29 Jan 2025
Newspaper Cup 2025
by Mafumafu, Fycho, Atrue

Newspaper Cup 2025

by Mafumafu, Fycho, Atrue

As we celebrate the Spring Festival and the Year of Snake, the longest-running annual beatmapping contest for novice mappers is back again!

The Newspaper Cup is originally a Chinese mapping contest to promote novice mappers, which had its first iteration in 2015. Through the past years, the Newspaper Cup has become a renowned contest for encouraging fresh blood into mapping and finding new talents across the entire mapping community, and it will always be the core value of Newspaper Cup.

Newspaper Cup 2025, the 11th occurrence of this annual event, will be hosted by Mafumafu, Fycho, and Atrue. We strongly encourage and welcome novice mappers to participate!

For Chinese contestants: 点击此处查看中文版主题。

Schedule

Event Dates
Beatmapping January 29 to March 2 (23:59 UTC)
Judging March 2 to March 24
Results March 30

The schedule is subject to change according to the progress of the contest.

Songs

You are free to choose any track listed in the Featured Artist library. Reasonable cutting is allowed.

Prizes

Placement Prizes
1st 12 months of osu!supporter, $50 USD, NPC 2025 profile badge (pending)
2nd 6 months of osu!supporter, $30 USD
3rd 6 months of osu!supporter
4th and 5th 4 months of osu!supporter

Besides that, we will also have lucky draws of osu!supporter for those who successfully participated (excluding prize winners). Make sure to join our Discord server so that you can get involved!

Lucky draw

One lucky contestant from all qualified non-prize winners will receive 1 month of osu!supporter.

  • Hosts hold the right to disqualify users from the lucky draw for reasons such as incomplete and/or random beatmaps.
  • For every 10 qualified contestants, one additional lucky winner (up to 5) will be drawn.

We sincerely thank the generous sponsors that made Newspaper Cup 2025 possible:

Rules

Before you start working on your submission, please make sure you familiarise yourself with the rules below.

  • This contest is for the osu! mode only.
  • Your submission must be a .osz file exported from the osu! in-game editor. You must submit at the designated submission site.
  • Your submission should comply with the ranking criteria, except for those that cannot apply (e.g. spread requirements).
  • Your submission should not contain information that reveals your identity.
  • You must complete your submission independently. Do not upload or share your submission with others before the results announcement.
  • Beatmaps made by generative artificial intelligence are not allowed.
  • You are allowed to use custom hitsounds and custom combo colours. However, you are not allowed to add backgrounds, videos, or storyboards.
  • Do not modify metadata such as the title and artist.
  • You are required to finish one and only one difficulty in your submission.
  • Novice Mapper Eligibility (NPC 2025 is exclusive for novice mappers):
    • You must have joined osu! before 1 December 2024.
    • You are not a winner of other osu! mode mapping contests (e.g., PDC, NPC, MBC, oBWC, etc.).
    • You have never been a member of mapping-related groups (NAT, QAT, BAT, MAT, BN, etc.) in the osu! mode.
    • The total drain time of your Ranked Insane (and above) difficulties before 1 January 2025 must be below 5 minutes. Collab difficulties are counted by corresponding sections mapped.
    • Throughout the contest, the hosts may inspect if you qualify for novice status.

Judging criteria

Category Details
Expertise (50%) Expertise refers to how well the map reflects the music elements, with an emphasis on music reflection, pattern/rhythm consistency, coherence, and playability. As NPC is for novice mappers, judges will focus more on solid fundamental execution as the very first objective.
Creativity (35%) Creativity refers to how the map stands out compared to current mapping trends and other submissions to this NPC. Generic maps or copy-paste concepts are discouraged. Creativity built on top of solid expertise is more than important as well.
Judge's Impression (15%) Judges can award or deduct points based on specific noteworthy aspects as they deem appropriate, such as outstanding sections and hitsounds or vice versa.

Submissions are anonymous to judges, and the judging scores will be standardised.

Judges


Now that you are familiar with the rules and judging criteria, it's time to submit your works via the Newspaper Cup 2025 contest listing! You can reupload your submissions as many times as you want up until Monday, March 3 (23:59 UTC), so be sure your final versions are submitted by then.

Feel free to join our Discord server to receive news and future updates. For further information, please refer to the following:

Thank you to all our sponsors and supporters, and good luck mapping!

—Mafumafu, Fycho, Atrue

Comments37

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"Your submission should not contain information that reveals your identity" means not to fill 'creator' field?

japanese driving colours!!!!!!

the game will be fun

Oh a contest I can maybe do pog

fuck bruh i shoulda ranked less insane+ diffs
Lowkey i understand why thats a rule but doesnt in anyway indicate whether youre a "novice mapper" or not. Though i do get thats a hard thing to judge

Walavouchey THAT_otaku

well you have to pick some criteria

WOW

this gonna be fun

Alty mentioned !!!!

Good luck everyone!

I'm kinda wondering how would they manage judging with such a large base of songs. For me it looks like you have lost even before mapping if you don't like songs that lead to fancy tech maps

Kaly -infinite-

they don't, is just pure RNG like any other mapping contest, Good luck!

SaltyLucario -infinite-

how's that an issue? as long each map is judged individually instead of based on comparison with other maps it does not matter as long as your map is solid

Axylotl SaltyLucario

feels like since there's (probably going to have) tons of song diversity it's slightly harder to judge each submission as equal :3c

-infinite- -infinite-

I recall that in previous rounds of NPC there are two (instrumental) songs available, usually one simple and one complex. And it's like you are basically away from top 3 if you choose the simple song. Anyway if you participate the contest I suggest choose a song that you can make a sufficiently complex map with

Be me
See the word "cup"
Get super excited!!!
Open up post
"rules: This contest is for the osu! mode only."
I go back to my slumber 🛌

JoseloFxD7 SUPERNOOB20

same I got really excited before read rules :p

Another contest to place last in, lets go!!

Axylotl Lunexia

i will change that

surely i will send something and not forget

oh nice

newspaper cup 2025

holll up

gm

good luckk

she news on my paper til I cup???

my papers til news i on cup

0x84f chromb

this is gonna be you if you continue:
User not found! ;_;

There are a few possible reasons for this:

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Utiba chromb

chromb I love you but don’t fucking speak again

please be quiet for several days again

[[[[[[ Walavouchey

she news on my paper til I cup???

/

she news on my paper til I cup???