Currently, osu has two gamemodes that are centered around intruments: osu!maina and osu!taiko. These instruments sounds nice, but upon asking someone, "what is the most gorgeous sounding instrument there is?", the handbells are a more typical answer, although the piano and drums still have wonderful sounds.

I had this idea after a few things happened. The first of these was joining my school's handbell chorale. Upon joining, I realized that not only does this instrument sound great, but also it is a very fun instrument to play. I remembered having played a handbell-themed minigame somewhere, and then it hit me.

Handbell Harmony.

With some light adjustments, this little minigame could possibly be made into a new gamemode. Isn't that what osu!catch is based on? A minigame? I'll look into the specifics as this is discussed further, but here are some responses to immediate concerns you may have:

Q: Isn't this pretty similar to osu!mania already?
A: Kinda, but there are some key differences. The most crucial is that they're based on different instruments and handbells are cooler. Because of this, there will probably be bell-themed hitsounds in different pitches. Second, the gameplay will be side to side. Third, each player will be in charge of two handbells (keys basically) and there will be 4 to 8 groups of two on the screen at once. In single player, the player will choose which two to follow, and in multiplayer, players will cooperate with different groups of rows. Also, some bells have little sharp marks on them, indicating that the player must hold down a button while ringing the bells, or while holding another keyboard key. Finally, yet most importantly, this game demands wiimote support in order for the game to be played as similarly as possible to the original minigame. As you may already know, osu! has wiimote support, but for obvious reasons, not for mania.

Q: What do you imagine gameplay to look like?
A: As close as possible to the minigame itself, except pippified.

Q: Does anyone else besides Jonawaga actually want this added?
A: Yeah, Jonawaga asked Noffy for her opinion first and she seemed very enthusiastic about it.

Q: osu!bells? is that the best you could come up with?
A: It sounds good in my opinion.

Q: How would you even play this?
A: With the keys on your keyboard, a different key for each bell. Preferably, with a wiimote though. In the minigame, occasionally bells will appear marked with a sharp. These are played by holding down a button as the bell is rung. On the keyboard, this could either be pressing two keys at the same time, or holding down one key as another is pressed. Aditionally, this could be played via mouse. The player would left click to swing one bell and right click to swing the other, ignoring sharps.

Q: Conversions?
A: From STD, they will be identical to 2k mania, except with the default osu!bells hitsounds. Of course, this won't sound good for a lot of songs, but most conversions don't sound good anyways. Pitches may be accounted for if osu! can support some sort of pitch detection. If not, which bell is used will most likely be a choice that the player makes in the mods section, similar to columns in mania. Middle C would be the default choice. From other modes, there won't be conversions.

Any other concerns just comment. I'm ready to defend myself not really but I gotta try.

Tbh, it IS the same as mania if you ignore the tag-team thing (which will be unattractive for most players anyway).
It's just keysounded.

And I think no osu!-gamemode should be based on the idea that the player will use a device that is branded by a big company not everyone likes.

Endaris wrote:

Tbh, it IS the same as mania if you ignore the tag-team thing (which will be unattractive for most players anyway).
It's just keysounded. I agree with you that this is veryyyy similar to mania, so much so that I considered posting this as an idea for a mania mod. I decided not to do that because it would become too complicated to be only a mod. If it were only a mod, then there's no way it could account for different pitched bells without having the played indicate that in their mania mapping, which would be unfair for mania mappers. Also, I agree that some players will find the tag-team thing unnattractive, but a lot of other players will find it attractive. It's a subjective concern.

And I think no osu!-gamemode should be based on the idea that the player will use a device that is branded by a big company not everyone likes. I agree so much with this. LOL. This mode isn't meant to be based on that idea. It's just that because osu! already supports wiimotes, it wouldn't be a bad idea to take advantage of that. Also, most players will not want to play with wiimotes. Most players will probably want to play with their keyboards. Lastly, it's subjective whether you like Nintendo or not. And even if you want to get the full experience playing with a wiimote but you don't want to support Nintendo, then you can buy an off-brand wiimote.

I hope that clarifies my intentions. aaaa

Okay, so let's get this straight:
Converts wouldn't work.
Why? Because bells - unlike drums - are keyspecific, meaning, that they will cause the song to sound dissonant if not put correctly by a mapper.

Modespecific maps for this would go more into the direction of following just the melody or composing along somehow which is imo not the best for a rhythm game either.

Not really about the request, although I do think it would be much better to just skin something like this for mania if possible.

And hand bells sound better than piano.

Endaris wrote:

Okay, so let's get this straight:
Converts wouldn't work.
Why? Because bells - unlike drums - are keyspecific, meaning, that they will cause the song to sound dissonant if not put correctly by a mapper. I agree that randomly pitched bells would be chaotic. This is why I have come up with a few options as solutions. The coolest option would be programmed pitch detection. Because thisis asking for a lot, I have also thought of some more simple options. Perhaps all of the bells could be pitched as middle C, since it is the most common note, and it will harmonize with many other notes well. My last, and probably the most likely option is to add a mod, which would apply only to converted maps, that would allow the player to change the pitch of the bells they use. This would be similar to the key changing mod for mania converts. Added.

Modespecific maps for this would go more into the direction of following just the melody or composing along somehow which is imo not the best for a rhythm game either. Again, that's a subjective concern. In my opinion, following the melody's (and harmony's) pitches at the same time is part of what makes Handbell Harmony, and the Handbells as an instrument, so unique and fun.

I hope I'm making this more clear.

Sandy Hoey wrote:

Not really about the request, although I do think it would be much better to just skin something like this for mania if possible. That... wouldn't be the same... lol...

And hand bells sound better than piano. Ayyyy

SPOILER

Zozimoto wrote:

I need this in osu!. Alongside of touhousu!, this would fit greatly.

Thanks for your support!

I need this in osu!. Alongside of touhousu!, this would fit greatly.

Mania using taiko scroll and keysounds?
Just make a mania map full of bell keysounding LOL


PS: as far as I can read in the thread, there are roughly 3-4 users wanting this... 4/9,000,000 users: sounds about right x)

MrSergio wrote:

Mania using taiko scroll and keysounds?
Just make a mania map full of bell keysounding LOL


PS: as far as I can read in the thread, there are roughly 3-4 users wanting this... 4/9,000,000 users: sounds about right x)

you're...
absolutely correct

Jonawaga wrote:

MrSergio wrote:

Mania using taiko scroll and keysounds?
Just make a mania map full of bell keysounding LOL


PS: as far as I can read in the thread, there are roughly 3-4 users wanting this... 4/9,000,000 users: sounds about right x)

you're...
absolutely correct

I'm requesting a lock on this thread

Why a lock? It just got move to the Completed Requests sub forum, so don't worry.

Pawsu wrote:

Jonawaga wrote:

you're...
absolutely correct

I'm requesting a lock on this thread

Why a lock? It just got move to the Completed Requests sub forum, so don't worry.

Thanks