| StepMania | |
|---|---|
 StepMania 4 CVS playing Ladybug by Coconut |
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| License | MIT License |
| Version | 3. Kyle Andrew Ward (born July 4 1985) is an Electronic music composer from Vancouver Washington who produces songs in many different genres A software license (or software licence in commonwealth usage is a Legal instrument governing the usage or redistribution of copyright protected software The MIT License is a Free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT used by the MIT X Consortium. 9 |
| Platform(s) | Cross-platform |
| Release date | 1 November 2005 |
| Genre(s) | Rhythm video game |
StepMania is an open source rhythm video game for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. In Computing, a platform describes some sort of Hardware architecture or Software framework (including Application frameworks, that allows In computing cross-platform (also known as multi-platform) is a term used to refer to Computer software or computing methods and concepts that are implemented Events 996 - Emperor Otto III issues a deed to Gottschalk Bishop of Freising which is the oldest known document using the name Ostarrîchi Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. See also [[Game classification]] Video games are categorized into Genres based on their Gameplay interaction A music video game, also commonly known as a music game, is a Video game where the gameplay is meaningfully and often almost entirely oriented around the player's Open source is a development methodology which offers practical accessibility to a product's source (goods and knowledge A music video game, also commonly known as a music game, is a Video game where the gameplay is meaningfully and often almost entirely oriented around the player's Microsoft Windows is a series of Software Operating systems and Graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Mac OS is the trademarked name for a series of Graphical user interface -based Operating systems developed by Apple Inc Linux (commonly pronounced ˈlɪnəks It was originally developed as a simulator of Konami's popular arcade game series Dance Dance Revolution, and has since evolved into an extensible rhythm game engine capable of supporting a wide variety of rhythm-based game types. () is a leading developer and publisher of numerous popular and strong-selling toys Trading cards, Anime, Tokusatsu, Slot machines An arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in businesses such as Restaurants Pubs Video arcades and Family Entertainment Dance Dance Revolution (abbreviated DDR) previously known as Dancing Stage in PAL territories until the announcement of Released under the MIT License, StepMania is free software. The MIT License is a Free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT used by the MIT X Consortium. Free software or software libre is Software that can be used studied and modified without restriction and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified
Video games In the Groove and Pump It Up Pro use StepMania as its game engine. In the Groove (commonly abbreviated ITG) was a series of Music video games that used a four-panel Dance pad. Pump It Up Pro (abbreviated as PIUPRO or Pump Pro, and marketed as Pump it up PRO) is a spinoff of the Pump It Up series and the first developed A game engine is a software system designed for the creation and development of computer and video games StepMania was included in a video game exhibition at New York's Museum of the Moving Image in 2005. The Museum of the Moving Image is a media museum located in Astoria Queens on the former site of the Kaufman Astoria Studios. [1]
StepMania 4. 0 is currently in its beta stage of development.
Contents |
Gameplay
The primary game type features the following game play: as arrows scroll upwards on the screen, they will meet with a normally stationary set of target arrows. An arrow is a graphical Symbol such as → or ← used to point or indicate direction being in its simplest form a line segment with a triangle affixed to one end and When they meet the targets, the player should press the corresponding arrow on his or her keyboard or dance mat. The moving arrows will meet the targets based on the beat of the song. Stepmania strongly utilizes a player's sense of rhythm in its game play. 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 that tell him/her how well they have done. An award of AAAA (quadruple A) is the highest award and indicates that a player has triggered all arrows with "marvelous" timing (within 0. 0225 seconds under official settings). An E indicates failure for a player to survive the length of the song without completely draining his/her life bar. Scoring and grading for Stepmania is almost identical to scoring in Dance Dance Revolution; however, timing and scoring settings can easily be changed.
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. The Xbox is a sixth-generation Video game console produced by Microsoft Corporation. A dance pad, also known as a dance mat or dance platform, is a flat electronic Game controller used for Input in dance games Alternatively, and most popularly, the keyboard can be used to tap out the rhythms using arrow or other keys. Several song charts designed for keyboard are unable to be passed using a pad. This, in turn, makes Stepmania somewhat of a quasi-Beatmania simulator with the traditional Dance Dance Revolution style of game play. Dance Dance Revolution (abbreviated DDR) previously known as Dancing Stage in PAL territories until the announcement of In addition, the game possesses the capability to emulate other music games, such as Beatmania itself, Pump It Up and Techno Motion (but scoring however, remains identical to DDR-style play). Pump It Up, commonly abbreviated as PIU TechnoMotion is a Korean Music video game. As in other games that use Dance pads such as Dance Dance Revolution, a
System requirements
These requirements are only the minimum needed to run the game. Having just the minimum does not result in smooth operation.
- Microsoft Windows 98/Me/2000/XP/Vista, Linux, or Mac OS X
- Pentium II or higher, PowerPC G3, Celeron, Athlon, or compatible processor, 266MHz minimum (400 MHz recommended)
- 64 MB of memory
- Video card that supports High Color (16-bit color) and has 8MB video RAM and OpenGL or Direct3D drivers
- On Windows, DirectX 7. Microsoft Windows is a series of Software Operating systems and Graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Windows 98 ( codenamed Memphis) is a graphical Operating system released on 25 June 1998 by Microsoft and the successor to Windows 95 Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me (IPA pronunciation, iː is a hybrid 16-bit / 32-bit graphical Operating system released on 14 September Windows 2000 (also referred to as Win2K) is a preemptive, interruptible graphical and business-oriented Operating system designed to work with Windows XP is a family of 32-bit and 64-bit Operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on Personal computers including home and Windows Vista (ˈvɪstə is a line of Operating systems developed by Microsoft for use on Personal computers including home and business desktops Linux (commonly pronounced ˈlɪnəks Mac OS X (mæk oʊ ɛs tɛn is a line of computer Operating systems developed marketed and sold by Apple Inc, the latest of which is pre-loaded on all currently The Pentium II brand refers to Intel 's sixth-generation Microarchitecture (" Intel P6 " and x86 -compatible Microprocessors PowerPC G3 is a designation used by Apple Computer to a third generation of PowerPC Microprocessors from the PowerPC 750 family designed The Celeron brand is a range of X86 CPUs from Intel targeted at budget/value Personal computers with the motto "delivering great quality Athlon is the brand name applied to a series of different X86 processors designed and manufactured by AMD. OpenGL ( Open G raphics L ibrary is a standard specification defining a cross-language Cross-platform API for writing applications that produce Direct3D is part of Microsoft 's DirectX API. Direct3D is only available for Microsoft's various Windows Operating systems ( Windows Microsoft DirectX is a collection of Application programming interfaces (APIs for handling tasks related to Multimedia, especially Game programming and 0 compatible sound card with drivers
Features
- Custom Songs ("Stepfiles"): StepMania allows users to create their own custom dance patterns to their favorite songs. The program includes a comprehensive Step editor to aid the creation of these stepfiles. (Note that while stepfiles can be shared and copied, it may be a violation of copyright law to package a song with a stepfile. Copyright is a legal concept enacted by Governments, giving the creator of an original work of authorship Exclusive rights to control its distribution usually for ) These files can also be known as "Simfiles. " Despite copyright concerns, many Simfile websites exist where users share and distributed Simfiles for copyrighted songs. Additionally, official DDR and In The Groove songs with their original steps are commonly available for StepMania. Dance Dance Revolution (abbreviated DDR) previously known as Dancing Stage in PAL territories until the announcement of In the Groove (abbreviated ITG) is the first game in the In the Groove franchise published and developed by
- Background animations: Support for many types of animations behind the arrows onscreen, including sprite-based animation sequences, a single full-motion video or multiple FMV visualization overlays. The bouncing ball animation (below consists of these 6 frames
- Modifiers: Visual mods that affect the scroll of arrows and either increase or decrease difficulty. StepMania includes multiple modifiers featured in Dance Dance Revolution as well as dozens of additional modifiers created exclusively for StepMania.
- Multiple arrow types:
- Mines: An object that scrolls onto the screen along with the arrows. A land mine is an Explosive device designed to be placed on or in the ground to explode when triggered by an operator or the Proximity of a vehicle person The player must avoid triggering the mines on the screen or have the player's dance gauge penalised by having it reduced. This step type was developed for the StepMania-based arcade game In The Groove, and was ported into StepMania itself during development of that title. In the Groove (abbreviated ITG) is the first game in the In the Groove franchise published and developed by A derivative of these mines, known as "Attack Mines", force a modifier change on the player when triggered instead of diminishing the dance gauge.
- Holds: A long arrow that requires you to keep your feet on the corresponding panel for its duration to pass.
- Rolls: A special hold arrow which requires a rapid tap on to keep alive. This step type was developed for the sequel to In The Groove - In the Groove 2, and was ported into StepMania 3. In the Groove 2 is the sequel to Roxor Games ' 2004 arcade game In the Groove. 95 CVS builds. In the field of Software development, the Concurrent Versions System ( CVS) also known as the Concurrent Versioning System, provides a Version
- Lift: a special type of arrow (colored Gray by default) which requires the key (or panel) to be held down before the note passes and released when the note passes the target arrows. This is different from freeze arrows in that the timing of the press is not important, only when the note is released
- Multiple game types, including partial simulation of other dance games like Pump It Up, ParaParaParadise and EZ2Dancer. Pump It Up, commonly abbreviated as PIU often abbreviated PPP, is an arcade and Playstation 2 dance game made by the Japanese company Konami and released under the Bemani EZ2Dancer is an arcade rhythm video game made by the Korean company Amuseworld.
- Real-time lyrics, which display on the opposite side of the screen for stepfiles that have accompanying lyric data. LRC is a Computer file format that synchronizes song Lyrics with an audio file such as MP3, Vorbis or MIDI.
- Custom themes: users can create their own skins for Stepmania. In Computing, skins may be associated with themes as custom graphical appearances ( GUIs) that can be applied to certain software and StepMania themes can vary from simple replacement of images to drastic changes such as the forcing of modifiers under certain conditions (such as the day of the week)
- Dancing characters: 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional character models that dance in the background according to a pre-defined routine.
- Network play: support for lobby-based online play, dubbed StepMania Online. Typically, users connect through the StepMania Online centralized server.
Availability
StepMania has been used as the base engine in a variety of free software and proprietary products. Free software or software libre is Software that can be used studied and modified without restriction and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified Proprietary software is Computer software on which the producer has set restrictions on use private modification copying, or republishing. It has also been ported to several platforms including the Xbox, iPod (running Linux), PlayStation Portable (Homebrew), and cell phones. The Xbox is a sixth-generation Video game console produced by Microsoft Corporation. iPod is a popular brand of Portable media players designed and marketed by Apple Inc The PlayStation Portable (officially abbreviated PSP) is a Handheld game console manufactured and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. [2]
Use in products
Several StepMania-based games have been released due to its open nature:
- In The Groove (ITG) is an arcade dance game series developed by the core StepMania developers, and is based on a special CVS build of Stepmania known as version 3. In the Groove (abbreviated ITG) is the first game in the In the Groove franchise published and developed by 95. To prevent unauthorized copying, StepMania was re-licensed under a more permissive license (changed from GPL to the MIT License with the agreement of all coders, in exchange for their names appearing on the ITG credits screen), not requiring source code to be published on derivative works, and thus allowing ITG's copy control to remain proprietary and closed source. The Copyright infringement of Software (also known as software piracy) refers to several practices which involve the unauthorized copying of computer The MIT License is a Free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT used by the MIT X Consortium. Copy Control is the generic name of a Copy protection system used from 2001 until 2006 on several digital audio disc releases by EMI Group and Sony BMG Proprietary software is Computer software on which the producer has set restrictions on use private modification copying, or republishing.
- Pump it Up Pro is a spinoff of the Pump it Up series headed by former ITG developers and musicians. Pump It Up Pro (abbreviated as PIUPRO or Pump Pro, and marketed as Pump it up PRO) is a spinoff of the Pump It Up series and the first developed Pump It Up, commonly abbreviated as PIU The game utilizes a build of Stepmania 4 for its engine, which also led to improved Pump support in Stepmania itself.
- Mungyodance is a series of downloadable games using the StepMania engine. Both versions in total feature over 400 songs. As of its 2nd version, Mungyodance features gameplay judgement more akin to Guitar Hero, only judging by if an arrow was hit or missed, and not the actual accuracy. Mungyodance 2 also features "modbombs" (also known as Attack Mines), which apply modifiers to the player if hit. The game also features "Extra Mode", songs with scripted modifiers.
Communities
- Omg. . . Did Insane. . . is currently one of the largest websites for StepMania in terms of custom made files. The "Elite stepartists" frequent this site, and generally make fun of newer users due to lack of understanding of the game. The community has produced two large song packs geared more towards higher skilled players.
- Flash Flash Revolution is the biggest community for StepMania. It is much more new-user friendly.
- StepmaniaOnline is the smaller of the three communities listed. It is user friendly (for the most part). The community was very large up until the end of 2007, when one of the moderators deleted nearly every post. The moderator has since received a permenant IP ban and the forum has since gotten large again.
StepMix
StepMania developers conducted StepMix contest for step builders to create stepcharts/stepfiles that can be played using StepMania. StepMix 1. 0 and StepMix 2 were conducted successfully. StepMix 3 is currently in progress.
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 3, or the entry is automatically disqualified[3]. 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[4][5]), the entry may be disqualified.
The scoring is determined by the overall quality of the song, steps and graphics. [6]
StepMix stepcharts can be downloaded in the StepMania website.
References
See also
- Dance pad
- Frets on Fire
- Pump It Up
- Beatmania IIDX
- UltraStar
- Dance Dance Revolution
External links
- StepMania Homepage
- Official Stepmania Forums
- SourceForge Stepmania Project Page
- StepMania Online
- Omg... Did Insane...
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