DDRTED

DDRTED was the working title of a planned video game developed by Ted Phillips mainly from September 21, 2003, until January 24, 2004. The game was cancelled in early 2004.

During September 2003, Ted Phillips visited Alex Zuleta at his home, where Zuleta was playing a computer game called StepMania on his computer when Ted arrived. Ted was interested that the game looked like an easier PC version of games in the Dance Dance Revolution series, which Zuleta also played, because it was played using arrow keys on a keyboard rather than on a pad with one's feet. However, he noticed that Zuleta seemed to be perfectly executing every stage in StepMania, achieving a rank of AA on several songs, suggesting that Zuleta was not challenged by StepMania.

Since Ted had a history of designing difficult games in the past, such as Donkey Kong Galaxy and Observatory, he promised Zuleta that he would create his own version of StepMania with songs that would be more challenging.

On September 21, 2003, Ted Phillips obtained a copy of StepMania, began programming song stages, and began planning other modifications, such as branding the game with a new title.

It is unclear whether Ted came up with the title himself or whether it was simply nicknamed by Zuleta and others, but it was thereafter referred to by the working title DDRTED. The name was in the same vein as the title of the video game DDRMAX, which was available on PlayStation2 at the time, and which Ted would sometimes witness Zuleta or William Mazzariello playing. Perhaps not coincidentally, Ted played the character Maximillion Pegasus in the series Ni-Ki-Oh!; thus, the logic may have been such that "Ted" could be exchanged for the "Max" in the title "DDRMAX." Some evidence to this theory exists in the development files, where it appears that certain menu interactions and DJ announcements in game were supposed to trigger voice clips of Ted's Pegasus character.

Ted continued developing the game throughout fall 2003, programming stages for various songs from franchises like Sonic the Hedgehog, Yu-Gi-Oh!, The Matrix, Love Hina, and Kingdom Hearts.

The last song to be programmed during this period was "Mr. Grinch" on December 21-22, 2003. Some further development on branding and design continued until January 24, 2004, after which Ted took an assessment of the project.

DDRTED development had consumed much of Ted Phillips's available time during the preceding period, for a game that was originally intended for a small audience, mainly Zuleta himself. As a result, other projects Ted was working on at the time suffered. Ni-Ki-Oh! was currently airing its third season, and edits of several episodes were not completed on schedule, causing them to be delayed and spread out. Very little filming took place during this period, forcing the season to go on hiatus during January 2004. Other titles that Ted would rather have developed, such as The Lost Pyramid, were neglected.

The game was also considered a partial failure. As Zuleta had beta-tested a few songs over time, he did not find them especially challenging. Meanwhile, he was not interested in attempting other songs that Ted believed were more challenging, because Zuleta preferred to play songs if he personally liked the music, something Ted had not anticipated.

The project was cancelled. Although it was not a consideration at the time, if DDRTED were ever completed and wider distribution was sought outside of headquarters play, licensing the various songs would have proved difficult.

In early April 2005, as Cracked Egg Studios began planning upgrades to its workstations, it began assessing and organizing files which could be transferred to the new systems. At the same time, as it was preparing to launch its web site, it additionally needed to assess what intellectual property was under the studio's control. As a result of these negotiations, the studio achieved a blanket acquisition of various video games, films, writings, and other such works of art, created directly by Ted Phillips or by any company in which Ted Phillips held a majority stake. Thus, Cracked Egg Studios acquired DDRTED at this time, and had Ted wrap up at least one of the few infamous songs in the game that were incomplete before the game was archived. The last song to be completed was "Throw It All Away" on April 8, 2005.

Songs in DDRTED were separated into various categories, mainly by source. The following songs had stages that were at least partially programmed:


A number of other songs of varying difficulty were planned but no portions were ever programmed. Some of the hardest planned stages included "Samus vs. Meta Ridley" and "Samus vs. Essence of Metroid Prime" from Metroid Prime; and "General Offensive (Sky Deck)" from Sonic Adventure.