j1m0ne’s blog

I am somewhat amused to see that the mini-guide to Stepmania I did ages ago is still among one of my top read posts. And somewhat aghast too, cos it’s completely out of date - so I wrote an updated one to replace it.

What is StepMania?
A free and open source rhythm game for Windows, Mac & Linux, originally developed to simulate Dance Dance Revolution. StepMania can be played with a standard keyboard, or with PS2/Xbox/dance pads (purists will argue that pads is the way to go). Custom songs with steps; called “simfiles” (sm files) can be made by anybody and uploaded to the internet. Stepmania itself is close to various other rhythm games - Dance With Intensity (DWI) was one of the earlier ones, and there’s things like Flash Flash Revolution, Step and Music (which uses 9 keys instead of SM’s 4) etc etc.

Download StepMania from the official site.

Playing StepMania
All you need is at least two fingers on each hand if you intend to play spread style, one on each if you wanna play index or just three fingers on one hand if you want to play one-handed. I think the more common style is spread, where you use the index and middle fingers for each key (ie Left Middle on Left Key, Left Index on Down Key, Right Index on Up Key, Right Middle on Right Key). I use the bizarre method of a spread pattern with the middle and ring fingers of each hand. You could try breaking your fingers attempting to bash the keys one-handed like this guy but I generally wouldn’t recommend it. Different styles suit different people so it’s really up to the individual to experiment.

Options, Options

StepMania tends to hit you with a barrowload of confusing options. StepMania FAQ answers most of the common questions. As I’ve said before, I play everything at C400 speed cos anything slower than that will kill my interest. You can also customise a lot of the themes - as you can see above, I use an ITG skin.

How to Get Good at StepMania
Practise, practise, practise. Of course, it would help if you had a sense of rhythm and good timing, but I’ve seen a lot of people get great scores by simply memorising the sequence of steps. Which totally doesn’t work for me since I play SM by sight-reading the steps a split second ahead… again, it’s really up to individual users on what method works best for them.

Getting Songs
Focusing on anime/eroge songs, cos techno and trance do my head in. And of course, the ever reliable Bemanistyle (requires registration) and Otaku’s Dream (anime songs) are the places to go for people who hate dealing with moon runes. Both sites are great for beginners as well and contain sims in low difficulty, which is a good thing since Japanese simfile makers are rarely kind to noobs.

So once you’ve gotten up to speed and have progressed to being able to play stuff at a higher degree of difficulty, it’s time to surf the Japanese sites for more simfiles. Some of the ones I’ve been frequenting recently:
1. Teikutsu
Mostly video game songs with different degree of difficulty, files hosted on Mediafire and come with videos.
2. hirudo
Mix of songs from anime and eroge, files hosted on Mediafire and come with videos.
3. Chrono Factory
The guy used to keep moving his site so often I got dizzy trying to keep up. He seems to have settled here for now, and mostly makes simfiles for anime with the occasional game thrown in. Again, files hosted on Mediafire and come with videos.
4. Yoyoyu
Hey, one of the people who’s still around from my last post! Except his/her site’s moved. I consider Yoyoyu’s sims easier so beginners might warm up to his stuff. Files hosted on Mediafire and have videos.
5. Step Minor
Small collection of game and anime sims. Hosted on Megaupload, no videos included.
6. Mont Silvern Flugel
Hosted on Megaupload with videos. Sadly, most of the sims are only one difficulty so noobs should stay away from the 鬼 (oni) difficulty songs.
7. Slow but Steady
Sims from some of the newer anime. Self-hosted files, come with videos.
8. Subette Korobu
Small selection of sims from newer anime. Hosted on Mediafire, come with videos. Nice range of difficulties included.

Five of the oldies:
1. TAKA’s ROOM3
2. Cherry Step
3. U.K.U.G.
4. Oukashou
5. Syank
Just click wherever it says DWI to get to the simfiles. Doesn’t matter if you can’t read a thing, you’ll muddle your way to the downloads somehow.

Hey, that’s me sucking at StepMania (Mizuki Nana’s Nostalgia, in case you’re wondering). I haven’t been playing for ages - almost a year now, and my fingers are all over the place :/ Songs that I used to ace with 90+% I now struggle to get beyond 80% and it’s driving me insane

My excuse for that sorry performance above is that I was using a PC and a keyboard I’m not comfortable with, plus I recorded the video using FRAPS so there’s a bit of lag. My usual setup is a Toshiba laptop, but there was noooo way I could record stuff on it without crazy ass lag. And yes, I still get motion sickness if I attempt to play with animated videos in the background. Not a lame excuse, just the truth.

See that? Yeah, I used to be able to play decently - that screenshot was taken on 2nd June 2007 when I was still in good form. Miss You (song by m-flo feat. Yamamoto Ryohei & melody.) was an absolute bitch to play at times because of its length - 6 minutes, and the number of steps - 1563! I often got cramp in my fingers after playing it.

Also see me suck at Sakura Saku and Awayuki.

I would tell people to try StepMania, but only people with loads of time on their hands would likely have time to get real good at it. Like college students, as I used to be when I was playing it

Posted on July 7th, 2008 under stepmania • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback