11 Oct 2023
Monthly Beatmapping Contest: October 2023
by pishifat, Hivie, Kimitakari

Monthly Beatmapping Contest: October 2023

by pishifat, Hivie, Kimitakari

Rumors say that you're the world's #1 mapper. Now's your chance to prove it.

For those out of the loop, the Monthly Beatmapping Contest (MBC) is exactly what you'd expect: a mapping contest that runs each month... for different game modes.

This month's contest is open to osu!taiko and osu!catch mappers.

Next month will feature a new contest for osu! and osu!mania, along with the results for September's contest (which is currently being judged)!

Timeline

  • Beatmapping (3 weeks): Contest is announced and beatmappers create their entries.
  • Screening (1.5 weeks): Entries are evaluated by experienced beatmappers. If there aren't many entries, this will be skipped in favour of a longer judging period.
  • Judging (1.5 weeks): Top entries from screening are judged in detail by a different crew of experienced beatmappers.
  • Rewards (~2 months from now): Winners are announced at the start of another MBC.

Beatmapping

Limitation

To keep things fresh, every MBC has a limitation that requires mappers to compete on an similar playing field!

osu!taiko

Given osu!taiko mapping is pretty limited to begin with, this contest is opting for a more song-oriented challenge: your beatmap's song must be 240 BPM or faster.

  • If your song contains variable BPM, the most common BPM must be 240 or higher.
  • A beatmap with double the rhythm density of an ordinary map (e.g. 1/8 rhythm functions like usual 1/4 rhythm) is allowed, so long as the song's doubled BPM is 240 or higher.

osu!catch

osu!catch is taking a much simpler approach: your beatmap's star rating must be 5.00 stars or higher.

Apparently the winners of some previous osu!catch contests have been Rain difficulties that competed against a bunch of Overdose difficulties, so this limitation aims to bring all submissions to an expert-oriented skill level.

Songs

Any song listed on osu!'s Featured Artist listing is eligible for this contest!

If you're mapping osu!taiko, ensure that your song is at least 240 BPM, as outlined in the limitation above.

And of course, if you'd rather not map a long song, feel free to cut it to a shorter length!

Rewards

The Monthly Beatmapping Contest rewards users with contest points based on their placements:

  • Winner: 2 points
  • Runner-up: 1 point
  • Screening crew's #1 pick: 1 point

These numbers may vary depending on how many submissions the contest receives. Check the wiki article for details.

Contest points reward users at certain thresholds:

  • Profile badges are attainable at 2, 4, and 6 points each. The badges are tiered, meaning each new badge will replace the previous one!
  • Elite Mapper user title is attainable at 6 points.

Additionally, a Mappers' Guild keychain is optionally rewarded to the winner of each month's contest. Its design is based on your beatmap!

Rules

If you're looking for a lawless contest, wait for the next Aspire. In the meantime, pay attention:

  • Submissions must follow the month's beatmapping limitation:
    • osu!taiko: your beatmap's song must be 240 BPM or faster.
      • If your song contains variable BPM, the most common BPM must be 240 or higher.
      • A beatmap with double the rhythm density of an ordinary map (e.g. 1/8 rhythm functions like usual 1/4 rhythm) is allowed, so long as the song's doubled BPM is 240 or higher.
    • osu!catch: your beatmap's star rating must be 5.00 stars or higher.
  • Submissions must be a single difficulty from one of the month's selected songs.
  • Submissions must be in .osz format.
  • Submissions must NOT be uploaded to the osu! website until after the contest's results are finalised.
  • Submissions must abide by the ranking criteria.
  • Your submission must be solely made by you. Collaborations are not allowed for this contest!

Note that all submissions will be anonymised before they're reviewed by screeners/judges to avoid bias. During this process, storyboards and backgrounds may be removed, and for osu!taiko, elements that don't affect gameplay (such as object locations in the editor) will be standardised across all submissions.


That's enough reading. Create your mapping masterpiece, then upload it to one of these pages:

You have until the end of October to submit your entry. Good luck and have fun mapping!

—pishifat, Hivie, Kimitakari

Comments18

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Are you allowed to let people play your map without uploading it to get feedback?

Babero Babero

ig thats a no

What a limitation for taiko... tf again. Nah

Computer Of Nobiller I can write Intel & AMD Music

Both of these restrictions are terrible.

For taiko, basing the limitation on the timings in the fa listing is not a good idea. There are plenty of examples of songs that are 130-140 that had their bpm doubled. There are also timings in the fa listing that you can argue are actually halved b as well. Having the limitation based on something so flimsy is a poor idea. (I can give examples of listings with doubled/halved bpm if needed).

As for catch, mapping 5 stars is simply not a restriction. Every mapper who will apply to this contest has done that and not to mention it would be EXTREMELY easy to finish and or submit an fa map that you already had in your back drawer. Every high end mapper in catch frequently works with fa and mappers guild. I can guarantee that these mappers who are entering this contest already have an fa map they are working on that is over 5 stars. In the reasoning it was cited because "rains were beating overdoses" That's because in a previous mbc contest. The restriction was actually a 1/1 gap. None of the maps exceeded high sr and all of them had a unique way of emphasis and I would argue the 1/1 gap contest is an example of a good restriction.

For me the restriction should be something that defines the entire map. A gimmick unique to ones game mode that you have to base your entire map around. Not having it define what song you pick in a poor manner. And not being sr. It should restrict mappers enough to really show who can stand out given the specific scenario that was chosen. Neither of these do that in any way shape or form.

on one hand I agree with this, but on the other it seems that this rendition of mbc is starting off with more "easy" restrictions (take mania for example, it's just one marathon diff)

The only issue here I see is the half/double bpm thing but honestly there's still a lot of songs to choose from anyway and it's not too big of a matter since it's only one rendition

hopefully the restrictions pick up again next month though

wwwww SilentWuffer

I feel that another problem is that it opens the door a bit too wide when you have restrictions this loose.

Yeah its a more “easy” restriction but every entry will be so vastly different it becomes very difficult to judge making me wonder how a winner will emerge when the restrictions are as loose as they are.

Honestly, I kinda second this. I mean, usually we shouldn't judge something until it isn't finished. But after the desaster we had 2 years ago, I thought the next mapping contest would have something interesting for Taiko at least.

Again: Taiko is the very bloody definition of a rhythm game. So why don't we ever utilize it?? I would like to see a contest where we have limitations like using inversed-, mirrored-, mono-, or doublets and quadruplet-patterns as example. Or how about whole reversed sections? Or having one of our main mapping styles vocal-, beat- or imprvised-mapping being in use only? Or rules where for the first time, we should try to map with a good amount of sliders?

So far it feels like people don't entrust us the ability to think around the corner when there are limitations. And when they do, it's about SVs (see last contest: https://osu.ppy.sh/comments/1640045). It's simply frustrating.

I'm all in for mapping contests, and even getting more FA songs during that process ranked as well, but 240 BPM ain't it chief. I'll wait for another 2 years till we get a real mapping contest for Taiko. But what do I know. I'm just an old rumbling guy who has no idea, right.

Rumors say that I need a new pair of pants

"To keep things fresh, every MBC has a limitation that requires mappers to compete on an similar playing field!"
where is the limitation ?

rumors say artistic skill should be measured by those for who such art is made

oh the rumors are so true

gl everyone

rumors of my mapping skill have been greatly exaggerated

Arityle overdahedge2015

Rumor has it that I believe in you :3

good luck guys

/

good luck guys