beatscape - the red-headed stepchild of all vertical column rhythm games

beatscape is a simulator for vertical column rhythm games. Right now, it
simulates 7-key beatmania IIDX (and, by induction, 5-key beatmania), but
plans to support the whole line from Pop'n Music to Keyboardmania. It
does *not* simulate any arrow games (DDR, ITG, Pump it Up, etc). If you
want that, go use StepMania. Right now it reads BMS/BME (pretty well)
and StepMania SM (poorly).

beatscape requires:
	pygame of a recent vintage (I'm using 1.7.1)
	Python 2.4
	a little bit of a clue

USAGE

Add your songs to the 'songs' folder. There is no restriction on the
placement of files, other than that all files referenced by a keyfile
(WAV,BMP,etc) must be in the same folder as that keyfile. I like to
arrange my keyfiles logically by source, but you can do whatever you
want.

beatscape does not automatically index your music files (yet), so you
will have to do this manually each time you add or remove songs by
running 'mksongcache.py'.

beatscape accepts a command line argument specifying a keyfile to play.
This is handy if you're testing a keyfile and don't want to navigate the
menus.

FILES

config.py
	This lists configuration variables for various aspects of the
	game, such as timings and button assignments. Timings are set to
	what I think is a reasonable approximation of the console
	versions of IIDX, and button assignments should work with your
	standard IIDX controller hooked up via a PSX -> USB adapter.
	Other controllers and adapters will likely require tweaking.

There is not (as yet) any per-user configuration or way to install
beatscape system-wide. Feel free to contribute. :)

BUGS

Oh, god, too many to mention, but these are extremely noticable:
* bpm-change problems on some songs (notably both era mixes)
* sometimes a song will just decide not to work after you've selected
  it. If you select it again, it will probably work.
* A lot of undocumented features of the BMS/BME format are still
  unhandled, and will likely cause errors or crashes. If anyone can
  point me to a definitive BMS/BME reference, I'd be much obliged!
* Sometimes samples will just fail to play. I'm not yet sure if this is
  a fault of my engine or of pygame.
* There's no way to adjust any game options, especially speed (without
  hacking the source).
* It's visually abominable.

LICENSE

beatscape is released under the GPLv2. Details can be found in the COPYING file.

OTHER

beatscape might run on windows. I've only tested this a little bit, and it does
run, but the sound is usually lagged and choppy.

CONTACT

I can be contacted at bytex64@bytex64.net if you have any bug reports,
questions, fixes, or other contributions.

Thanks, and have fun!