Hello there. Last night, at around 2AM, I was thinking about a mapping contest that is something I don't think has been done before (hopefully).

You usually make beatmaps by putting circles, sliders and spinners in the osu!editor that follow a certain song. But what if... there is no song?

Announcing Project White Spire, a beatmapping contest where you have to make a beatmap while using the hitsounds to compose a song from scratch.
That's right. There is no music to map, so you have to use your creativity to make a song yourself using only osu! hitsounds.

You can get the beatmap template here.

The Goal

The goal is to make a song using the osu! hitsounds. This means that there is no music to base your beatmap off of. Use your creativity to make a beatmap that also is a song at the same time!

Who can participate?

Anyone can participate in this contest, regardless of global ranking, ranked maps made or mapping experience. You do not have to sign up anywhere to compete.

Rules

1. Participants can only use the Beatmap (*.osz) that has been provided by the committee.
2. Entry can be in any of the osu! game modes. (So osu!, osu!taiko, osu!catch and osu!mania are all allowed to be mapped in this contest)
3. The length of your beatmap must be above 45 seconds and under 300 seconds;
4. Your beatmap does NOT have to follow the ranking criteria. (So Aspire maps are allowed in this contest)
5. Your beatmap does NOT have to be SS-able.
6. Your beatmap does NOT have to be FC-able.
7. Your beatmap MUST be able to be completed by Auto without NoFail.
8. You can only submit 1 difficulty in this contest. If you do send multiple difficulties/beatmaps, we will always look at the first difficulty/beatmap sent.
   
   Difficulty Naming Rules

   1. Please name your difficulty using the following format: {Username(s)} - {Song name}
   2. If your beatmap contains explicit content, put "<EX>" at the end of your difficulty name.
   3. If your beatmap has a custom skin, put "<SK>" at the end of your difficulty name.
   4. If your beatmap has custom hitsounds, put "<HS>" at the end of your difficulty name.
   5. If your beatmap has a storyboard, put "<SB>" at the end of your difficulty name.
   Things that are allowed

   1. Your beatmap CAN use a different background image.
   2. Your beatmap CAN use a storyboard.
   3. Your beatmap CAN be made in collaboration with someone else.
   4. Your beatmap CAN use a custom skin.
   5. Your beatmap CAN use custom hitsounds, as long as those are solely instrumental. (so no parts of existing songs/singing/explicit hitsounds)
   Things that are NOT allowed

   1. Your beatmap CANNOT exceed a total of 20MB 100MB in size. (This includes everything in the beatmap folder; this is done because of the osu! upload limits)
   2. The .osz file of your beatmap CANNOT exceed 10MB 100MB. (Please note that the .osz file is a "compressed" beatmap folder, which has a lower data usage than the beatmap folder itself.)
   3. Your beatmap CANNOT use a video as background.
   4. Your beatmap CANNOT use a different audio.mp3 file.
   5. Your beatmap MAY NOT be submitted using the Beatmap Submission System. It may be submitted after the contest.

Submitting your beatmap

To submit your beatmap, simply go to this form and fill it out.

1. NOTE: The size limit for your .osz file is 10MB. If it is larger than 10MB, it cannot be uploaded.
2. NOTE: You may need to sign in into a Google Account in order to upload your beatmap. This is to prevent people from sending multiple beatmaps.

Judging Criteria

Normally, a beatmapping contest would be judged using the following guidelines:

1. Structure: Consistency, Pattern-flow, Density-balancing, etc
2. Relevancy: Playability, Rhythm, Emphasize, and Intensity
3. Creativity: Originality
4. Rankability: According to Ranking Criteria
5. Impression: Judge's impression

However, we cannot use this conventional method of judging due to a extreme lack of a song to map. This is why we judge this contest this way instead:

1. Structure: Consistency, Pattern-flow, Density-balancing, etc (Worth max 5 points)
2. Relevancy: Playability, Rhythm, Emphasize, and Intensity (Worth max 10 points)
3. Creativity: Originality (Worth max 10 Points)
4. Rankability: According to Ranking Criteria {There will not be judged on Rankability.}
5. Impression: Judge's impression (Worth max 10 points)

So the total amount of points that you can recieve is 35 points. The person with the most points win. (In case of a tie, both mappers win.)

Events

1. Oct 6th, 2021: Project White Spire starts.
2. Every 1st Saturday of the month: Map playing, map-rating, and determining placements.
3. When popularity dies out I guess: Project White Spire ends.

Awards

Prizes and the amount of osu!supporter are dependent of how much money I can acually afford to give away osu!supporters in the first place.
1st place: Eternal gratitude or something? I don't know, if I have money maybe osu!supporter or something?
2nd place: Headpats? No wait, that would be more like a prize for the first place... Or maybe also osu!supporter but less than first place? I didn't think about the awards beforehand okay?
3rd place: Guess a brand new Graveyarded map, maybe osu!supporter but less than second place, idk anymore. (Or it actually gets Ranked, who knows)
4th place and beyond: Better luck next time. Hopefully there is a next time.

First trough fifth places are, under difficulty creators consent, featured in the Featured Project White Spire Beatmapset. (NOTE: We don't use your beatmap in the Featured Beatmapset without your consent. If you do give consent, you still gain ownership over your beatmap. If the entire Featured Beatmapset is not allowed as it might be considered beatmap-theft... uhhh... Welp it was nice knowing you I guess...? Nah, just kidding! If the Featured part isn't allowed then I just scrap that part of the contest.)

That's all information I think is relevant, so good luck mapping! I'm already excited to see what everyone makes!
Wait, you actually found this page? What? How?

Interesting, reminds me of beatmapsets/237788#osu/550279

the contest format is one that's received some criticism, and may not be the best vehicle for this idea, even though the idea is interesting.

'must be passable by auto' is a dumb rule for an aspire contest, there are at least 3 ways to design humanly playable maps which auto will fail on. I suppose wanting auto to give accurate hitsound playback is a good idea so we can recreate the 'official' audio, but NF doesn't interfere with that use case.

The upload limit depends on song length. Since you provide 307 seconds of silence as the song, the upload limit will be 53.8MB. Btw you waste 7MB on silent audio, you can create a 1 bit per second wav file to minimize this.

Asked Coppertine to test some things, if you just remove the audio file the upload limit is based on the time of the last object. (if you provide an audio file, it is based on time of last object within the duration of the audio)

So I would suggest just not providing an audio file, and if you reach the upload limit, shift the whole map back or provide a second diff with an object at 10 mins (which will max it out at 100MB)

> Your beatmap CANNOT exceed a total of 20MB in size. (This includes everything in the beatmap folder; this is done because of the osu! upload limits)

Not the best of ways to say it, most of the custom keysounded / hitsounded maps are OVER 20mb.

Karoo13 wrote:

'must be passable by auto' is a dumb rule for an aspire contest, there are at least 3 ways to design humanly playable maps which auto will fail on. I suppose wanting auto to give accurate hitsound playback is a good idea so we can recreate the 'official' audio, but NF doesn't interfere with that use case.

The upload limit depends on song length. Since you provide 307 seconds of silence as the song, the upload limit will be 53.8MB. Btw you waste 7MB on silent audio, you can create a 1 bit per second wav file to minimize this.

Asked Coppertine to test some things, if you just remove the audio file the upload limit is based on the time of the last object. (if you provide an audio file, it is based on time of last object within the duration of the audio)

So I would suggest just not providing an audio file, and if you reach the upload limit, shift the whole map back or provide a second diff with an object at 10 mins (which will max it out at 100MB)

Coppertine wrote:

> Your beatmap CANNOT exceed a total of 20MB in size. (This includes everything in the beatmap folder; this is done because of the osu! upload limits)

Not the best of ways to say it, most of the custom keysounded / hitsounded maps are OVER 20mb.

1. I honestly didn't know that it was possible for a beatmap to be humanly possible, but not for Auto. I removed this criteria.
2. I unfortunately could not get my hands on a 1 bit/sec audio file of 5 minutes of silence. I increased the upload limit from 10-20MB to 100MB to cpmpensate for that. Also, the mapper is now allowed to remove the audio.mp3 file in it's entirety. (Changing the audio.mp3 file to contain sound obviously still is not allowed)

Thank you for checking, and have fun mapping!

Uff I did 2 storyboard maps and they are like 20-40 MB