Stepmania is the main DDR software, it enjoys a huge communauty and regular updates. Above all, the mod sm-online let you play LAN/web multiplayer and I assure you, Dance Dance Revolution with eight players at at time is simply a blast !!!
In this page I develop a complete tutorial about the 3.9 version, the beta 4.0 version is dealt with in another page.
You can download Stepmania here : http://www.stepmania.com/wiki/Downloads. There is also a variety of modified versions for specific purposes, like this one which allows 4 players on the same screen, or Stepmania Redux which includes themes (skins), announcers voices
and some slight game rules change: download here.
Let us proceed with the options setup.
As for DWI you can notice on the top left corner the number of songs available to play.
Make your way to the options screen and change the following parameters:
In appearance Options:
Announcer : Stepmania has no announcer in the default setting, you must download one on the official website or make your own with the "Stepmania announcer editor" tool which is also available on the website. I personally love the announcer from Dance With Intensity, so I made this adaptation for Stepmania : gift !To activate an announcer, put the files in a
subfolder in Stepmania/announcer and activate in the option screen.
I advise you to put on off all the annoying warning screen : choose skip for instruction and caution, and song group on all music.
A very useful but not well known option is the noteskin, for which you should choose note : then the arrows in half or quarter time are in a different color, and this help a lot starting from standard level (thanks rominou for the tip).
In Background Options:
Danger on Off (otherwise it becomes very annoying when you lose).
In Coin Options
Beware to keep coin on Home : if you switch to arcade you need credits to play and you can not access to any menu. To get away from this press F3 to go back to Home.
Event removes the 3 songs limitations : normally, after three songs played you go back to the main menu, event let you play as you want.
In Config Key/Joy Mappings
This is where you map your mats to the controls of the game. Left part of the screen is for player 1, right for player 2. You can assign three buttons to each function. The menu dedicated are functions up, down, left and right which apply solely to the menu, not to actual play. Now if in input options you select only dedicated, these will be
the only controls used for the menus. To make it clear, you map up down right left on the mat, and menu dedicated up down right left in the keyboard. This way, if a friend is walking randomly on the mat he will not bring chaos in your setup... this is very useful during multiplayer lan play.
In Graphic Options
Contrary to DWI, Stepmania lets you push up the resolution and enjoy better graphics.
In Machine Options
Switch the default fail type to Off, otherwise the game stops when the jauge on the top of the screen is depleted. Then set Menu Timer on Off. There are two Scoring Type, max2 et 5th. In both cases the score system is overwhelmingly complicated, the formulas are here
if you like to heat your brain. However, I noticed that once you have missed a number of arrows, you score less for the following : this is true for both systems.
In Profile Options
This is where you create profiles to identify the scores from each person who wants to play on your mats. Therefore you need to go the options to switch profiles, which we can regreat, just as the lack of photos.
To end this, there is a configuration tool located in Windows' start menu, or in the subfolder Program of Stepmania, named Smpackage.exe. It allows to adjust some system options in case of a bug, and to edit the file preferences.ini for advanced configuration.
DDR musics are grouped into folders like "Dance Dance Revolution 1st mix". These folders must be located in the folder Songs of Stepmania. Alternatively, you can modify Stepmania.ini which is on the folder Data to write at the line Additionnal Song folders the access path to your titles. What
for? If you are using several different version of Stepmania, this trick prevents you from duplicating your space consuming songs files.
To begin with, do not forget to read "Getting started at DDR" in the page DDR, what's this ?, I give some free download titles.
Stepmania is way more tunable as DWI, you can download themes to modify the aspect of the game. Il faut mettre le dossier du thème dans le répertoire Stepmania/Themes puis on l'active dans appearance options. Several themes are available on the official website. It is also possible to add 3D dancing characters on the background (background/dancing characters). However, their moves do not match your moves, making the dancing character quite ridiculous.
At screen title select game start, then choose between single, solo, versus and double. Solo is a special single player mode with siw arrows (few songs compatible), and double consists in playing alone on two mats. Beware : modes versus and double are available when the second player press start, which requires the function "second player start"
to be correctly mapped in the options.
Select your difficulty level and here you are, the song selection screen.
On the right you have the folders list, you develop the folders with start to get the musics list. You change the difficulty with up-up and down-down quickly. Likewise you change the sorting mode of the songs with up-down-up-down.
The little square screen on the top left corner indicates the current difficulty level : the kanji is not very explicit, so beginner is clear blue, light is orange, standart is rose, heavy is green, is challenge dark blue. Each difficulty mode may be available or not depending on the song. Within a difficulty mode the actual difficulty depends on the song : the number of feet is a good indication. The graphic above illustrates the intensity of the title following several criteria which are not very clear to me.
Press start to confirm the song selection ; if you press it twice you enter a special menu option. Here ou can activate crazy options making the the arrows accelerate or brake or following strange paths while crossing the screen (try the mode "drunk"). You can also add mines which makes the game kinda tricky, this is very fun for the final rounds in a tournament. There are complicated strange combinations which activates these special options from the song selection menu. Thus you might activate one of them by mistake, in which case you should correct this in the special option menu.
Here we are right in the game ! Rules are simple, you press the mat when arrows are at the top of the screen, right in superposition with the see-through arrows. This is a musical game though, the thing is to get the timing from the music, not visually. The screen is just there to indicate WHERE you put your feet, not WHEN.
Long yellow arrows are freezes, you have to keep your foot on. At the top of the screen there is public meter bar, filling up while you dance well.
For each arrow you are awarded a grade depending on your timing : miss, boo, good, great, perfect et marvelous. As long as you get great or more you increase your combo meter (here 51).
During the game F7 activates the assist ticks just like DWI ; if you modify mistakingly the BPM or the offset of a song with F9-F12, choose no when you are asking to save the modification, or else you would spoil the song.
When the music ends your overall performance is evaluated by a grade ranging from E to AAA. The number of miss is the most important to define your grade. Too many miss will bound you to E. Try again, this is normal in the beginning ! There is also a numbered score which calculus is much complicated (see here).
2-play Dance Dance Revolution on a same PC is real fun. However, 8 players on four PCs by network, and even 2*n players on n PCs is just crazy !
Local network play is available, and you can also play via the internet as long as your firewall does not block it... There is even a server named stepmania online with a world ranking system, you can find players whenever you want.
Reference link for network play is http://www.stepmaniaonline.com/.
On this website you could find a modified Stepmania installation, which adds a network play mode. However, Stepmania 4 has network support natively, then the modified 3.9 has been removed from the download page of the website. You can
probably still find this somewhere on the news, but I host it too : here it is.
This modified (CVS) version of Stepmania is reported to be less stable than the official one, but I never had serious problems with it. You can keep both versions without duplicating your song files by modifying the Stepmania.ini file as I mentionned above.
LOCAL AREA NETWORK:
Install the modified version of Stepmania. There is now an extra entry in the options menu : Network Options.
When you play in LAN, you need to choose a PC which will be the server. Begin by launching Stepmania on it, reach the network options and start server. Now run Stepmania on the other PCs and choose Connect, you need to enter the server's IP address in your local network. The computer used as the server has to be connected to himself with the indicated address (127.0.0.1). If this works nicely, you should see connection successful at the top left corner of the screen.
A very practical way to set up a network game without using this screen is to launch Stepmania through a shortcut with this command line: stepmania.exe --runserver=gxrald --netip=127.0.0.1. This runs Stepmania and create a server named gxrald on it. Then, on the other PCs, launch Stepmania with stepmania.exe --joinserver=gxrald --netip=[IP address of the server]. Beware to add these commands after the inverted comas, if there are some. Thanks to this little trick you are ready to play with one double click !
Once connected you will notice that the song selection screen has been modified, but the commands also!
On the right you recognize the folder's and title's selection. You move through it with left and right. To enter a folder you press, and here is the trick, control+enter.
By pressing up you get the special options (same as pressing twice start in non network play), by pressing down you change the difficulty mode. Press left and right simultaneously to change the sorting mode.
You can write in the chat screen, enter validates the message. In the picture only one player is connected and he is playing in light. To run the song, the server must press twice control+enter. I stress this point because it has blocked many players :D
If you want to play a song
in LAN, the song must be present in all the PCs but not necessarily at the same path. When you are done with the settings, this is what you will be rewarded with !
This picture was taken during an event I organized with my DDR club in my engineer school. I have now left the school, but the club is still there and organizes initiation events during the main parties of the school. By connecting four PCs we let eight players dancing at the same time, we add a good sound system and a giant screen, this is a lot of fun, very convivial and it is a good way to have people know and like the DDR!
INTERNET :
To play online with a friend, proceed just as explained above. The only thing to mind about is the fiewalls, antivirus and the like.
Now to play in a ladder, anytime you want with players from everywhere, you need to connect to a server website like stepmaniaonline or the most recent european incarnation of the site, http://www.stepmaniaonline.eu.
I will explain how to deal with the american website, I guess it works similary for the european.
You need aforemost to create an account on the forums of the website. Note that the login you choose there must match the profile you use in Stepmania. Then you run Stepmania by the shortcut Play SMOnline which should have been created when you installed the modified version
of Stepmania. Otherwise you can create it, the command is \StepMania\Program\StepMania.exe --netip=smonline.us:8800. When Stepmania starts you shoud read connection to smonline server successful.
Go forward with game start and the choice of the difficulty mode, you are invited to enter a password (the one you gave at the forum), then you reach this screen.
You are in the main lobby. You have to choose a room, that is a place where you meet with other players to launch a game. You navigate in the selection with left and right, and you validate with control+enter. With enter alone you write in the chat, in qwerty. First you choose between novice and advanced, after what you see the existing rooms you can join. Choose one or create your own with create room, lobby brings you back to the previous screen. Then you are on the exact same sceen as for local network play, see above how it works. Every game is recorded by the server so that a world ranking is maintained. If you reach the top, please let me know! :D
This is all I have to say about Stepmania, if you think I have forgotten something do not hesitate to write on the golden book or at ddr.pcgamer@gmail.com.
