Advanced rhythm game
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A screenshot of StepMania 5.0.5 gameplay.
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Original author(s) | Chris Danford |
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Developer(s) | Chris Danford, Glenn Maynard etc. |
Initial release | 2001 |
Stable release |
5.0.12 / August 30, 2016
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Preview release |
5.1.-3 (minus 3) / September 5, 2016
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Development status | Active |
Written in | C++, Assembly, Lua |
Operating system | Windows XP and later, Linux, Mac OS X 10.6 and later |
Type | Rhythm video game |
License | Expat |
Website | www |
StepMania is a cross-platform rhythm video game and engine. It was originally developed as a simulator 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, including In the Groove and Pump It Up Pro use StepMania as their game engine. StepMania was included in a video game exhibition at New York's Museum of the Moving Image in 2005.
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. The version 4.0 tree was later abandoned.
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 awarded by letter grades and a number score that tell him/her how well they have done. An award of AAAA (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 bar. Default scoring and grading for StepMania is similar to scoring in Dance Dance Revolution; however, timing and scoring settings can easily be changed.