Petriform's Factory is a collaboration stream pack by Zaia and RustITG. It is an artist-specific pack that focuses on the artist most well-known as Petriform, as well as by their other alias Trucks Factory.
| Pack Director | Zaia |
| Stepartists | Zaia, RustITG |
| BPM | 174-300 |
| Songcount | 39 (1 mix + 2 mix parts) |
| Blocks | 10-28 (14-22 target) |
| Type | Stream |
| Format | Singles |
| Release Date | Sep 07, 2019 |
¶ Structure
Simfiles in the pack have four charts each, excluding the marathon and its parts, and the two mixes Funky Fresh Blitz and Lifestyles Transformed. The simfile Departure 6 only has a Hard chart lower. The general block distribution is quite high, and the 14-22 block target difficulty range covers all but 27 charts in the pack (out of 139 total charts). This is because most charts feature non-negligible volumes of 16th streams.
Most songs in the pack are within the 200-240 BPM range, with some outliers.
Chart patterning is generally on the slidey end of the spectrum, though there are some steppy-ish charts. There's some diversity between both stepartists but all my charts tended to skew slidey.
¶ Development
The Petriform project was born on June 20, 2018 when Rust shared Petriform's album nothing is for sure in Stamina Nation (the old Stamina Nation) and I started a conversation with him in private about it, and at one point he mentioned that Petriform was also Trucks Factory and 40oz. To Life (two aliases I was pretty well-familiar with). I had been looking for a new property to work on in 2018, having come off of the releases of Cirque du Enzo and Rebuild of Sharpnel, did my training in Cirque du Huayra and submitted the qualifier round for Stamina Showcase 2, as well as pumped out a dozen or so charts for Saitama's Ultimate Weapon, and wanted to capitalize on the momentum.
Punch Buggy Slug Bug was the song that really got me sold on the potential of Petriform, and we both immediately started picking songs. I generally let Rust take first pick of songs and I filled out the remainder with ones I felt were viable. It helped significantly that he made a Dropbox folder for us with the four Trucks Factory PRBS (Pop Radio Bullshit) albums to help put all the potential music into one place.
Work progressed extremely quickly on this pack. I did 8 simfiles in two days, and then promptly forgot the pack existed until late February 2019 (I was actually pretty busy with a number of things during that time; not just simfile-related but irl too). After taking a three-week break after the releases of Dragonforce Kaioken and Cirque du Miura, I felt ready to continue clearing out the backlog
Rust worked slower than I did but maintained a consistent pace and was able to clear out most of his simfiles over the rest of 2018 and into 2019. Some more work was done by the both of us, and we agreed on a tentative release date of May 20, which was the first day of Stamina RPG 3. This is before I had any empirical data about what a bad idea that would have been.
Rust ended up focusing super hard on Stamina RPG that year, so motivation for simfiles went down temporarily. I was also side-questing into Helblinde PDTA, which wasn't helping at all, so once again Petriform had to go back into the vault - but it was closer to completion than ever.
Stamina RPG ended on August 04, and we both decided that it was time to release this pack for real. By this time there were a handful of new songs and others that had become viable, so the songlist expanded for the last time from 32 to 40.
Once it was complete at the end of August, we were just waiting for the right moment to release it.
¶ Artistic Influences and Chart Design
Zaia
My impression of Petriform's music is that the songs are very relaxing and comfortable to listen to, despite them being chiptunes (which usually have sharp attacks - which gives them a bit of a harsh quality). I therefore wanted my steps to reflect this feeling that the music evoked. Since Cirque du Enzo, I had been learning about pattern intensity and transition smoothness, and concepts such as this were at the very forefront of my mind. The charts in this pack were my experiment in how “chill” I could make my pattern transitions in spite of their high BPMs (200+), and how smooth and drawn-out I could write stream patterning in general.
Trucks Factory music was a little different, since they had a more hard sound, and the conventional pop melodies allowed for more general pattern density. These were, in a way, a contrast to the Petriform songs to help highlight the ability for charts to have mood, as conveyed through their pattern intensity.
Departure 6 was my first extensively-designed 300 BPM simfile, and it took many attempts at balancing candles with steppiness to find an agreeable pattern distribution. As the BPM of a simfile increases, the importance of intelligent patterning also increases in proportion to the BPM. The focus on practical writing principles and awareness of kinesthetics rises dramatically. Writing this chart helped me segue into work on fof a few months later.
RustITG
To be added
¶ Graphics
Rust did the general banner for the pack. The color and style is modeled after don't worry, you're great! and the text font is the one used in nothing is for sure.
I had a bit more difficulty coming up with something - I couldn't really think of anything distinctly logical or referential, so I decided to let my feelings dictate the visual style, and I was able to come up with a concept that felt pleasing. I didn't want to insert an overt reference to something relevant to me with this one, since this project
My graphic is a pixel art of a house on a tiny island in the middle of a still ocean, with clouds on the horizon, and with a tiny nothing is for sure album cover jacket placed by a tree. My rationale was that Petriform music made me feel comfy and tranquil, and I imagined a really comfy Petriform resting on the tiny pixel beach enjoying his own tunes. I made the text of mine very simple, using Arial font, to help convey further feelings of familiarity and simplicity. The artwork I chose was also a skyscape, which felt very on-brand for me, so that part was my personal contribution.
¶ Songlist
Petriform's Factory contains 36 songs and 1 mix and 2 mix parts. One song was permanently removed from the pack
| Song | Artist | BPM | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ahead Of Your Time | Petriform | 210 | Zaia |
| Albacore Song | Petriform | 230 | Zaia |
| Bwark? | Petriform | 249 | RustITG |
| Check The Fly | Trucks Factory | 215 | RustITG |
| delete!delete!delete! | Petriform | 210 | Zaia |
| Departure 6 | Petriform | 300 | Zaia Expert contains 8th doublesteps |
| Dodgeball | Petriform | 210 | RustITG |
| Funky Fresh Blitz | Trucks Factory | 220 | RustITG |
| Gone Without | Petriform | 210 | Zaia |
| Got A Lego | Trucks Factory | 240 | Zaia |
| Hambubger Rave | Trucks Factory | 200 | RustITG |
| I Don't Like The Original Title of This Song So I Changed It, F**k You | Trucks Factory | 215 | RustITG |
| I'm Gonna Fly (Pt. 1) | Petriform | 180 | RustITG |
| I'm Gonna Fly (Pt. 2) | Petriform | 210 | Zaia |
| k7 (k9-k2) | Petriform | 210 | RustITG |
| Kill The Shredder (The Arcade Game) | Trucks Factory | 210 | RustITG |
| Killian Is Lying To You | Petriform | 210 | RustITG |
| Lifestyles Transformed | Trucks Factory | 230 | Zaia |
| Melt Away | Ash Astral & Petriform | 174 | Zaia |
| No One Escapes Trucks | katagiri (かたぎり) | 250 | Zaia |
| Not The Same (Petriform Cover) | Bodyjar | 240 | RustITG |
| Pace Yourself | Petriform | 210 | RustITG |
| Please Renew Lucas Bro Moving Co For A Third Season | Trucks Factory | 240 | Zaia “Please Renew Lucas Bro Moving Co” is placed in the title “For A Third Season” is placed in the subtitle |
| Punch Buggy Slug Bug | Petriform | 240 | Zaia |
| Rainbow Dash Likes Girls (PRBS Remix) | Renard | 220 | Removed from the pack for the courtesy of Petriform on Oct 04, 2019 |
| Something 4 U | Trucks Factory | 253 | Zaia |
| Stay (Wish On A Star) | Petriform | 200 | Zaia |
| Suck On It Trebek I Mean Chicago I Mean Aquagen | Petriform | 190 | RustITG |
| Summer (Petriform Cover) | Sum 41 | 230 | Zaia |
| Super Dog Park | Petriform | 200 | RustITG |
| The Blast Roundup | Petriform | 250 | Zaia |
| The Second Story | Petriform | 176 | Zaia |
| Vicodin Beach Party | Trucks Factory | 225 | Zaia |
| Video Girl (Petriform Remix) | Slime Girls | 228 | RustITG |
| Viva La Vida | Petriform | 180 | RustITG |
| Wilson Phillips Screwdriver | Petriform | 210 | RustITG |
| World's Best Waterslide | Petriform | 220 | Zaia |
| [Marathon] nothing is for sure | Petriform | 210 | |
| [Marathon] nothing is for sure (Side A) | Petriform | 210 | |
| [Marathon] nothing is for sure (Side B) | Petriform | 230 |
¶ Reception and Retrospect
Petriform's Factory was released at StaminaCon on September 07, 2019, at the end of my “It’s All Just Mindless Streams” presentation. It took a little while for momentum to build up for players, who were all pretty burned out from ITG after an intense stamina season, but the score screenshots started rolling in, slowly but surely.
The pack has become a go-to pack for slide-form players, because of how slidey the charts were written. There weren't many explicitly slide-oriented 200-220 BPM stamina charts at the time, so this pack became form-training content for those players and this helped to consolidate its popularity. The pack remains well-liked by the community and the music is a perennial favorite for Petriform's comforting sound design and gentle chiptune style, and Trucks Factory's throwbacks to popular late 90s and early 00s pop music hits.
¶ Trivia
- Petriform knows about the pack and likes it. He's been closely associated with simfiles in the past
- He did the StepMania FlightMix series (dated from at least 2008)
- Petriform's full list of aliases include:
- Trucks Factory
- 40oz. To Life
- Kita Khyber
- Kita K.
- Kita Keru
- D TRX
- M.E.G.A.L.O. Concept
- NU-MEGALO
- Shroomer Starboy
- For a period of time this pack was known as the “Dewey Decimal” pack, a name given to it by Bran
- He said the music sounded like “Dewey Decimal System” music
- There is an inside joke about cutting Departure 6 after measure 173, because the music isn't as good after that point and renaming it “Departure 4”
- Got A Lego almost didn't make it into the pack. There was already a version by Aoreo (JNero) in Jimmy Jawns 1
- It isn't explicitly stated but katagiri's No One Escapes Trucks is a mashup of Trucks Factory songs