. Correct artist is “DJ Sharpnel” |
| Woah Nigga Damn | Restart | 215 | Sometimes styled as “Woah Ni**a Damn” |
¶ Reception and Retrospect
Cirque du Veyron received a decent critical reception and serves as a seminal entry in the Cirque series, establishing many of the traditions of the Cirque series that are still respected in 2024. Player reception was highly positive, with many noting its importance in bridging the gap between stamina speeds and footspeed and allowing players to gain entry into to the footspeed regime, and this pack helped establish my reputation as a stepartist of higher-level content. Before this pack, the 200-230bpm range was severely lacking in contemporary content with good chart structures, clean patterning and decent stream volume.
Retrospective reviews have been more critical, focusing on the drastic and notable bpm alterations to songs and the simplistic writing style. Criticism could also be levied at the inclusion of music by the artist Renard and at the song with the offensive song title.
This pack was resynced twice; first by Ash Astral, at the time going by the name Fraxtil, and then by mute.
¶ Trivia
- This pack started many of the hallmarks of the Cirque series, such as:
- Naming the packs after supercar/hypercar models
- Focusing the simfiles around a particular theme (in this case, a bpm range)
- Adding a face to the graphics, and featuring the car the pack is named after in the background art somewhere
- The footswitches in BB Revenge reference the Gensokyo Midnight chart by Kyt-Xune, which feature them in the exact same place
- Headless: “Brandish” is the name of the game the original song is from, though its possible S.S.H. styled it specifically as “Brandish Headless” intentionally
- Rain's subtitle “good fucking luck” is a direct reference to the Rain chart in the Cetaka pack featuring the exact same subtitle.
- Subtitle use in general in Cirque du Veyron is inspired by the use of subtitles in this pack
- Woah Nigga Damn has 22 other charts for different games in the .sm, including:
- Dance Double, Dance Couple, Dance Solo, Pump Single, Pump Halfdouble, Pump Double, Pump Couple, EZ2 Single, EZ2 Double, EZ2 Real, Para Para Paradise Single, Para Para Paradise Versus, DS3DDX Single, Dance Maniax Single, Dance Maniax Double, Technomotion Single 4, Technomotion Single 5, Technomotion Single 8, Technomotion Double 4, Technomotion Double 5, Pop'n Music 5, Pop'n Music 9
- I copied the skeleton from the SSSC version so maybe they're present there too
- There exists an edited version of the simfile with alterations both to the audio and the title
- Although the charts were written to grind stream volume, the pack was written before Oh Henry Mad Stamina and Cranked Pastry came out, which was when the shift towards 80%+ stream density charts started to occur for the stamina metagame. It offers a good time capsule into what the standards for stream volume were like in those days for these bpms.
- Because this pack, Cirque du Zonda and Cirque du Zeppelin all have face graphics in their banners, I have, on at least a couple of occasions, been able to prove the Cirque packs were mine by replicating the face in real life settings