Multiplayer?

Hi folks,

Hoping someone can help me with an issue I'm facing. I'll apologise in advance as I'm just your day-to-day computer user so not very familiar with all of the developer language & don't have in-depth knowledge of these types of programmes.

My organisation has an old SHOKK/Game2Move system which enabled the simultaneous use of 16 wireless dance pads in conjunction with their software (one display of the track steps on screen but all 16 scores displayed at the sides of the screen), making it great for schools/groups to use as lots of kids can be active at the same time. The laptop SHOKK provided us with (which had their software built-in) has unfortunately died & there's no hope of a replacement as the laptop was about 8 years old (our IT guys have tried to fix the current laptop & source an alternative laptop to transfer the hard drive & graphics card into with no avail) & SHOKK went out of business a few years ago. Consequently, we have our 16 perfectly-working dance pads but no software to use with them.

I'd downloaded Stepmania thinking this might do the trick, but it seems to only allow a maximum of two players at a time. Is there anything that can be done to extend the number of pads that can be used with Stepmania or is there any other software (free or chargeable) that anyone could suggest for us to use? Seems a shame for the pads to go to waste.

Apologies if any of this doesn't make sense - hopefully someone's able to point me in the right direction.

Thanks,

Frewster

The situation you're in is why when a company approached me about paying for multiplayer support, I tried to insist that the engine modifications be open source. They didn't want that, so they left.
I worked on other things instead, so there still isn't proper multiplayer support in stepmania. Now I don't have the free time to spend on such a massive undertaking. Some other dev might have time for it, but it would still require months to implement.
So I think you're out of luck.

StepMania in LAN mode allows up to 16 players at the same time but requires 2 players per machine, the benefit is that one song plays for all 16 players. I personally find that to be a much better solution than the 16 players following three sets of arrows as this way allows anyone to have any chart they want with real time feedback on their performance and access to any mods (someone can't do jumps, turn them off without affecting the other 15).