2001 rhythm video game
StepMania is a cross-platform rhythm video game and engine. It was originally developed as a clone of Konami's arcade game series "Dance Dance Revolution", and has since evolved into an extensible rhythm game engine capable of supporting a variety of rhythm-based game types. Released under the MIT License, "StepMania" is open-source free software.
Several video game series use "StepMania" as their game engines. This includes "In the Groove", "Pump It Up Pro", "Pump It Up Infinity", and "StepManiaX". "StepMania" was included in a video game exhibition at New York's Museum of the Moving Image in 2005.
Development.
"StepMania" was originally developed as an open-source clone of Konami's arcade game series "Dance Dance Revolution" (DDR). During the first three major versions, the Interface was based heavily on DDR's. New versions were released relatively quickly at first, culminating in version 3.9 in 2005. In 2010, after almost 5 years of work without a stable release, "StepMania" creator Chris Danford forked a 2006 build of "StepMania", paused development on the bleeding edge branch, and labeled the new branch "StepMania" 4 beta. A separate development team called the Spinal Shark Collective forked the bleeding-edge branch and continued work on it, branding it sm-ssc. On 30 May 2011, sm-ssc gained official status and was renamed "StepMania" 5.0. Development on the upcoming version, 5.1, has gone cold over the past few years after a couple of betas were released over at GitHub. "Project OutFox" (formerly known as "StepMania" 5.3, initially labeled as "FoxMania") is a currently closed-source fork of the 5.0 and 5.1 codebase originally planned to reintegrate in StepMania, however further in development, it was decided to become an independent project due to its larger scope of goals while still sharing codebase improvements to future versions of StepMania. These improvements include modernizing the original codebase to improve performance and graphical fidelity, refurbishing aspects of the engine that have been neglected, and to improve and expand its support for other game types and styles.
Gameplay.
The primary game type features the following game play: as arrows scroll upwards on the screen, they meet a normally stationary set of target arrows. When they do, the player presses the corresponding arrows on their keyboard or dance mat. The moving arrows meet the targets based on the beat of the song. The game is scored based upon how accurately the player can trigger the arrows in time to the beat of the song. The player's efforts are given a letter grade and a number score that tell how well they have done. An award of AAA+ (triple A plus, formerly AAAA or quadruple A) is the highest possible award available on a standard installation and indicates that a player has triggered all arrows with "Flawless" timing (within 0.0225 seconds under official settings) and avoided all mines and completed all hold (freeze) arrows. An E indicates failure for a player to survive the length of the song without completely draining their life gauge. Default scoring and grading for "StepMania" is similar to scoring in "Dance Dance Revolution"; however, timing and scoring settings can easily be changed.
During a song, if the player successfully triggers all arrows with "great" or better timing, the player will receive the message "Full combo" alongside their grade. Players can also achieve "Full perfect combo" for completing a song with all arrows triggered with perfect timing or better, and a "Full flawless combo" if all arrows are triggered with "flawless" timing.
"StepMania" allows for several input options. Specialized adapters that connect console peripherals like PS2 and Xbox controllers or dance pads to one's computer can be used. Alternatively, the keyboard can be used to tap out the rhythms using arrow or other keys. Many song charts designed for keyboard are unable to be passed using a pad. In addition, the game possesses the capability to emulate other music games, such as "Beatmania" itself, o2Jam and "DJMax"'s 7-key arrangement, "Pump It Up" and "TechnoMotion" - scoring however, remains similar to old DDR-style play by default (i.e. more weight is given for later notes).
Availability.
Some versions of "StepMania" will run on most common operating systems (Microsoft Windows 98/Me/2000/XP/Vista/7/8, Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X), as well as the Xbox console. It has also been used as the base engine in a variety of free software and proprietary products for various platforms.
Use in products.
Several "StepMania"-based commercial games have been released due to its open nature:
StepMix.
"StepMania" developers conducted StepMix contest for step builders to create stepcharts/stepfiles that can be played using "StepMania". StepMix 1, 2, 3, and 4 were run successfully. Participants need to have a song to be used in the stepchart/stepfile. The song must be under a compatible license for distribution or be authorized for use in StepMix 4, or the entry is automatically disqualified. Additionally, if the graphics used in the entry are found to have been copied from another artist and used without their authorization (as happened once in StepMix 2), the entry may be disqualified.
The scoring is determined by the overall quality of the song, steps and graphics.
Reception.
"StepMania" became a quite popular free software game; the game was downloaded alone over SourceForge between 2001 and May 2017 over 6.3 million times.
References.
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