Finding Partners
If you know there are other players coming into the ball with you, then you’ll just want to wait for them to arrive. But if you want to dance and there aren’t enough players you can select AI to dance with.
To select an AI partner, take your place at one of the 4 places on the ballroom floor. Ladies, you will stand on the left and gentlemen, on the right.
When you step onto one of the numbers the option to choose an AI partner will appear (if there is no player opposite you). You will also get the dance steps for the position you are standing in. Click AI Partner to get an AI partner and AI Other to get an AI couple for your other couple. Whether AI or other players, once all 4 places in the square are occupied it will be time to begin the dance.
Honour Your Partner
All dances begin with honouring your partner. This is a bow for the gentlemen and a curtsy for the ladies. Either way, click on the HONOR button.
After the partners have honoured one another the first couple will begin the dance. Look on the floor for additional hints on where to go.
Dance Steps The current dance has 3 steps: lead, cast, and 2 hand turn. Leads and casts have two directions: up and down. To lead means to move in the centre and to cast is to move on the outside. Up is toward the higher couples and down is toward the lower couples. So Lead Up is to move first to the centre toward your partner and together you move toward the second couple. To Lead Down is to move first to the centre and then down the centre toward the first couple. You will control your movement during these steps. Soon you won’t need to look at the floor any more.
Turns Turns are unique dance steps. Similar to Honour, the player clicks the button to begin the turn and then clicks again to end the turn. However, the animation of turning will take over the character so you, as a player, don’t need to worry about the movement, just the timing of the turn.
Scoring We track your movement and if you move correctly for each step (a step is 4 beats or one measure) that step will turn green assuring you that you did the dance correctly. If, however, you were not on the beat moving in the correct direction for each beat of the step, the step will be highlighted in red indicating you did not do the step correctly.