About

This is the v4.8.7 release of Simply Love for StepMania 5. It is a nice little update that focused on bug fixes, code cleanup, and smaller new features.

Supported Versions of StepMania

Simply Love 4.8.7 is compatible with current releases of SM5 from the official StepMania project.

Compatible
✅ StepMania 5.0.12
✅ StepMania 5.1-beta.

Incompatible
❌ Alpha versions of SM5.3 are not supported at this time, but hopefully this will change in the future.
❌ Forks of SM5 (e.g. starworlds)
❌ Older versions of StepMania (e.g. StepMania 3.9)
❌ Forks of older versions of StepMania (e.g. OpenITG, notITG)
❌ SM5.2

Oh Hey There's a Bug in This Release

I realized this release includes a bug a few hours after release announcements were made.

The bug happens if your Default Fail Type is set to EndOfSong. Simply Love's UI will break in various ways making it unusable.

If your Default Fail Type is set to EndOfSong, the fix for now is to change it under
Options → Advanced Options

The other three settings (Immediate, ImmediateContinue, Off) work fine. There will be a proper fix in the next release.

New Stuff

Split BPMs

The SelectMusic and PlayerOptions screens have been updated to support "split BPMs".

For example, this hypothetical song has different BPMs for different difficulties. Player1's beginner stepchart is 200 bpm while Player2's hard stepchart ranges from 50 to 400 bpm. That's so fast! 😲

GrooveStats QR code better explained

The GrooveStats QR code now displays reasons why your score isn't valid for submission instead of just not appearing at all.

In this screenshot, Player2's score was not eligible for GrooveStats because the Little modifier was used, which removed notes from the stepchart.

VisualDelaySeconds in millisecond increments

You can now change VisualDelaySeconds under Graphics/Sound Options in millisecond increments from -1 second to +1 second. If your TV has very bad visual "lag", you may have luck setting a small negative VisualDelaySeconds.

Subtractive Scoring uses "Combo Font"

Subtractive Scoring has been updated to use the player's "Combo Font" instead of being hardcoded to Wendy.

Additionally, Arial Rounded has been added as a new Combo Font with round edges.

New graphic for Held/Let Go

mute has provided a new graphic for hold notes, used when they are held/let go.

All modifiers saved to profile and automatically applied each game

Several years ago, someone asked if all modifiers could be saved to profile. They noted that the "dizzy" modifier helped them keep columns of arrows mentally separated, but had to go into the mods menu and manually apply it with each new game.

Previously, only certain modifiers were saved to profile and automatically applied, but I'd never documented which modifiers these were (anything managed by the SL-PlayerOptions.lua script) or why (laziness on my part, mostly).

It should be fixed now. Thanks for being patient. Sorry it took so long!

New background music

• a01der contributed a chill new tune for the GameOver screen. 🎧
• dbk2 touched up the BGM for the StepMania Credits screen and it has 15% more right arrows than before. ➡️➡️➡️

Small New Stuff

• Mini is now available in increments of 1 instead of 5.
• The Evaluation screen now has text specifying the style (single or double or solo or etc.).
• If you use the (LLRRLLRR) MenuButton code to back out of SelectMusic during EventMode, you'll now be prompted first. This should help people who happen to activate the code while scrolling through the MusicWheel causing them to accidentally exit their set early.
• Lots of small adjustments to font sizing and positioning were made for people using low-resolution CRT monitors at 640x480. I strove to make all text legible at minimum. Some rows in the mod menu that previously collapsed all choices into one are now spread across two rows.
• The prompt screen (for example, accepting or rejecting changes to stepchart sync during gameplay) was visually cleaned up.
• Some more exotic modifiers found in SM5's default theme have been added to page 3 in the mod menu ("Uncommon Modifiers").
• The Simply Love Acknowledgements screen has been updated. Be sure to check it out!

Bug Fixes

The stepchart parser will use the correct Edit stepchart in .ssc files when there is more than one Edit.

If a song has multiple Edit stepcharts, the theme would previously parse the last Edit found (the bottom of the .ssc or .sm file). This would result in you choosing "Edit A", and playing the stepchart for "Edit A", but seeing the measure counter that corresponds with "Edit B".

This has been fixed for .ssc files. I have not fixed this for .sm files yet, but hopefully in the next release.

Funny story, I'd never realized this was a bug because my test case had always been Tachyon Alpha/DeltaMAX where every Edit stepchart has different notes but the same step density.

SelectProfile now respects the MenuTimer if it is enabled.

If the MenuTimer runs out on ScreenSelectProfile, both players will be assigned to [GUEST].

Small Fixes

• Both players can now choose [GUEST] on SelectProfile if they want to.
• The timing scatterplot and histogram on ScreenEvaluation have been fixed to use the correct colors when TimingWindowScale is in effect. As always, changing the TimingWindowScale is possible in Advanced Options but doing so will make your scores ineligible for GrooveStats.
• EvaluationSummary has been fixed to show the correct difficulty (text) and meter (number) for the course, rather than the last song that appears in the course like it had been doing.
• All text should be properly translated immediately after switching StepMania's Language setting; no need to restart StepMania any longer.
• BPM values, including calculated scroll speeds in the modifier menu, should handle and display decimal precision more consistently now.
• Emojis that appear in group names in the MusicWheel should no longer be colored with the rest of the text.

Noteworthy Changes

These aren't really fixes, they're just... changes. 🙂

• The notes-per-second density graph is now a cool blue/purple rather than yellow/orange.
• The Test Input pane in ScreenEvaluation appears in not-EventMode now. It still requires OnlyDedicatedMenuButtons in order to appear.
• The GrooveStats QR code now uses https in its url instead of http. This shouldn't impact anything but will hopefully prevent future problems as web browsers become increasingly strict about the use of http.

Things Removed

StomperZ game mode has been fully removed.

"StomperZ" mode was added in 2016 to help a few players qualify/practice for Bearpocalypse 6. I had not intended for it to ever be a Long-Term Thing, but hey, four years later here we are.

If you enjoyed playing StomperZ mode in previous Simply Love releases, I encourage you to support the official Rhythm Horizon project as my efforts here will forever be deeply indebted to it.

↙️⬅️↖️⬇️⏹⬆️↗️➡️↘️
www.rhythmhorizon.com

Small Removals

• Support for score vocalization has been removed.
• The "3.9" judgment graphic is no longer included with Simply Love.
• The joke option for turning off all Timing Windows has been removed.

For Other Developers

• More than 600 new inline comments were added throughout the theme.
• 2 inline FIXME: items were fixed during this release cycle bringing the count down to 15. Yay! 🎉
• 11 new inline FIXME: items were added during this release cycle bringing the final count up to 26. Oh no. 😂🤣😭

Contributors

Thanks to natano, jordando, CrashCringle12, andrewipark, and Fieoner for contributing code to this release.

Thanks to av01der and dbk2 for contributing music to this release.

Thanks to natano, zerinho6, and Okami for updating non-English localization files.

Thanks to mute and Cardmaster12 for beta testing and providing feedback.

Thank you for playing! 💛⬅️⬇️⬆️➡️

Change Summary

For a full summary of changes between v4.8.6 and v4.8.7, check GitHub's comparison of the two.