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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Andreas Stange edited this page May 30, 2025
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- Songs
- Platforms
- Configuration
- Contribution
- Why UltraStar Play? How is it different from UltraStar Deluxe (USDX)?
- Why Melody Mania? How is it different from UltraStar Play?
- Known Issues
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The wiki names some sources for songs: https://github.com/UltraStar-Deluxe/Play/wiki/Songs#finding-songs
- However, usually some effort is required to get these working.
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UltraStar Play by default is distributed without any audio/video/lyrics content. We only develop the software, not the content.
- Third parties can create and distribute content. For example, third parties may sell song packages for their region according to license requirements.
- For development and testing, we use either self-made content or Creative Commons licensed content. This is what you typically see in published screenshots of the game.
The file format is open and very easily structured, so that creating custom content is easy and fast. This is why some similar games also support this file format.
- An UltraStar song consists of at least
- (a) an audio file
- (b) a txt file (plain text file) with information about the song (audio file, artist, title, lyrics, notes, etc.)
- other files are optional (cover image, background video, etc.)
- If you have all files of an UltraStar song, you can
- add a new song folder in the settings that points to your UltraStar song
- or add your UltraStar song to an existing song folder
- You can create the txt file for a new UltraStar song using the integrated song editor of UltraStar Play.
- There is no official song service yet for UltraStar songs due to copyright issues.
- There is no official platform to share UltraStar songs due to copyright issues.
- No, not in UltraStar Play.
- Melody Mania has an embedded browser to play with videos on the internet.
- UltraStar Play is not yet available on the Apple App Store.
- Melody Mania Companion App is available on the Apple App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/melody-mania-companion/id6476068878
- No, there is no dedicated binary for Raspberry Pi because Unity does not support this platform.
- However, someone successfully installed Android on Raspberry Pi to run UltraStar Play.
- See #356 "installed LineageOS from KonstaKANG on the Raspberry Pi and installed the Android version of UltraStar Play."
- Yes, you can support this project by
- buying its commercial continuation Melody Mania on Steam
- buying from the partner merch shop
- becoming a GitHub Sponsor
- sending a small thank you via PayPal
- Yes, see CONTRIBUTING.md
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UltraStar Play builds on the Unity game engine. This new technological base has several advantages compared to USDX.
- The technical advantage and platform support of USPlay can make it evolve and grow faster compared to USDX and its forks. Thus, the future will be USPlay, it's just a matter of time.
- People got sick of having to fix the tools for building USDX every time there is some new Mac/Linux/Windows version, even having to submit fixes to the freepascal compiler a couple of times, and also having to deal with the objective pascal language. Eventually people wanted to start a new project for implementing a sing-along karaoke game that competes with the existing games and hopefully turns out better than them.
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USDX and USPlay are two separate games with different goals.
- The goal for UltraStar Play was never to implement all features that are supported by UltraStar Deluxe. USDX has a bit of feature creep and is not easy to do microphone configuration and so on. There is no need to copy that into UltraStar Play, which has more of a focus on typical gaming consoles, smartphones, smart TVs and similar platforms.
- Melody Mania is a commercial continuation of UltraStar Play to finance further developments and bring the game to the next level.
- Melody Mania includes additional features and assets, some of which cannot be made available under MIT license. For example, it includes assets from the Unity Asset Store.
- The name Melody Mania was chosen because sadly the name UltraStar Play could not be used due to legal (brand) reasons.
Visit the wiki page for Known Issues
Still having questions or looking for general help with UltraStar games? Please see ❔Common FAQ or go to 💬UltraStar Play Discord. There is also a 👋🏻central help desk for UltraStar, Vocaluxe, and Performous Communities on Discord.