Let's have a party.

Well, not just any party, of course. We're talking about a...

We made a Pinkie Promise last night to release something today, and nopony breaks a Pinkie Promise!

So what is it, you ask? It's your first real preview of TM III with six great songs, including some EDM-influenced progressive house, a stroll through Manehattan, a certain one-hit wonder in the hip-hop world, and to cap it off, another great Foozogz track. There's no theme or special StepMania distribution yet

So get your glow sticks cracked, and your RedOctanes on the floor (disclosure: the TrotMania dev team does not endorse any particular dance pad brand) , it's time to get back to dancing!

Download link after the jump...

Happy Nightmare Night!

Good news: it is now Halloween across roughly half of North America's time zones! It's time to dress like you're going to a comic con, walk up to other people's doors demanding free confectionery products ("Enough chit-chat! Time is candy!"), and, of course, party!

Unfortunately, when there's good news, there's always bad news. A series of complications, including us waiting for SM5 Beta 4 to come out (it did, but it also managed to break Swarm mode in the theme due to some strange bug me and Kyzentun helped uncover), and general busyness, has caused development of TM3 to lag a bit. I did, at some point, aim for a full-on release on October 31 (an appropriate date given the thematic of this version), but it has become clear that we're not going to reach that goal.

However, you are in luck; watch this space for a special Nightmare Night treat later tonight! What could it be? You'll have to wait and see. Also, one of the lead steppers for TrotMania has been working on another pony-related rhythm gaming project that you might like (it's also, however, another reason for the reduced level of work on TM3, but it's still good nonetheless), with an inital release set for November 1; we'll keep you posted on that too.

Or in simpler terms: you just want something to burn off the calories from that Nightmare Night candy, don't you? Just hold on a sec.

And we are also accepting new members of our stepping team too; if you think you have what it takes, inquire in the chat room. A staff member or two is usually lurking in it from time to time.

We're not dead

Oh, and I'm also fixing things up for SM5 Beta 4 too.

TM3 Preview: I meant to do this a LONG time ago.

Well that's an odd way of presenting scores.

TM3 Preview: Into the Night(ly)

Would you like to peek into the future? Well, there are Princess Luna-approved "nightly" builds (i.e. built from the source code's current state every day) of StepMania 5, and I have begun testing the TrotMania III theme with it to ensure the highest quality ponified dance game experience.

While it may look the same at first glance, there have been quite a few changes of interest under the hood for developers and theme creators. In particular, thanks to its more stringent error reporting, I now have a better idea of where things are going wrong, and exactly how much duct tape I need to use to fix it. There are also some new APIs here and there too.

However, there is one big user-facing change that you might like:

Check out those speed mods: no more having to select from presets! Now you can specify custom speed modifiers in the Options menu in increments of 1 or .25 - technology is incredible!

And also, for the second year in a row, you can play a TrotMania rig at GalaCon this weekend. I do not specifically know if BronyCAN or BronyCon have anything similar (someone on Twitter told me they did have some type of dance game at the latter; might have TM songs maybe), but I do know for a fact that maybe, just maybe, you may be able to give TrotMania III's new look a spin for yourself at GalaCon.