Solution to Rhythm Game Arcade

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Answer: DARN IT ALL

by Evan Chen, Lewis Chen, Yannick Yao

The puzzle features nine videos, each depicting a different rhythm game. (The background music for all videos is a cut version of Crab Rave by Noisestorm, a song that is well-known in the rhythm game community. The song choice is not relevant to the puzzle.)

The first step is to identify the names of each game, which can be used to fill in the blanks below each video. The boxed letters spell the message COMBO NUMS.

The second step is to count the combo number of each chart, which gives a number between 69 and 89 inclusive. (This number is shown at the end of each video except for the last one, since the authors are unable to find a chart editor for Beat Saber that displays the combo number. In Beat Saber, each block counts as one combo, so the combo number can be obtained via counting all the blocks.) Converting them to letters via ASCII gives the message FORTY-FIVE.

The last step is to look at each chart around 45 combo. The notes at that time all encode semaphore in some form, and reading the encoded letters gives the answer DARN IT ALL, a phrase a rhythm game player might say when they (say) missed a note and broke the combo.

GameCombo (ASCII)SemaphoreExplanation
Arcaea70 (F)DThe sky notes go from top to bottom
osu!79 (O)AShape of slider
StepMania82 (R)RA jump with a left arrow and a right arrow
Jubeat84 (T)NArrangement of three simultaneous notes
Deemo89 (Y)IShape of three consecutive slide (yellow) notes
Lanota70 (F)TPlacement of notes around the circle
Cytus II73 (I)ADirection of two simultaneous slide notes
Pump It Up86 (V)LA jump with a DL and a UR arrow
Beat Saber69 (E)LDirection of slicing of two simultaneous blocks