Oh happy day … I’ve spotted the convergence of two of my favorite topics: physically-active games and user-generated content. :)

Codemasters has announced that Dance Factory will be available for purchase in April. Dance Factory is DDR with a twist: game content is auto-generated using a player’s own music collection. In other words, you can dance to anything you own (or create!) I wonder what would happen if you popped Barry Manilow in the drive…

This screenshot shows that the game has a definite emphasis on exercise: it displays “calories burned”, “equivalent jogging”, and “equivalent swimming”. I wonder if this might almost be too much information? I think the fitness angle is extremely important, but it’s kind of a downer to think about jogging when I’m looking for fun. More of a downer if I play a quick game and burn hardly any calories. Maybe there’s another way to communicate this information? Doritos incinerated, perhaps? Gotta choose a small food unit to keep the reported numbers high. :)

BTW, Codemasters has also produced Music Generator 3, in tandem with MTV. Good example of the correct way to fuse consumer brands with video game content — sensible and relevant to the gameplay.