> During the QuakeCon of 2003, I came across a strange but interesting game while walking to my laptop, which I had brought for the BYOC. This game was not played with keyboards or standard joysticks, but instead with large dance pads with four arrows on it (left, down, up, and right). The game was being projected on a big screen at the front of the room near the podium, and on the screen were two sets of four transparant arrows (left, down, up, and right) lined up horizontally near the top of the screen. Several flashing arrows scrolled up from the bottom of the screen, and when they met their counterpart arrows on top, the players would step on the matching arrow on their dance pad. The game was called Stepmania, a free downloadable clone of a similiar arcade game called Dance Dance Revolution. I did try it out a couple of times but just couldn't get into it that much. However, several months after the QuakeCon, I was visiting my cousin Stephanie in south Florida, and she had Stepmania on her machine, along with a dance pad. It was then when I decided to give the game another try, so Stephanie game me a CD with several song packs on it, and when I eventually got back home in New Jersey, I downloaded Stepmania and tried out on my computer. After playing the songs on Stephanie's CD on my keyboards, I became more interested in the game, and several years later, I began writing steps of my own for some of my favorite songs. If all goes as planned, I'll be able to afford a metal dance pad in a few months time, and only then will I get to experience Stepmania in full.

Songpacks - One of the best features that Stepmania has to offer is its stepfile editor, which allows you to create your own steps for song files, and to edit existing songs files. Inspired by custom songpacks such as BemaniRuler Originals and the PlagueMix Series, I decided to start making a few of my own stepfiles.