5.3 Alpha 4.8.5 has been released! This is our build for September on our revised roadmap. It contains a large number of bug fixes (including one bug that was 16 years old) and a few new and experimental features to try out.
We have temporarily rebranded as "Project OutFox" for the time being, as we need to get some paperwork done in order to use the "StepMania" name.
As always, the download links and a full changelog are on the release page. Be sure to report any issues you find.
We have released an updated version, Alpha 4.8.2, which fixes a number of bugs and issues.
5.3 Alpha 4.8 has been released! This is our build for August on our revised roadmap, and it contains a number of major changes (including several user-facing changes):
Due to Windows and Ubuntu updates that have directly affected several of our users, we have performed another major rewrite to our input handler. As part of these changes, we now have a preference in the Experimental Options menu for switching from XInput, to the legacy HIDAPI-based input handler used prior to 5.3 Alpha 4.5.
The legacy mode has a few advantages, including support for more than four controllers at once (which XInput is limited to by design), not requiring the creation of controller mappings, and being able to handle controllers that have been especially troublesome under XInput (such as the ParaParaParadise PlayStation 2 controller - more on that later). This, as a result, gives us a greater level of controller support than ever before.
You will need to restart the game for the input mode switch to take affect, but we will remove this requirement in a future update. You may need to adjust your offset after switching, as some controllers may behave differently between these modes (especially custom Arduino pads; we have received reports that Step ManiaX pads feel "tighter" on legacy input than XInput).
If you use older controllers, please ensure they are plugged in BEFORE you start the game. Because we do not depend on DirectX anymore, we need to initialize the system on startup. We are looking into this, but once the system is live, controllers can be added and removed as normal. We really do not want to go back to DirectInput 7 or 8 as Microsoft is really punishing use of these systems, and will remove them outright eventually.
Another major change on Alpha 4.8 will be apparent as soon as you launch it. Out with the old splash screen...
...and in with the new.
This replaces the legacy loading window (including the buggy macOS loading window) on all platforms. In the future, we will provide the ability for themes to customize it, as well as other new features.
We have replaced libmad as our MP3 decoder with dr_mp3. It's lightweight, supports VBR, and addresses one of the broken_pipe issues we faced on our Raspberry Pi builds.
In addition, warnings will now be added to Logs/info.txt if the game is unable to load a song's audio file (such as if the file is corrupt or broken).
Finally, we have refurbished the para game type. This mode simulates the gameplay of ParaParaParadise, a short-lived, motion-controlled dance game based on para para - a Japanese dance style typically performed to eurobeat music.
We adjusted the timing windows and hold behavior to be more faithful to the original game, with a single timing window, and being able to hit notes as long as that particular arrow is held when it reaches the receptors. It is lenient by design, as this is a routine-based game with a stronger focus on performing choeography than timing. As mentioned earlier, our input changes also addressed support for the controller used by the official PlayStation 2 version of the game.
If you would like to see the mode in action, Taikora demonstrated it during it a stream using the controller on a pre-release build.
As always, the download links and a full changelog are on the release page. Be sure to report any issues you find.
We would like to provide an update on our roadmap for the next few months.
StepMania 5.3 Alpha 5.0.0 is being pushed to December 2020, due to us wanting to get in a lot of new content and features in and test them thoroughly before releasing. We will continue our monthly fixes and dev streams during this period, so 4.8.5, 4.9 and 4.9.5 will be the September, October, and November builds respectively.
With the level of new stuff planned we felt it wise to not rush it and ensure you folks get the experience you deserve. It'll also be a nice holiday present for those of you with some time off over the new year to enjoy the new game.
4.8.0 is still on schedule; we are just applying some last minute fixes for Para mode, and we will talk about this more tomorrow on our developer stream which will be at 9:00 p.m. BST/ 4 p.m. EST.
Thanks again for all your support and contributions, we truly are humbled by all the hard work you do for this community.
We have released StepMania 5.3 Alpha 4.6 RC3; as with our past few builds, this build continues our focus on bug fixes and optimizations.
For download links and a complete changelog, visit the release page. Builds are available for Windows, Linux, and macOS.
For the first time, we have also publicly released ARM builds for Linux - primarily for Raspberry Pi and similar platforms. Please see the release page for more information and recommendations regarding these builds.
Do not enable 8K texture support at this time, as it will give you GL_OUT_OF_MEMORY errors.
We have released StepMania 5.3 Alpha 4.6 RC1. This update focuses on additional bug fixes, and also features two new drum gametypes.
Do not enable 8k texture support at this time, as it will give you GL_OUT_OF_MEMORY problems.
For download links and a complete changelog (including details on technical changes also present in this build), visit the release page. Builds are currently available for Windows, Linux, and macOS.
Sorry for the quick release update schedule for this month, we wanted to ensure that you guys have a (moderately) stable version to play with over the summer. We will still take bug reports and any issues, and help where we can, but we are taking a break to work on our documentation and get the content ready for Alpha 5.0.0 in late August. It's been a wild 6 months so far, and we thank you all for your support, and the passion from the community so far in seeing the game progress. I appreciate all the bug reports and those of you who have contributed to the project so far.
We still are looking for translators, and you can pop on our Discord server and talk to us if you want to translate to your language. We will slowly build up a new collection of content to allow you to change and customize your game in the future. Please bear with us as we are but a small team.
Have a great summer, play safe and enjoy OutFox.
~Squirrel and Team Rizu