The wait is finally over, and the winner officially revealed! Aspire 2018 concludes at last to the tunes of Culprate's Acid Rain. But where does the contest go from here, and most importantly, who takes home the prize?
In the largest showing in the Aspire series yet, over 140 entrants duked it out with wild displays of unfettered creativity and artistic measure from all ends of the spectrum.
From those entries, the crowd was whittled down to only 31 - the entries deemed by brief review to stand up against their peers for a shot at the Aspire throne.
Our brave panellists, UndeadCapulet, pishifat, Mao and Yuii- strode forth to chart out the expanse of 31 wild maps, and in time, reduced them down to only 12.
And from those twelve, our winner made themselves known.
With a devastating lead wrought from a dominating performance in the public impression polls with over 1251 votes, SnowNiNo_ ascends to be crowned as the latest Elite Mapper: Aspirant with a 66.25/80 total score!
In addition to this, their entry was also noted by the panellists to be the prime Spectacle pick from the lot, essentially winning both the major categories of the contest. Congratulations!
You can play the entry for yourself via this link - but be warned, it isn't for the faint of heart!
However, that is not all the contest has brought to bear - our panellists noted a few key entries worth an Honourable Mention, nabbing their mappers a prize for themselves in the form of complimentary osu!supporter and a special Aspire 2018 profile badge! Shiny.
These entries are as follows:
Scoring 744 votes overall, DTM9 Nowa's entry was a favorite among the judging panel, even scoring a 39/40 from one very impressed Mao in particular.
Creative use of existing techniques showcased in previous Aspire entries coupled with some brand new things we've never seen before made for an exceedingly strong entry.
This one was a frontrunner from the very start, and it is hardly surprising to see it secure a healthy niche in second place. Congratulations!
Impressing the public with 614 votes all up, seselis1 similarly impressed the judging panel with the overall structure and presentation of their entry.
This combined to grant a third place score. Well deserved!
Please beware that this map may cause performance degradation during song select when navigated to with the osu!catch or osu!mania game modes selected. It also does not function on osu!taiko or osu!mania, period.
A stand-out pick from the panellists due to the sheer degree at which it breaks the game and still manages to remain a cohesive experience, Karoo13 truly took the Aspire moniker to heart and went above and quite literally beyond in the pursuit of gamebreaking mastery.
There's some pioneering madness never-before-seen in their entry - definitely worth a look for anyone interested in sampling mapping mechanics that go well beyond the norm.
You may read judging comments and scores in full via the Aspire 2018 Results spreadsheet. Do note that this only includes the "final" twelve entries, as per standard protocol for these contests.
With that being said, the rather late conclusion to Aspire 2018 also marks the end-of-life for this contest's current format, and also my participation as its principle host and organizer.
It has been an interesting ride overall, and I am very thankful for all those who chose to participate in osu!'s first ground-breaking mapping contest. The delays this time round have been beyond regrettable, and I am thankful for everyone's patience in the matter.
This does not mean that Aspire is over forever, however!
Someone new and brave with a myriad of fresh ideas has stepped up to the plate and plans to host a new iteration of the contest in 2020, with a brand new ruleset, categories and music selection process to boot. It is 100% the development and iteration that the Aspire moniker deserves, and while they wish to remain unnamed at the moment, I am delighted to entrust the future of the contest to them.
More details on this will be forthcoming as things develop. Keep your eyes and ears peeled!
—Ephemeral
owo
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