Writing about Stepmania - need your help...

[azilda]

Hey..

I was wondering if some of you would be interested in answering some questions about Stepmania.

I have played off and on over the last 4 yrs, and now that I'm in a Master's degree, I'm attempting to write a paper about it, and possibly present the topic at a conference in the spring.

If you have time and are interested, it would be great to get the opinions and insights of actual Stepmania players, rather than just my own limited perspective.

Feel free to respond as a post, or if you want - azilda @ hushmail dot com (trying to avoid spam)

Thanks!
Caitlin

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QUESTIONS

1. How did you first start playing Stepmania?

2. What do you know about the history of its development?

3. Do you prefer Stepmania over DDR? If so, why?

4. Do you play with a dance pad, a keyboard or another type of controller? Why?

5. Who are some of your favourite simfile creators?

6. What is your level of involvement in Stepmania? In other words, do you contribute songs, make simfiles, program, etc......tell me as much as you want about why and how you became involved with contributing.

7. Have you ever travelled to go to a tournament, or met people from SMO in person?

8. Please tell me anything at all that you think I should know about Stepmania, why you play, what's going on in the community, what's happening with development, if you think I'm full of B.S., etc. etc. etc.

THANKS!!

[FSX]

1. I first started playing StepMania through word of mouth. My father's co-worker told him about it, and as I was getting interested in DDR, he told me. I then picked it up.

2. I know its development began in the early 2000s, and looked at older versions. I also know that it switched from the GPL to a BSD-like license during the 3.9 dev cycle due to demand from the ITG team (which included Chris Danford, its original developer, still considered SM's official head developer, even if Steve Checkoway does more). I also know that 4.0 has been in development for at least 6 years.

3. I'd have to say they are about equal, because I like some aspects of both.

4. I use a 4-panel dance pad, because SM's primary function is 4-panel dance game simulator. I also use a keyboard, sometimes.

5. Kurisu is one, but I really don't care who makes my simfiles as long as they are good.

6. I diddle around with courses, simfiles, and theming, but rarely release things. I think that I do this as a logical extension of my playing SM.

7. Nope.

8. 4.0 rocks.

[azilda]

Thank you! very helpful...

[akstylish]

1. How did you first start playing Stepmania?

One day I remembered playing DDR when I was a kid and how fun it was. So I looked for a DDR game for PC and found a similar game called In The Groove. After playing it for a while I found out it was based on stepmania engine. I gave it a try and got hooked on it since then.

2. What do you know about the history of its development?

Nothing much.

3. Do you prefer Stepmania over DDR? If so, why?

Stepmania. Tons of more features and content, and availability

4. Do you play with a dance pad, a keyboard or another type of controller? Why?

Both dance pad and keyboard(sometimes other controllers like rock band drums, guitar hero guitar, and beatmania controller as an experiment) It's fun to play it in different ways.

5. Who are some of your favourite simfile creators?

None...maybe winDEU. There are many good simfiles but I don't pay attention to who created them.

6. What is your level of involvement in Stepmania? In other words, do you contribute songs, make simfiles, program, etc......tell me as much as you want about why and how you became involved with contributing.

I make simfiles when I find a good song or don't find another person's simfile satisfying. I wish I could do more but have little theming or programming experience.

7. Have you ever travelled to go to a tournament, or met people from SMO in person?

No. I want to but no tournament is held around here.

8. Please tell me anything at all that you think I should know about Stepmania, why you play, what's going on in the community, what's happening with development, if you think I'm full of B.S., etc. etc. etc.

A StepMix contest is held here every year or so. It's an effort to encourage people to make solid simfiles. More info here: http://www.stepmania.com/wiki/StepMix_5_Contest

[Haoie]

1. How did you first start playing Stepmania? I began about a year or so ago. On a whim really, to practice stepcharts and save some money [yay, arcades].

2. What do you know about the history of its development? Nothing at all.

3. Do you prefer Stepmania over DDR? If so, why? Each to his or her own. But hey, free software, come on!

4. Do you play with a dance pad, a keyboard or another type of controller? Why? Keyboard. As noted, I use SM to get a feel for stepcharts.

5. Who are some of your favourite simfile creators? Don't make any myself.

6. What is your level of involvement in Stepmania? In other words, do you contribute songs, make simfiles, program, etc......tell me as much as you want about why and how you became involved with contributing. Nope, don't do that.

7. Have you ever travelled to go to a tournament, or met people from SMO in person? I'm decidedly not good enough for that level of competition.

8. Please tell me anything at all that you think I should know about Stepmania, why you play, what's going on in the community, what's happening with development, if you think I'm full of B.S., etc. etc. etc.

[Daisuke Master]

1. How did you first start playing Stepmania?

First thing to consider: I'm a Pump it Up (PIU, 5panel) player rather than DDR/ITG (4panel) player (there are not ddr/itg arcade machines in my city, that's lame...), I used to play pump simfiles with some pump simulator called "KIU".

Some day I was searching for KIU stepfiles: in some site wich I don't remember I found what I was looking for and some info about SM, a dance games simulator wich allows you to play many rhythm games such DDR and PIU, I got interested and you see me here now...

2. What do you know about the history of its development?

Almost nothing...

3. Do you prefer Stepmania over DDR? If so, why?

Yes, because I can play any simfiles I want... and obviously I can play 4panel mode with it :P

4. Do you play with a dance pad, a keyboard or another type of controller? Why?

Keyboard, if possible, a gamepad. Why? I'm poor I don't have enough money to buy/build my own

5. Who are some of your favourite simfile creators?

I know only about WinDEU and Family Farce, so those should be fine. Any other simfile I own are from unknown sources...

6. What is your level of involvement in Stepmania? In other words, do you contribute songs, make simfiles, program, etc......tell me as much as you want about why and how you became involved with contributing.

I make themes, noteskins and simfiles for pump mode (nothing about 4panel from me sorry :P)

How and why? it's a hobby, and I like to share some things I made.

7. Have you ever travelled to go to a tournament, or met people from SMO in person?

Pump tourneys: Just once, I lost
SMO: nope

8. Please tell me anything at all that you think I should know about Stepmania, why you play, what's going on in the community, what's happening with development, if you think I'm full of B.S., etc. etc. etc.

Keep playing.

[shakesoda]

1. Grabbed a copy of PyDance from the Ubuntu Linux repository a few years back, it mentioned being compatible with StepMania so I looked it up.

2. It used to be much more active than it is now. Most of the devs went MIA after 3.9. Other than that, don't know much.

3. Somewhat. The gameplay isn't as nice and unified but the customization is almost endless once you know what you are doing.

4. Keyboard and dance pads, sometimes even PS2 controllers and other things. I use whatever is around and whatever suits the simfile I am playing.

5. -

6. Active developer, also make themes, characters, and simfiles when I feel like it. I'm trying to rework the character/model system so it's more usable. I became involved with development when there were some bugs I could fix and things I wanted to be able to do that weren't yet possible.

7. I've never been to a tournament or anything. I've met with one person I talk to on AIM for some rounds of ITG though, since they were in the area.

8. A bunch of development is currently going into SM-SSC. Useful changes should be merged upstream eventually, but nobody involved is entirely happy with the way the main branch has been going in the last year or so (myself included).

[tweak]

1. When I first started playing DDR someone brought it up at the arcade, went home and tried it out. Was during the time of the 3.9 alphas.

2. As far as I can tell, when ITG happend a lot of the old devs went to the wayside.

3. Stepmania is great in it's customization and flexibility, but arcade DDR always wins in my book.

4. Used to play both keyboard and pad, now i really only play keyboard when making sims/testing themes.

5. Even the people who make decent ones usually have bad ones too so it's kind of a crapshoot.

6. I've been meddling with simfiles and themes for quite some time now.

7. Only if you count ITG.

8. 3.9 themers were rad and i'd love to see what a bunch of them could do with 4/sm-ssc if they were still in the community.

[iNEXSERTiON]

1) Learned about it on FlashFlashRevolution and decided to try it

2) Not much...

3) Yes, because we have the freedom to add any song we want, and we have Online play with 4.0 :) (although the PS2 versions of Extreme 2, SuperNOVA had it I don't know about SuperNOVA 2)

4) Keyboard and Pad.

5. Myself (cuz mine rock. you'll see.)

6. I make a lot of simfiles, but they are all released under my other usernames... And most of them suck. I've gotten a lot better though.

7. No...but I'd like to.

8. The community's always busy, simfiles always being released. Themes always being made. There's always a lot going on.