the cutting room mirror

KeyboardMania (Arcade)

Konami went from somewhat unrealistic guitars to realistic drums to a real keyboard. What is this, an uncanny jam session?

Unused Graphics#

Placeholder Graphics#

Inside MU_SEL.ZCC are several placeholder song entry graphics. While only 21 songs are playable in this game, there are graphics for unused entries 22 to 25 or 27.

mu_bpm22-25
keyboardmania-mu_bpm22.png

mu_data22-24
keyboardmania-mu_data22.png

mu_data25
keyboardmania-mu_data25.png

se_gcd22-27
keyboardmania-se_gcd22.png

se_ocd22-27
keyboardmania-se_ocd22.png

Armajiro#

The folder 03ARMAJR, which contains background animation data for the song Armajiro, has two sprite sheets that are not called by ARMAJIRO.MSQ, the animation controller:

ANIM01.ZCC
Contains an animation labeled "test". The file is dated October 2, 1999, a month prior to the other sprite sheets.
keyboardmania-anim01.png

ARM07.ZCC
A slightly longer variant of ARM06.ZCC, which is used in the song's ending.
keyboardmania-arm07.png

(Source: tikal.)

Developer Credit#

The file gq974-ja contains a set of security strings, one of which contains a developer credit:

MoDe:SeRViCe/PRoGRaMeD BY USR01979(HaJiMe SaiTo)

This string is present in most Konami FireBeat games, and refers to Hajime Saito, who worked as a programmer at the time.

Regional Differences#

KeyboardMania was released in Korea under the title of KeyboardHeaven. The only known difference is in its songlist: the songs kimi ni ai ni yukou, Mighty Guy, Shiritori and Shining Dream are absent due to Korean law at the time censoring songs with Japanese lyrics.

References#


  1. コナミ「スマッシュ&スピン2」も 本物の鍵盤叩く音楽機「キーボードマニア」 - Game Machine, Issue 604, February 15, 2000↩︎