Stepmania – What it is & How to Install

Stepmania – What it is & How to Install

May 20th, 2018 Denver Software/Hardware

“Dance Dance Revolution is Dance Dance Revolution, right? What in the world is this ‘Stepmania’?”

I am glad you asked!

There was a point in time when Dance Dance Revolution was essentially forgotten in the United States. The DDR craze that swept the nation suddenly died off with the introduction of other forms of rhythm gaming, until eventually the genre as a whole was reduced to a small, yet dedicated group of gaming enthusiasts . For these players, DDR would live on…even if they had to keep it alive for themselves.

Stepmania was created as a way for everyone to still enjoy DDR without needing to go to an arcade or purchase a console/game. It’s freeware (free software) that operates through a PC to emulate all forms of Dance Dance Revolution. Over time, Stepmania’s development continued to improve and allowed players to customize it however they see fit.

Adding your own songs, making your steps, customizing the life bar, customizing the appearance of the software itself, adding pictures or videos to songs, and so much more were implementations that made each dancing experience unique for everyone.

I’ll be going over the complete Windows installation of Stepmania 5.0, the most recent stable build of the software. You can find it here or by clicking on the image.

Let’s get started!

How to Install

Once you are on the download page, click the link titled “Stepmania 5.0.12 (Windows) ~49 MB”
A pop up window should appear, asking you where to save it. Choose “downloads” on the left side bar and then click “save”.*Note – If your computer is set to download files automatically to a destination (usually downloads), skip this step.
Find the downloaded file and open it. Windows may ask if you allow the program to make changes to your device. If so, then allow it to do so by clicking yes.The main menu to the set up wizard will appear; click next to proceed.
Click “I agree” on the License Agreement screen.
On the “Choose Install Location” screen, it will default to C:\Games\Stepmania 5. You may choose to install it somewhere else, but for the sake of ease we will stick with this location.MAKE SURE YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE INSTALLING IT! THIS IS IMPORTANT!
On the “Choose Start Menu” screen, you may choose where you want your shortcut for the game to be created. Again, for the sake of ease, we will not change anything and simply click “install”.
The game will now proceed to install. It shouldn’t take very long (30 sec – 60 sec). Once the download is complete, you’ll see a screen saying that the software is now installed. Click “Finish” to complete the installation. Congrats! You now have Stepmania and a world of opportunity.