Video Game / UK Sight Reading Tournament

Logos of the past UKSRT Tournaments from Top Left: Generic UKSRT Logo, UKSRT8 Logo, UKSRT9 Logo, UKSRTX Logo

When In the Groove was Screwed by the Lawyers, the community took their attention to messing with the game itself. One of the more popular disciplines to emerge (besides stamina) have been sightreading tournaments, where competitors play newly-created "mod files" — which take the existing course system in StepMania up to eleven — without having seen them before in advance. While community member WinDEU became known for these events in the U.S., a British player known as TaroNuke soon became known for doing these in the United Kingdom.

The events initially were held at local anime conventions (to the point that they were originally known as the AnimeLeague Sight Reading Tournaments, before they became known as simply UKSRT), and are now most often held at the Heart of Gaming arcade in Croyden.

The tournaments have also had increasingly intricate production values, evolving from merely a basic Excuse Plot Framing Device to a full-on storyline told through the various stages. While Taro is still the primary developer, the stages themselves have increasingly been produced with the assistance of other members of his community as well.

Beginning with UKSRT 8, the event has employed its own specific build of OpenITG known as NotITG — which contains various enhancements and new features designed primarily for mod files. Likewise, the tournament itself has historically become the means for debuting new features appearing in said fork. That point also marked the beginning of the "virus arc" — where the series (which had largely been a collection of pastiches of other works) began to develop a more solid storyline and continuity. Recent Spin-Off events with involvement by Taro have effectively created a Shared Universe between the UKSRT series, WinDEU's events, as well as those of other organizers as well.

Downloads of the most recent editions, as well as full playthroughs accompanied by the cutscenes from the actual events (which are not included) are on CosmicLAER's YouTube channel, and editions since UKSRT 8 require NotITG. There are also ports of earlier editions for StepMania 5.x (up to most of 8 on 5.1, and one stage from 9 requiring the 5.1 fork Project OutFox instead), but UKSRT 9 and X depend heavily on features that have not yet been implemented in the main branch of StepMania (particularly GL shader support, but recent OutFox developments have made them theoretically possible).

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Now let me see you rock these tropes to the rhythm!

• Abstract Eater: UKSRTX's villan Peeesh consumes the energy of players, rather than anything physical.
• All Just a Dream: Half of 8 is this, with stages 4, 5a, 5b and Extra all happening while the player characters are knocked out thanks to Ayaze opening a door in front of their paths during Mawaru Simulator 2016. This is alluded to in the second-to-last cutscene, where Ayaze notes that the past few stages has all been a dream.
  Ayaze: You were out ever since the accident at the end of your test - that's basically the past 4 stages, right?
• April Fools' Day
  • In 2020, a "NotITG 4-1" was released, which ended up coming with Peeesh's Excellent Theme. It also forces Flip mode.
• Author Avatar: Nearly everyone is one.
  • Taro has one that has sometimes appeared in stages (often seen wearing a red bandana), particularly during the Mawaru songs and making cameos in other songs from earlier editions. A Taro relevant to the plot actually does appear in X. It's revealed later that this Taro, and several other enemies fought, were all shapeshifted forms of a villain named Peeesh.
  • CosmicLAER, an artist and Taro's partner, also has a recurring avatar character — Laer, a guardian of the human race.
  • Ayaze has kind of served this purpose too.
• Bonus Level: It is not uncommon in the later editions for there to be an additional stage after the final (and usually played by the tournament champion). They often end up being a tech demo to show off new features and/or provide closure to the storyline, such as "Matoi" on 8 (which represents the character's resurrection after basically being killed by SHAME, and is even described as being basically a tech demo), "Astra walkthrough" on 9 (which doesn't even use NotITG at all, but a custom Unity engine running on an HTC Vive headset), and "Thread of Fate Manipulator" (where the attacks were being controlled in real-time by a second person using a MIDI controller. And he was also the composer of the music too, we must add).
• Captain Ersatz: Darren Styles in 8 is one of Derek Stiles, a character from the Trauma Center franchise, with a name referencing a British hardcore music producer.
• Censored Title
  • The two "Get fucked" songs are often listed with letters censored out.
  • The first edition is also sometimes referred to as "gat", an abbreviation formed from the titles of its first three songs ("Guardian Girl's Gerbera Got Germ", "Abandon", and "The Terror of Death"). Similarly, "Get fucked 2" is sometimes referred to as "gat2", even though the songs used don't even share the same initials.
  • Plus "eat shit" was listed on Taro's YouTube upload as "eat shint"
• Co-Op Multiplayer: UKSRT 6 was built specifically around this, with a second player using a PlayStation controller to control a minigame alongside the steps, such as Tetris being played on the notefield, or having to shoot asteroids to prevent them from obstructing the arrows. These were modified for the official release to just use the second player's input instead.
  • 8 expanded on this concept with its Bonus Level, "Flyin' To Your Heart" (Gitaroo Man), where the way to defeat SHAME is to attack while operating — or in other words, its a Couples chart (i.e. Color-Coded Multiplayer a la Pump It Up), except there is a segment in the middle of the song with several co-op minigames that must be completed to continue. (one player has to hit enough notes to fill a gauge, the second player does the minigame). The song does not continue until the minigames are completed (accomplished using a new function in the engine for manipulating the playback position).
• Crossover: Apparent in the earlier instalments, which occasionally featured crosses with elements of Rhythm Heaven, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Mirai Nikki, Bravely Default, Metal Gear Solid, and Trauma Center (the last right down to having someone named Darren Styles in it. Who is not to be confused with Derek Stiles).
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Cursor in UKSRT9, after being corrupted by SCOLD. She rips herself apart, complete with bloodcurdling scream. Lovely.
• Deadpan Snarker: Princess Mimi, a character seen in the older editions.
  Mimi: You are the GARBAGEST team.
• Fighting a Shadow: X's fight with Luculent (the god seen in "Matoi" on 8) during stage 5a reveals at the end that it was actually Peeesh, who managed to shapeshift into them because of the large amount of energy that Laer has as a Guardian.
• Foreshadowing:
  • X features several deliberate continuity errors that are subtle hints towards Peesh's presence.
    • In Mawaru Gold, "Taro's" dialogue subtitles are suddenly a pink-ish color near the end, and references the players as being full of energy — later revealed to be what he feeds on.
    • In "Why do you hate me?", Ayaze suddenly has glasses again, despite not having had them up to this point.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: Peeesh exhibits this in multiple occasions, including "Super Reflex" (where his creation Goblin #1, near the end of the song, literally walks onto the HUD and stabs the notefields with a dagger to make them unusable for a moment), and the entire build-up for the bonus song on X — where Peeesh specifically acknowledges the players directly, as well as closes the game and launching an, ahem, more "excellent" version of it — and controls the game himself (*by means of someone else using a MIDI controller)
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • "Dying breath of stokesia" in 9 has a parody of this Engrish poster with SHAME and SCOLD on it.
  • "Doppelganger" in X is just full of them in the middle segment.
  A Bethesda.net account is required to view the next three arrows
• Fun with Acronyms: SHAME ("Symbiotic Hematophage Aberrant Mutating Eliminator") and SCOLD ("Systemic Catastrophe and Ontological Loss Driver"). Of course, the former is an homage to GUILT from Trauma Center.
• Game-Breaking Bug: The ending of "You Are The Miserable" broke when it was played during the event proper due to a texture memory bug, causing it to look more like a snowstorm rather than a sea of cloned notefields, as it was meant to appear.
• Instant Costume Change: After being hit on the head with Taro's (actually Peeesh's) Magic Staff in X, the costumes of Laer, Ayaze and SHAME change into medieval-era clothing, foreshadowing that Peeesh can see SHAME like the player.
• Interface Screw: Naturally, this is the entire point, and seeing what new kinds of effects will be pulled off is also part of the appeal to many.
• LOL69: The results screens on X list a "Nice" award if the number 69 appears anywhere in their step counts or score (itself a reference to the popular Simply Love theme for SM, which has a similar feature). And then someone somehow scored 69.69%, and the crowd went wild.
  Laer: Yeah guys, the tournament is fucking over, sorry. [laughs]
• Marathon Level: "Pernicious Deed" clocks in at nearly six minutes in length.
  • 8 and 9 both featured an extended medley of several songs, "Get fucked" and "Get fucked 2" respectively, as their final rounds.
  • X went in a different direction by using extended versions of two individual songs, "Golden Rule" and "Doppelganger", with cutscenes in between, but scored cumulatively (where they were collectively listed on the result screen as "Eat shit").
• Minecart Madness: Used in "Mawaru Gold" in a section referencing Super Mario Maker 2.
• Minigame Game: The "Mawaru" songs, especially on later editions (which makes sense, given that they're a WarioWare parody).
  • 6 also had "Princess Mimi's Game Corner", where one player did the normal charts where applicable, and the other played games alongside them.
• Non-Standard Game Over: Go on, play "You Are the Miserable" with only one player enabled.
• Ominous Visual Glitch: Associated with both SHAME and SCOLD, given that the former's use of this is to symbolize the player hallucinating and being infected, and the latter — well, it's accurate to say they're both viruses.
• Past Right Now: The first half of X takes place in a medieval town called Blingdenway. It is later found out that Peeesh made the entire place up and sustained it with the energy exerted by Laer and Ayaze.
• Prop Recycling (In-Universe): The X-ray screens in "Mawaru Simulator 2016" are a slight re-skin of monitor sprites used in Taro's "lootus" file, with a stand and wheels added, and the "MINIGAME-O-MATIC" text partly covered with a piece of tape with "X-RAY" written on it.
• Racing Minigame: For a brief moment in "Mawaru Simulator 2016". Yes, it has Initial D music.
• Reference Overdosed:
  • The Mawaru stages are typically constructed using segments referencing other popular simfiles, memes, and even working minigames based on other games — such as, in "Mawaru and the Magician's Curse", both a Crypt of the NecroDancer segment and a Madden NFL '92 segment where you have to "collect patient!" by running the player over with the ambulance. "Mawaru Gold" in X follows suit with Super Smash Bros. Target Smash, Ba Ba Is You, and more impressively given the engine, Rolled Out!.
• Running Gag
  • "Nope, no hints here!!" Often used before an incoming Mawaru stage or something similar.
  • 9 had several instances of a running gag involving the arrow sequence Up Up Down Up: during the "Defrag Dance" seeding minigame, this sequence is first listed with the message "Remember this!", and later on, a sequence consisting of four diamonds with question marks on them comes up with the message "Do you remember?" This ended up reoccurring multiple times throughout the remainder of the stages, often with the message "Do you still remember?", including "131", where you have to weave through an area in that sequence, and "Get fucked 2", where they come up as actual notes during the breakdown of "Mdrqnxtagon". It even shows up in X as a possible "do it" prompt in Mawaru Gold, one year later.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: SHAME is contained within a vial, which is accidentally smashed and released when The Door Slams You during the final Endless Runner segment of "Mawaru Simulator 2016", causing an outbreak that sets up the rest of the story.
• Shoulder Teammate: SHAME becomes this after 8 due to you being the only living host of her. She needs your body to survive and therefore keeps you from getting into any dangerous situations.
• Shout-Out
  • Modster Mash 3 was labelled on Taro's menu screen (a heavily modified Simply Love theme that contains the code used to run the tournaments and their cutscenes) as " The latest mods tournament that simply everyone." ("Is talking about? Yes.")
• Spin-Off
  • Modster Mash is a series of events that primarily featured competition across existing mod files, with the final using a new file. Modster Mash 3, which was held at Illinois's long-running Rumble in the Prairie ITG tournament, deviated from this by consisting entirely of new songs by various community members, linked together by a storyline involving Laer and a group of new characters.
  • Mods Boot Camp 3 (the third in a series of tournaments that mainly draws from SOUND VOLTEX songs, and usually using only OpenITG features), which was co-produced by Taro and Daikyi (most of the songs remained OpenITG-compatible rather than using NotITG, except for enhanced visuals with a backwards compatibility fallback on certain songs, and several songs actually requiring it), featured extensive Canon Welding and Nostalgia Levels with characters from other tournaments, using a Framing Device inspired by the World of Light mode of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
• Straw Fan: The attendees of the events are represented by faceless characters who accompany Laer and Ayaze. The character is special because they are the only surviving inhabitant of SHAME, who needs them to survive.
• Tsundere: SHAME became more of one after 8.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: This is not an exception, but the rule, especially when you realize you have to do this with a dance pad:
  • Ayaze's Signature Move is to replicate other rhythm games. For instance, see "Flugel", which featured beatmania IIDX, DJMAX Technika, jubeat, pop'n music, and maimai segments. Not to mention that because it was the Final-Exam Boss of 2, it also contained Rhythm Heaven segments as callbacks to the previous stages. "[line:δ]" in 9 had Groove Coaster sequences (mainly to show off the support for having the notes travel down spline curves), while X piled on the references with Cytus, Lanota (appropriately in the stage using a song from said game), Arcaea^note (Taro has done charts for Arcaea, most notably the April Fools' Day joke "Ignotus Afterburn" — which features similar interface screw and gimmickry. As a bonus, fellow charter Nitro was also a contestant), Taiko no Tatsujin and A Dance of Fire and Ice among others, along with Crypt Of The Necrodancer (using a trail of gold and traps to indicate the steps) and Phigros on the release version. The last five also appeared over the course of just one song, too
  • 9 also brought "131", a stage consisting of a mix of platforming levels (inspired by the indie game 140) and interludes with songs in between.
  • The Mawaru stages are just full of these in general.
• Universal-Adaptor Cast: Ayaze was initially a recurring "boss" character and mascot in many of Taro's files in general, and is generally portrayed as as a chaotic neutral. She did begin to have a more a role in the Virus arc, though.

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Nope, no hints here!!