Make Stepmania Great Again

[Celirra]

I hear overused shitty memes are good for getting peoples' attention, hehehe.

Anyways, I've been thinking quite a bit lately about Stepmania (and in part, FFR as well), mostly in the vein of what could possibly be done to improve and enhance the game as a whole, not just to make it so my keyboard smashing is more fun-ish, but also to maybe even possibly help draw more people into this dwindling community. I think many of us here can agree it would be cool to have some more fresh blood in the community, whether it be our friends, people we know from other games, or even completely random people. Over time, a community that is not experiencing growth will decline in numbers, and seeing as the relative amount of people still engaged in Stepmania/FFR is looking quite low, it could very easily just roll over and disappear one day, and I for one would not like that much.

I recognize that Stepmania/FFR is not the only rhythm game that's dying out, especially in North America/Europe. Compared to what I remember once seeing, the genre as a whole, from DDR, to Guitar Hero/Rock Band, and even the obscure oddball "rhythm" games, like Patapon, has much less popularity, so it would be naive to hope for Stepmania to grow to such a size that it rivals big-name releases. That being said, there ARE still people interested in the genre, look at games like SDVX, IIDX, Osu!, and in asia especially Mai Mai, Reflec Beat and Jubeat. All people, both new players and veterans alike, line up for minutes to play these even still, or rush back home to attempt new high scores and discuss it with their friends, or things that.. well, a decent-sized community would have.

I'm not saying Stepmania/FFR doesn't have any community or people for the record, it's clear there are a few extremely dedicated people who are thick as thieves and do indeed enjoy the aforementioned practices; Anime North and even AGDQ are a testament to that. But looking beyond the top percentile, how many people here have actually been able to discuss, show passion and interest, and mingle (shitty word I know pls no bully) based upon Stepmania, y'know, like a real community?

Anyways, if nobody here shares the same desires for more autistic friends with strong fingers like I do, then I guess that's fine.
But if anyone is in the same boat, and wants to maybe thrust some life into this quaint little community with me, then let's try to do this together.

I took the liberty of thinking up a couple extremely generic and likely over-discussed ideas that drunk me thought were very clever and creative, as a starting point for at least myself at least. Of course, there's no easy duct tape that can be used to stick more people to us, but we can at least add a couple hooks to reel in some more cute little fishies.

I'd say a good way to go is to make the game as a whole easier to get into for the first time. I don't mean making it easier or whatnot, I mean literally making it not take an exorbitant amount of time just to play, because in my anecdotal evidence, anyone I've tried to get into Stepmania has been put off by how it is at the start. Between the default theme (not ragging on SM creators) being offputting, or the lack of any default songs, or the need to explain how to tweak the options to actually make it more enjoyable (raising speed, etc). Yes, there are some tutorials out there that are moderately comprehensive. There are terrific guides for how to download simfiles and what files to look out for specifically, but to the average normie looking in, these are all reasons to not bother so much. In an ideal world there could be some kind of super basic tutorial in-game, but even so much as a text dump filled with info that's easy to follow can help. There's 3 default songs with Stepmania now (last I checked), but that really does not cover much of what is to be offered at all. I realize FFR exists, and it's what I usually point people towards when I want to achieve this, but a lot of people nowadays aren't a huge fan of the less modern styles and graphics and whatnot. I guess what I'm really getting at is that instead of SM being some exclusivist club, making it more open and easily accessible may work wonders.

Obviously getting the name out there helps a TON as well, there's no denying that. Look at AGDQ2016 for instance, after the SM showcase there was a large influx of newer players experiencing sore fingers from jacking too much for the first time. That lasted all of a couple days, until the hype died down and the community is back to where it once was. It ties into my first point as well, but word of mouth in general can be powerful, and if we can have more content being created for SM that catches attentiona and brings people in, then there's bound to be another influx of people, except this time it may last more than just a couple days. The fact that there is actually a decent sized Twitch steamer/youtube maker for SM is neat and judging from how there's people occasionally who say "wow this game is cool where do I get this???" just shows that having figures such as these can help grow the game. So I guess the condensed point of this text is just to make and support content and such perhaps, it couldn't hurt.

Anyways I'm too sleepy to think of anything else for now and I don't even know if this will get much traction. I guess thoughts about whether or not this should be thought about at least would be cool etc etc etc.

Thanks and sorry if you want this to remain a secret club.