What Is ITGmania? A Free Open-Source Dance Game for Windows, Mac, and Linux

ITGmania is a free, open-source, community-driven dance game you can download and play on Windows, Mac, or Linux, using either a dance pad or your keyboard. It's a fork of StepMania 5 built for the rhythm-game community, and it ships with the popular Simply Love theme pre-installed. If you already have a StepMania setup, want online leaderboards, or just want a dance game you can start playing today, ITGmania is aimed at you. The latest version listed on the site is 1.3.0.

What you actually get

The homepage describes ITGmania as "a free, open source, and community-driven dance game that you can start playing immediately on your Windows, Mac, or Linux computer." Two things follow from that:

• It's a game, not just an engine. You download it and play — no separate commercial purchase step is described.
• It's community-maintained. The site says it's "constantly improved by passionate players," so features arrive through community development rather than a single studio roadmap.

Platform and download options

The download section lists builds for each major OS, plus a portable option:

Two details matter when choosing:

• Full install vs. program-only. Clicking your OS icon gives the full install, which includes the songs from Club Fantastic. If you already have songs and only want the program, you can download just that instead.
• Portable build. It contains executables for all platforms but only the Intel binary for macOS (which also works on M1). It contains no songs.

So the decision is simple: new player → full install; existing song library → program-only; want everything self-contained in one folder → portable.

Key features

The site highlights these as the main additions over mainline StepMania:

• Built-in networking — make network requests from inside the game, with full online leaderboard support via GrooveStats and more planned.
• Unlock downloading — automatically download and unzip unlocks for events (ITL and Stamina RPG) from within the game, and reload them directly from the song wheel.
• Simply Love included — the most popular visual theme comes pre-installed and is already updated to use the new features.
• More secure than StepMania — the project says it fixed many vulnerabilities found in mainline StepMania.
• Backwards compatible — you can use your favorite StepMania 5 theme with ITGmania.
• And more — fast profile switching, player-specific visual delay, disabling windows on a per-player basis, and both rate mod types.

Is it right for you?

ITGmania fits if you want a dance game that runs on all three desktop platforms, supports both dance pad and keyboard input, and connects to online leaderboards without extra setup. It's also a natural choice if you're already invested in StepMania 5 content — themes carry over, and your existing songs can be paired with the program-only download.

It's less of a fit if you want a console-style, curated game experience, or if you're on a macOS version older than Big Sur or a Windows version older than 7, since those aren't listed as supported.

Getting started and getting help

1. Go to the download section and click the icon for your operating system for the full install (includes Club Fantastic songs), or choose the program-only or portable build.
2. Install or extract, then launch — you can play with a dance pad or your keyboard.
3. If something breaks, the site links to a bug tracker; if you want to build from source, there's a link for that too; and all releases and release notes are available from the same page.

The site also maintains FAQs and guides sections if you want more detail before downloading.