Built from the ground up in Rust.
What is DeadSync?
DeadSync is a new rhythm game engine for ITG-style pad gameplay, built from the ground up to replace legacy StepMania codebases.
It aims for complete behavioral parity with ITGmania and the Simply Love theme, allowing players to switch to DeadSync without relearning menus, timing windows, or scoring systems.
Unlike legacy engines, DeadSync prioritizes raw performance over infinite customization. By utilizing a standardized rendering pipeline and removing heavy scripting layers, it ensures that high-level play is never compromised by frame drops, stutter, or sync drift.
Current builds support Windows, Linux, BSD, and macOS (x86_64 & ARM64).
Why was it created?
Legacy StepMania engines rely on old code and complex dependencies. On modern hardware that can mean drifting sync, stutter, and random latency spikes that make high-level play feel inconsistent.
DeadSync tackles these issues at the engine level and aims to be a stable foundation for the next decade of StepMania/ITG-style games.
🎯 Dead-on Sync
Audio timing and resampling are handled entirely in-engine, tying chart timing directly to the audio stream to eliminate drift, even during long sessions or marathon charts.
🎨 Modern Rendering Backends
DeadSync uses OpenGL 3.3 and Vulkan backends to support a wide range of older and newer GPUs, high frame rates, and future visual features.
⚡ Native Performance Without Lua
There is no Lua runtime. Custom macros implements game and UI behavior natively and avoids per-frame scripting, keeping themes and UI responsive even on slower CPUs.
🌍 Cross-Platform Behavior
Core systems share a single cross-platform code path with minimal external dependencies, targeting multiple operating systems and architectures for consistent timing, input handling, and rendering.
🦀 Rust at the Core
Written entirely in Rust, DeadSync has a memory-safe, modern codebase that can evolve without fighting decades of accumulated technical debt.
🎮 Purpose-Built for ITG
The engine focuses on ITG-style pad gameplay instead of being a one-size-fits-all rhythm engine, reducing UI bloat and code paths for a cleaner, more predictable experience.
Who is making this?
DeadSync is created and maintained by PerfectTaste.
Development happens in the open on GitHub, with discussions, issues, and code reviews available to everyone.
Acknowledgements
DeadSync would not exist without years of work from the StepMania and ITG communities. In particular, we would like to acknowledge:
- StepMania and its contributors for creating the original engine that made all of this possible, including the original StepMania Team and the StepMania 5 developers.
- ITGmania and its developers for shaping the modern ITG experience on dedicated machines.
- Simply Love, its maintainers, and important forks such as zmod, whose work defines much of the current ITG player experience.
And more broadly, everyone who has written themes, noteskins, tools, and simfiles for the community over the years. ❤️
Contributing
DeadSync is currently in a pre-alpha state. If you are a Rust developer or have experience with Vulkan/OpenGL, we would love feedback and contributions—check out the repository.
For players, the best way to contribute right now is to try the first public alpha in late December 2025 and report bugs or issues via GitHub Issues.