Helblinde 2016 is a stream pack by Zaia.
It is the second pack in the Helblinde series. Preceded by Helblinde (2014) and followed by Helblinde PDTA (2019).
| Pack Director | Zaia |
| Stepartists | Zaia, Dewprism (lolipo) |
| BPM | 140-220 |
| Songcount | 19 |
| Blocks | 10-18 (12-18 target) |
| Type | Stream |
| Format | Singles |
| Release Date | Apr 29, 2016 |
¶ Structure
Helblinde 2016 is structured identically to Helblinde. Most simfiles have four charts, and all lowers are the “cut stream lower” type.
Two songs, Aura and Heaven's Fall, received resteps. These are subtitled “2016 Rebuild”.
Chart description fields contain the stream breakdown.
¶ Development
I conceived Helblinde 2016 in January of that year as another sidequest project (interrupting Betwixt & Between for the third time) when Helblinde released his next full album The True Prophet. There hadn't been any plan to do a sequel, even as the Questionable Future and Deep Dark Fantasies EPs had come out throughout 2015, but a full size album in conjunction with those was encouragement enough for me to pull the trigger on it.
The stepping of the pack took place over a one week period at the end of January. On March 07 I received the pack back from Aoreo, who had performed a sync check and re-cuts.
As this was a short turnaround pack, there was no supplementary material prepared.
The Stream Breakdown Notation reaches its modern incarnation with this pack. The * qualifier is altered to include breaks between streams, so that the number displayed indicates the length of music within which streams are contained (this allows easier mental parsing as sections are more likely to be in multiples of 8). The | symbol is added, to indicate breaks that would allow a “full recovery” between streams.
There is generally less to write about with this pack because most of what could be said about it was already mentioned in the article for Helblinde. This pack was born suddenly, didn't have any lore leading up to its conception, completed quickly and released so quickly that most missed it.
¶ Artistic Influences and Chart Design
By this time, I had a number of collab projects behind me and was well into the second “phase” of my career. I had finished most of my learning for this stage and now time could be devoted to consolidating the knowledge and creating new content with it.
The charts in Helblinde 2016 were more organically written. I had increased my mental database of patterning and had stepped enough songs with enough variety to be able to hear specific patterns when I heard certain sounds, and this “pre-written” style allowed far faster and more consistent writing. The end result with this pack was that charts felt cleaner and patterns were the correct sizes, so that they didn't drift when repeated or skip over sounds. Pattern accuracy was still off by some degree, and some occurred up to a beat away from the sound they were being stepped to, but they were generally off by the same amount whenever they were.
¶ Graphics
The same concept used for the first pack was employed here. I took the text logo from The True Prophet and overlaid it against a wallpaper of an abstract skyscape. The girl in this one has no identity. I just looked for an image that resembled the first one. The same editing effects and composition are used and the result is a background that looks similar and adheres to the visual theme of the series, but isn't completely “the same”.
¶ Songlist
Helblinde 2016 contains 19 songs. The Quick Readme.xls can be opened here.
| Song | Artist | BPM | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ad Astra | Helblinde | 190 | |
| Aura (2016 Rebuild) | Helblinde | 210 | Restepped from Helblinde (2014) |
| Beyond Life | Helblinde | 140 | |
| DEAD END | Helblinde | 220 | |
| Dream Dashers | Helblinde | 190 | Sped up from 170bpm |
| Even if the World Deceives You | Helblinde | 200 | |
| Finality | Helblinde | 200 | |
| Heaven's Fall (2016 Rebuild) | Helblinde | 200 | Restepped from Helblinde (2014) |
| Hero | Helblinde | 180 | |
| Hoshi ga Matataku Konna Yoru ni | Helblinde | 200 | |
| Legacy of Kings | Helblinde ft. DJ 420 | 200 | |
| Lost in Singularity | Helblinde | 170 | |
| MEGA BONER | Helblinde | 200 | |
| Rewrite Nightmare | Helblinde | 200 | Collab with Dewprism (lolipo) |
| Summer Triangle | Helblinde | 200 | |
| The Rise of the Pre-teen Homosexuals | Helblinde | 200 | |
| To Those Who Sinned | Helblinde | 200 | |
| Yoshino's Boner | Helblinde | 200 | |
| Zelda's Boner | Helblinde | 200 |
¶ Reception and Retrospect
Helblinde 2016 was received as a welcome addition to the Helblinde series. Songs that were omitted in the first pack got some attention here, and personal favorites from the first pack got an updated chart. Hero was noticeably popular and I seemed to see more score posting of that one than the others.
I look back on this one more favorably that I do the original, mainly because I stepped it more naturally. This stage of my career was less about trying to achieve certain things with the charts and more about letting the music dictate how it wanted to be stepped. My experience was starting to show now and the experimentation of 2014 had been given enough time to lock-in and settle, and I was now in a position to more confidently make use of what I knew. The pack's scope was clear, simple, not ambitious and had prior precedent to use as a guide.
In Q1 2017 I passed the Helblinde property over to BasedHonk, who was interested in gaining a foothold as a stepartist. I felt I'd done everything I wanted to with the series and had no reservations handing the reins over to someone else.
Since development on it was really slow, I took it back in Q2 2019 after I thought about Thanos and that time he said “Fine, I'll do it myself".
¶ Trivia
- Helblinde 2016 contains 19 songs to balance out Helblinde's 21 songs for a total of 40
- Helblinde PDTA contains 20 songs
- The Readme .xls displays stream breakdowns in both the
*and fully expanded notations - I had to work some magic to censor the constant “penis” out of MEGA BONER
- Rewrite Nightmare was supposed to have a cdtitle that featured both mine and lolipo's together, just like with Aura, and the .sm file indicates this as such, but I forgot to make it and so it shipped with no cdtitle to display
- There is a Dewprism cdtitle .png file in the pack folder that doesn't get displayed anywhere in the game
- Zelda's Boner: The breakdown for the Medium chart reads “0.5 lol”. "lol" is an acronym that is short for “laughing out loud”
- lolipo initially cut the samples at the start and end of the song because we agreed that we didn't like them, but Aoreo redid the cut when he did the sync