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A dance mat, or dance pad, is a common name for an electronic pad used with dance games. Most dance pads are a square 3×3 matrix of panels that lies flat on the floor and connects to a dance arcade machine (such as Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) or Pump It Up), a video game system (such as PlayStation or Xbox), or a computer running a simulator (such as StepMania or Dance With Intensity). Each of the nine panels is an arrow, action, or unusable panel. Some dance pads also have extra action buttons besides these nine. Pairs of dance pads are often physically joined for gaming purposes.
There are two main types of dance pads: "hard" pads and "soft" pads. Hard pads are usually constructed with metal and sometimes wood for durability. Arcade machines use very durable metal pads that are designed for heavy use. Other hard pads can be purchased for home use with a video game system. Manufacturers of hard pads include Cobalt Flux and RedOctane.
Soft pads are made with plastic and/or foam and are much cheaper. They are not usually durable and may become worn easily. However, for light use they are very acceptable. Manufacturers of soft pads include Konami, RedOctane, and Naki International. Some soft pads have hard foam inserts to simulate the feel of playing on a hard pad.
Problems are often encountered when attempting to use a PlayStation pad with a computer simulator. Most PlayStation-PC adaptors will not register Up and Down, or Left and Right, simultaneously, although they are common "jumps" in dance games. This is because normal PlayStation games do not require such input, and because D-pads are not usually designed to physically permit such input. Stepmania.com has a webpage discussing adaptor compatibility (see external links).
Purchasers of home pads should be aware of the number and arrangement of active arrow panels that are required by the game(s) they want to play. Although most commercial pads have four arrow panels (DDR), some have five (Pump It Up), six (DDR "solo" mode), eight (), or nine (Technomotion).
Dance Dance Revolution has four arrow buttons on its 3×3 matrix: Up, Down, Left, and Right. Pump It Up has five: Up-Left, Up-Right, Center, Down-Left, and Down-Right. On Pump It Up's dance mat, the corner buttons are actually rectangles with length slightly larger than width.
See also
- Power Pad - the original video game pressure mat
External links
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