Dance Dance Rebus

AKA: You Can Leave Your Friends Behind

Presentation

This clue came under the guise of the Fire Lake Dance Club. Players encountered a pair of Dance Dance Revolution stations, each with a pair of dance pads, video projector, high-power sound system, and a printer. Staff greeted each team at the door, welcoming them into the club and advising them to have fun. Any questions regarding where the puzzle was or what they should do were responded to with the simple suggestion, "DANCE!"

The club supported two teams at a time, one per station. The players were free to choose whichever songs they liked, but the game was rigged so that both players had to survive a stage in order to pass (in contrast to normal DDR versus mode, where the game continues as long as either participant remains alive). Once the players survived a stage, a piece of paper would be printed, and the real solving could begin.

Sample Printout

Song title: CANDY
Base coverage: 70%
Difficulty weight ranges from 2 feet (30%) to 8 (100%)
Player 0 - Difficulty: 3 Feet (40%), Accuracy: 96%
Player 1 - Difficulty: 3 Feet (40%), Accuracy: 78%
Average weighted accuracy (difficulty * accuracy): 34%
Total coverage (base coverage * average accuracy): 24%

Details

As teams progressed, they discovered that the individual songs didn't matter. The only important variables were the difficulty (in terms of DDR's feet meter) and their accuracy. These two values combined to determine the size of the puzzle pieces being printed. The system averaged the scores of the two participants; this, combined with the "both must survive" rule, helped to prevent a single DDR champion from being able to dominate the puzzle.