With our partners at PonyvilleFM celebrating their 7th anniversary, we thought it would be cool to give you guys the penultimate patch for our fourth title, loaded to the brim with tons of content!

New Songs

• Music to My Ears and Unleash the Magic hail from the Equestria Girls series
• We continue work with our partners from Zenius-I-Vanisher in getting crossovers from the indie electro scene. Up first is BVG, a eurobeat artist whose rearrangement of a piece by former pony artist eXtaticus appears in the game with All We Can Do. Then there’s Quick Man, whose Talking to the Mirror provides some tense breakbeats to get your groove on to!
• Pound 131, bank pain, R3CTIFIER with Phoxi, and Silver Note all make their debuts in the series with Chaos Within, Empire Past, overwrite_deity, and Run respectively.
• PonyMania porting continues as DashStep by Baasik makes its debut in the TrotMania series. It is one of the harder standard bosses in the series, with a wicked level 17 Challenge chart to contend with!
• The final Pyrosentric bosses, Mutate and NIGHTWING STIMUL8R, along with the OMES YANDANCER, are now available for normal play!

However, that’s not even close to the end, as there is a second Pyrosentric that begins now. Where the first had bosses in the moderate 15-16 range, this set pulls no punches, with several charts going hard into the 17 range. 4 existing tracks (Do You Love Me (Crystal Mix), Entropy (Sim Gretina Remix), In Our Town (Eurotopia Mix), and Return) have received new charts for this mode, and 4 other songs remain shrouded in mystery, perhaps more if you do well…

Changelog

• Almost all applicable songs in Euphorius now have lyric files which will display timed in-game, courtesy of newly appointed TM dev “\\”.
• The following new charts have been added: In Our Town (Challenge 15), J2R (Expert 14), Come Alive (Challenge 14), To the Sky (Challenge 11 (SA)), Entropy (Sim Gretina Remix) (Challenge 16 (SA)), Return (Challenge 17), In Our Town (Eurotopia Mix) (Challenge 16), Do You Love Me (Crystal Mix) (Challenge 14).
• Basashi has been altered significantly in terms of its cut and steps.
• Vinylicious is now credited to Scraton and its graphic set has been changed to reflect this.
• Spirit of Fire’s background script from the Mod Lab pack is now part of its normal version.
• Cloudsdale EVOLVED (all versions) has been cleaned up on Expert.
• Good Girl (Sub.Sound Remix) is now Good Girl (JoinedTheHerd Remix) and its graphics have been redone (in higher resolution!) to reflect this.
• Other minor improvements have been made across the board.

Regarding the Mod Lab

The Mod Lab pack is now part of the main patches! Note that they have received minor enhancements since their individual appearance with the last patch, along with new previews to help differentiate them from their normal counterparts.

Not to be outdone

The theme has also received its 1.5 update, which includes some fit and finish tweaks, the changes necessary to use the new Pyrosentric set correctly, as well as some, ahem, plot-related … things. The previous NoteSkin download has also been merged into the Theme bundle, and also has some new additions in the form of Equality2 (finally updated to match the appearance of the other noteskins as of TM4), and Horsemaniax.

Note to those who have older versions of the TM4 theme; due to the changes and optimizations in this release, it is highly recommended that you not overwrite an older version of the theme with this one, and that you just delete the older version and replace it with 1.5.

Download

These are temporary mirrors; the Downloads page will be updated with these downloads once our standard mirrors are up:

• TrotMania Euphorius Payload 5 update
• Theme version 1.5 update

The forum has been updated to the latest version of phpBB. I’ll try to get the customizations back in some way (especially the font sizes, cause the default theme wreaks of design consideration for 1280×1024 monitors even though it’s responsive), but much like a certain other thing with a version number ending in .2, things require tweaks in order to work right.

As a bonus, the entire site is now secure too.

Art Contest update

You may remember that we had a contest prior to the release of Euphorius to

Given how few participants there were, I have decided not to judge the entries, and instead give out packages of art offers for all participants based on the amount of contributions they made, including at least a Movie-style vector of your character. You will be contacted, or you can contact me (either on Discord, DA or Tumblr), about your prizes, over the next little bit.

You all did an excellent job, and we would like to personally thank you for taking part!

Return to the Festival!

You remember that StepMania 5.1 we were originally targeting for Euphorius? With the new options menu, all the theme-breaking changes and other what-not? It’s still being worked on as StepMania 5.2, and I have (once again) ported the TrotMania III theme to work on current alpha builds of it. It also has some other quality-of-life tweaks backported from Euphorius. Since the last time you saw it, the new options menu has also gained a few new tricks, including new effects mods, and mouse support (1P only for now).

One of them does this particularly silly thing.

SM 5.2 also has a new, purpose-built default theme that was designed by me with help from the overall community, but the point of this port was to ensure that a well-equipped, existing 5.0 theme can be ported to 5.2 in its current state without much compromise. Obviously, themes that have functions that go a bit deeper may be a bit trickier to port (and on a related note, battle mode is broken at the moment, which is why it’s also excluded). If you wish to try it out (either with a compilation of the current master branch, or the nightly Windows builds you can get from here), you can download the TM III SM 5.2 Technology Preview (alpha 2) here. It includes the theme port, as well as a port of the TM4 noteskin (and a few new ones, including that “Cannon” one from earlier).

Note, that I am mainly publicizing this for those who are well-versed with SM and would like to test things out. If you are a casual player or do not wish to use alpha-quality software, it is recommended that you stay on 5.0.x and just wait for 5.2 to be done (it’ll happen, eventually). Neither the theme or 5.2 are final.

Euphorius is slowly, but surely reaching the home stretch; Payload 5 will be the final major update to this edition of TrotMania. After that, we will be focusing our efforts on something else that will be the fifth in a row. Speaking of things involving the number “5”, we are also approaching the fifth anniversary of the release of our first pack! It’s insane to see how far we’ve come since then; it started off as just a simple pack and theme. Now look at all the content that is associated with Euphorius alone; more songs than ever. A boss system. An actual storyline. Ponifying something that has not been ponified much before (I still must admit that this theme was very fun to work with), etc.

Oh, and Trials

There is one more thing on that list which is also getting closer to completion – slowly, but surely, and that is Trials of the Embers – which will serve as the “official” finale of the Euphorius storyline. This is something that we’ve never done before; it builds upon things that we had only started doing on Euphorius to begin with, and is influenced heavily by the “sightreading” competitions that have gained traction within the In the Groove community.

If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, it will work like this: there will be a set of stages, designed to be played in sequential order. We will not reveal what their songs are beforehand; only the staff knows, and you will only learn what they are when the stage begins (we will be using our best efforts to all but ensure this, and are not going to give you spoilers). In case playing unknown songs wasn’t bad enough, the arrows will also be twisted and contorted to the music in various ways. Contrast this to the “Lab” songs that have also been done on Euphorius; they have the same overall idea, except that you know what the songs are, and have likely played them before. At the same time, they will also be harder and more intense.

Despite the secrecy, there is one thing about Trials that I will spoil, however. It is actually incompatible with the current “stable” version of StepMania (which is the one that we also distribute, 5.0.12), because these songs actually use new features and effects that are not in the current version. In particular, StepMania 5.1 supports a subset of modifiers first introduced in the NotITG fork of OpenITG, while maintaining compatibility with content (such as themes) designed for use with the current 5.0.12 version (5.1 is not to be confused with that is now known as “5.2”; this is referring to the “5.1-new” branch. I must add that 5.2 supports these features too).

Thankfully, we have solutions. The first is one you may already be familiar with, given that it’s something we already do with the main pack; there will be a standalone package with everything included, and some special surprises too! Secondly, since it’s being used in our development process to begin with, all of the Trials songs will support NotITG, and we are aiming to provide visual parity between the SM5 and NotITG versions of each song.

Either way, Trials will be ready when it’s done; we have no specific timeframe beyond that a goal for it to be finished before the end of the year.

Edit: If you downloaded the Mod Lab Tier II files before September 7, 2017, please redownload. There was code missing from a song.

This past week, the real event that inspired TrotMania Euphorius has been going on in the real Nevada,. Plus, tonight is the night (Pacific Time) of its culmination and namesake (i.e. the part where they actually set their Literal Wicker Man on fire. Don’t worry, no actual men were harmed, or burned for that matter, it’s just made of wood). Given that we have a lot of news and new content today too, it needs a good, fitting, blanket title. So, how about…

That’ll work.

Payload 4

In the new songs department;

• I’ll Fly and The Pony I Want to Be
• µThunder remixes Say Goodbye to The Holiday into the perfect soundtrack for destroying a holiday, but still having a good time whilst doing so.
• Silva Hound and Eurobeat Brony want you to Come Alive
• lia;quo has inflicted us with some Crystal Corruption
• Awkward Marina’s Entropy gets a remix by Sim Gretina
• Lenich & Kirya give a classic love song some Russian flair, Eh Chirli! Chirli!
• Mandopony takes on Music to My Ears
• fractilx’s J2R

In the extra stage department;

• Kapow! and Welcome to My Lullaby have graduated out of Pyrosentric!
• New Fluttershy (Monster Mix) has graduated to standard extra stage; you know what that means? There is a new OMES song, one that has already been dubbed “a piece of ‘let’s be harder then Over the ‘Period’‘” (if you are familiar with the subject matter, you will know exactly what to expect.)

In the new Iron Pony charts department;

• Spitfire (CDPP Remix) (lv. 13)
• *The Super Duper Party Pony (lv. 15)
• Yak Funk (lv. 12)
• Hooves Up High (lv. 14, TM III)

In the Quality of Life department;

• There have been some difficulty rating adjustments from songs on all versions, and chart adjustments on I, Chrystalize, and Euphorius,
• Other miscellaneous adjustments across I, Chrystalize, and Euphorius

Embers Fall

The TrotMania Euphorius lore story Embers Fall is slowly approaching its climax! There have been a slew of new chapters, so feel free to catch up on Fimfiction. Among the new developments, you say? A brand new character, meet this fellow DJ! Few know her real name, but everypony else knows her as the Diamond Diablo. What does she have in store? Stay tuned…

Mod Lab

The TrotMania Mod Lab is back! Just as the Gathering is full of weird experimental art, this takes existing TrotMania songs and turns them into experimental art that others tend to refer to as a “mod file”, “scripted modifiers”, “those things Taro makes”, etc.. TrotMania Euphorius Mod Lab Tier 2 features three new songs, representing three different TrotMania versions;

• Boooring!
• Spirit of Fire
• Spin That Record Vinyl Scratch (Assertive Fluttershy Mix)

QoL tweaks have also been made to the original four.

Theme update

Theme version 1.1.1 is now on the Downloads page. It features some minor bugfixes and enhancements.

Trials of the Embers

So, you’re probably wondering what this is. Tonight, I partially spill the beans: it’s something very wicked, which will heavily tie into the finale of the TrotMania Euphorius storyline.

You might have noticed that, so far, all of the Mod Lab stuff has used songs that are already in TrotMania. This setlist, however, is going to be very different; if you have heard of the “sightreading tournaments” that are being held from time to time, it’s going to be a little something like that. Basically, these are all-new songs and charts, that you have never seen yet. Add the gimmicks and effects we’re concocting, and it’s going to be a musical thrill ride unlike anything you’ve ever seen in TrotMania (but less like those made by TaroNuke within the last two years. Those are just insane. They may be more WinDEU-esque, to be honest, if you’ve ever heard of him. Does anypony here know how to use splines in StepMania 5?).

Trials will likely be released by the end of the year. This is highly technical stuff we are dealing with here, and we want to make sure it all works perfectly before we stroke the match and light this place on fire.

Downloads

These are temporary mirrors; the Downloads page will be updated with these downloads once our standard mirrors are up:

• TrotMania Euphorius Payload 4
• TrotMania IV Mod Lab