Who is Charles Farce?

My real name is Chuck Enck, but I'm also known for a few projektes: Musician Family Farce and graphic designer Credesign. I'm the creator of the Hopscotch Mix series originally released as downloadable content for the open-source rhythm game StepMania. In total I composed 140+ songs specifically for this game engine. The one unique thing about Hopscotch Mix was it was the first song pack released that was 100% independant. At the time of inception, there were no song packs available dedicated entirely to in-house musicians. All content was created by myself and our small team.

My music style is inspired by various artists, but I'm most influenced by rhythm game music (IIDX, DDR, PIU, ITG, etc.) and It's ecclectic style. Even though these games have various artists with various styles, I preffer to create songs with various genres: Hardcore, trance, pop, gabber, world, rock. Mixing genres into what could be considered experimental electronica.

Personal Life

In my spare time I enjoy art & graphic design, making graphics for my personal projects and freelancing time to time with various print work. I've been commissioned to create posters for various music venues, promoters, organizations and musicians. Obviously I enjoy creating music again and trying new things. I'm becoming even more passionate about programming and code, especially web coding and creating stylish, minimalist designs that are to-the-point and informative. I'm always lurking on GitHub and checking out other people's projects.

History of Hopscotch Mix! (tl;dr)

Back around '04 some friends (Lauren Hopkins, Sam Ganster, Kameron Gibson and Jacob Johnson) and myself decided to take some of our existing/works-in-progress songs and create additional content for the game engine StepMania (which was based off a game we frequently played at local arcades: DDR-PIU-ITG). With motivation, free meals at a college mess hall and coffee, we started a DLC pack lovingly named "Hopscotch Mix". The name was an obvious jab at a DDR pad resembling a game of hopscotch. Also inside jokes.

Everyone in the group was free to express themselves via composition, titles, design and art. Text and vox with words like "Shit", "Fuck" and "Noodles" were used periodically. We were independant and could do what we wanted.

Hopscotch Mix was meant to be diffinitive in It's ethics, not by It's content. An entirely Do-it-Yourself attitude that wasn't just assembly line electronica. Raw computer garbage created by poor college/working class kids who didn't give a shit about making money off their hobbies. We made music and art to make music and art and that drove our desire to continue. We had more fun woking on this project that words can describeand it created a great sense of friendship and community within our small circle.

When we set off on creating music and art, we had a few rules based on our personal integrity:

Utilizing programs ranging from Acid to eJay to FL Studio, we created songs with the intent of turning them into StepMania simfiles. Programs such as Illustrator & Photoshop were utilized to make the art and feel of Hopscotch Mix. We lacked the experience and tools to create background videos, plus time and focus went mostly into music creation.

Hopscotch Mix (the first) was completed and uploaded to a now non-existant site on February 25, 2005 with minimal impact on the community. We didn't care about popularity. Knowing that some people downloaded the packs was good enough to push us forward into the second mix: Hopscotch Mix 2 (or Hopscotch 2nd Mix). This project showed a bigger inclusion of everyone else's creations and became a turning point in the game's history. On October 21, 2005, Hopscotch Mix 2 was released to that old geocities or freeservers, whatever site with a slightly improved download ratio. Things were looking pretty damn good.

Immediately after the release of HSM2, we already began pre-production for Hopscotch Mix 3 (later dubbed Hopscotch Mix 3: Excel). The idea of calling the project "Excel" was paying homage to DDR's "Extreme" and PIU's "Exceed" series. I ended up taking over the project completely as all other HSM members had life happenings: School, careers, jorbz, got sick of making tunes, etc. I worked hard in whatever free time I had to complete this mix and by August 6th, 2006, Hopscotch Mix 3: Excel was completed and uploaded to familyfarce.net (launched sometime at the end of July 2006) with a larger audience than we've ever had before. StepMania.com posted our work on their home page and we were getting noticed by the community. Pretty cool stuff.

Around the last quarter of 2006 I had a small bulk of songs completed or near completion. I carried on, spending many an evening experimenting and trying new things with the song creation process. When I felt burned out on makng songs, I'd work on step charts. When that felt tedious, I'd work on art or the website, and then back to making songs (full circle). I pressed on through the remainder off '06, working almost completely on this project by myself. On New Year's eve 2006, something really cool happened.

While attending a ramshackle NYE soirée, Kid Covington (Lauren Hopkins) gave me a flash drive with something that would change the following year. Tsu.respect.gamusH. She had surprised me by secretly working the past few months on a Tsu-gamusH remix after I had given her the source content for TSUSURVIVORGAMUSH and she had reworked it into her grand finale. This gave me the push I needed to keep up the pace of development and set a realistic goal of completing Encore by May 6th, 2007. However, about a week before the due date, my PC's PSU crapped out on me and had to wait until payday so I could afford a newer, better power supply (Yes, poor. Also, don't use credit cards or loans unless It's an emergency. Live within your means: Budget wisely.) By May 19th, 2007, Hopscotch Mix Encore was officially released to (What I consider) positive criticism. Several awesome people helped promote the pack through various forums, mirrors for downloads, posted content on social medias and vids on the y'tube. It was awesome having months/years worth of work recognized by the community and beyond. Folks helped with debugging the theme or made better stepchart edits or remixed/used tracks for their own song packs. I ended up making a few more songs as Part of a small expansion pack through 2008.

Almost immediately after Encore's release I started working on the next song pack titled Hopscotch Mix Zenith. I really felt burnt out at this point but still wanted to keep going. Songs were created, some stepfiles, art, a theme...but I really found it difficult to find the time. Setback after setback caused me to put the project on hiatus, and by 2012 I stopped production and stored everything away, focusing on work-work and side project graphic design. Around October 2013 I started a Bandcamp page and published some of my current Zenith faves into an album, In case I lost my old data and needed verification for my works. Around this time I dabbled a little in music again, making The End of Tsu, which was to be the swan song of the Tsu series*.

At the end of 2016 I found myself dabbling in video editing and started up once again on Zenith; creating abstract and mixed montages for several tracks and uploading them to YouTube. It wasn't until 2019-2020 that I re-developed my passion for constructing music. I finally reinstalled/upgraded all my favorite software, discovered new software & tools and I've been going at it ever since. I feel that same passion I felt many years ago and it brings me happiness, not to mention over the hiatus years I would now and then recieve an email or comment from someone who just discovered Hopscotch Mix or from an old fan from back in the day sharing fond memories or asking to use a song for a project. I want to keep on this project in hopes it will inspire the community. - <3 Chuck

*Maybe or maybe not? The future is unknown

Staff & Credits

Chuck Enck | Artist name(s): Family Farce, ASSIMILATION, ASSIMILATION Retunes, Sidewinder, dj foreshanks, F+F, Hypernov8, The Grind, Yawaraka, Nullify, Nullify -Redux-, SideFX, PIPN, PIPN UNDERGROUND, PIPN SPEEDVIBE, Avin, Hulisi-Ska, Radical Minds, KLiNK, e.n.d, Final Gasp, Eversedative, Sound Pressure, Sun Buddha, FL@_line, 375U, MC Turista, DJ Analytic Hum, DJ Squackbox, Reigun Overdose, Rampage Superstars, Kurio, E519, Pointy, Agnostix, Tidal da Wave, Distant Noises from Outer Space, Sonny Dugan, Radiograph, APT.204, APT.432, Culture-Slum, Snatcher, Gunhat, Automatic Allisto, Cetro, Riksmaal, H.S.M Recovery Team, Glack, Nessus, Nadeshiko feat. H8!, Hyper-Assimilation-8, DJ Rezolution, Ω Phlegm, Ni-MH, Noma Vae Victis, 奥井, Tri-Umvirate, EZKL, Chaarusu, Miasma, Project Anilox, Devonshire, Rick Victims, Digital Chaos, Cetro, Mr. Pill, Victor-E, DJ Nedved, DJ Torq, A.B.O.F.A, Jimmy Presto, ROBO-MOJO vs. EE330, Frenzal., C&E, Retsu Group, Red-E, S. Hazard, Two Faced Trio, Sevensleuth, XY-Cycle, Tune-Out, Magway

Lauren Hopkins | Artist name(s): Kid Covington, Akio, Bingy Fireball the III, Bingy Fireball the IV, Costume Boy, Callisto Keeps Us Strong, Platypus OwnZ Blue, Chakram & Samurai, EAT!!!, DJ Abusive Domestic Relations.

Sam Ganster | Artist name(s): External Manifestations, Eastern 2-Hundred, Strip Club Overdose, Strip Club Bitches, Shadow of Speed, Drugs on Disc, Samwise, Kick Drum Government.

Jacob Johnson | Artist name(s): Ja-J, Kleen-J

Kameron Gibson | Artist name(s): Digitaliz, DJ Emthereal, DJ Dink, DJ Bam Bam, Mellownoma

Third-Party Music Contributions: Kita Khyber (a.k.a Kita Keru), Stealing Vision, Deep Embrace, DJ Cliche Darkness, Sleeping Under 47