History
In the Groove is based on a modified version of the free and open source StepMania engine, which was originally designed to simulate the Dance Dance Revolution series. ITG was produced in the United States, and the majority of the In the Groove fanbase consists of players who desire songs and step patterns of a higher difficulty than those found in Dance Dance Revolution. A total of 72 songs are available in the original release of the game, ten of which are unlockable and one of which (Liquid Moon) is only available at the end of a single Marathon course.
RedOctane published a PlayStation 2 version of In the Groove. This version has all the features and songs from the arcade release, in addition to four "preview songs" from the arcade version of In the Groove 2. The game reached store shelves on June 17, 2005, and introduced several new gameplay features, including the Novice difficulty, new Marathon courses, and new Fitness and Training modes.
At the Amusement Showcase International 2005 in Chicago, IL, Roxor Games announced that In the Groove 2 would be released with its own dedicated cabinet as well as an upgrade kit for old In The Groove conversion kits. The new cabinet was initially produced by Andamiro, the creators of Pump It Up, another dance-simulation game. However, in 2006 Roxor announced that they themselves would take over cabinet production for In The Groove 2 dedicated cabinets. In The Groove 2 was also made available as a conversion kit for older Dance Dance Revolution machines. In The Groove 2 features 65 new songs, as well as every song and course from the original release of In The Groove. Although a PlayStation 2 version of ITG2 was never released, the PC version (based on the first game) received a patch adding all the songs from ITG2 plus the new theme.
On May 9, 2005, however, Konami filed a complaint against Roxor seeking, among other things, a preliminary injunction preventing them from selling arcade cabinet conversion kits. See Roxor Games (or "Lawsuit", below) for details.
On January 14, 2006, at the In the Groove North American Tournament Finals in Las Vegas, NV, Roxor announced that the arcade release of In the Groove 3 and the home release of In the Groove 2 would take place sometime during 2006. ITG3 was to be previewed at the Amusement & Music Operators Association Expo 2006 convention in Las Vegas, NV, though was absent from Roxor's presentation area, presumably due to delays in the game's production. The release of In the Groove 3 never happened, as Konami gained the intellectual property rights to the series and presumably cancelled future In The Groove projects. Some songs that were to debut on ITG3 found their way into Pump It Up Pro and Pump It Up NX2. Due to the open nature of the Stepmania platform used by ITG, the discovery of the ability to add custom songs to an ITG machine, and a patch for In the Groove 2 called "r21" (which adds support for custom songs, released shortly before the lawsuit) many fans of the series have used leaked song and incomplete step files from ITG3 to try and rebuild it as a fan-created product.
Read more about this topic: In The Groove (series)
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