Locus

The osu! team is proud to unveil its most ambitious community project to date: Locus — an all-new original song and beatmap contest.

Derived from Latin, a locus can be described as "a particular place or position where something of interest occurs". Locus was conceived as an event that would bring the creative circles in osu! closer together. Beyond simply being a contest, Locus aims to foster positive relationships and champion the communities that shape the very foundation of osu!.

What is Locus?

Locus is an original song and beatmap contest hosted for the osu! game mode only. Teams of up to five creators will create an original beatmap experience from scratch: this means entries will be judged on song quality, map quality, and visual presentation. This is similar to previous contests such as A Labour of Love, except there is more freedom in choice.

To be specific, all entries are expected to showcase:

• An original song of length 1:30–3:00.
• A full beatmap spread on the osu! game mode that satisfies the ranking criteria.
• Visual assets (e.g. background/storyboarding/video).

The full list of rules and operational procedures can be found here, but we felt that the following points deserved particular attention and highlighting:

• All entries must remain anonymous until the contest concludes. Groups will be able to choose a team name and enter under that pseudonym, and must not share anything related to their creation via social media or other spaces — this is to help ensure each entry is judged by the community solely on its merit, and not by the fame of its creators.
• Incomplete entries are still considered valid for submission. They will undergo the same voting process as every other entry. We want to encourage all creators to participate, even if the full scope of their creation isn't achieved.
• The ranking of the entries will be determined by a new form of community voting (elo system). Voters will be required to compare a set number of entries across 3 criteria and the results will be fed into an elo rating system to determine the final rankings.

  • The process is similar to a round-robin tournament where every player is matched against each other multiple times, except the match outcomes are decided by the voters, essentially taken as "wins" or "losses" and fed into an elo rating system.
  • This is, in spirit, similar to ranking systems used by games like chess or League of Legends, and was constructed to make the voting more accessible to the general community (by not having to go through every single entry to participate in voting), and to help prevent bandwagoning.

Schedule and registration

Teams must be registered in order to submit an entry, so we recommend doing that once your team is formed in order for us to contact you with updates throughout the competition.

Click here to register for this contest!

Prizes

For a contest at this level and scope, we have decided to offer equal rewards for the top entries:

• The beatmap will be bundled as part of the default osu! installation as "recommended beatmaps" for at least 1 year.
• Team members will receive a unique profile badge themed around their entry.
• Team members will be awarded a Locus user title befitting of their role.

For any complete entry submitted before the entry submission deadline, team members will be awarded a profile badge if they are able to rank the set before the next iteration of the contest.

How do I get involved?

We understand that finding and coordinating a team for events like this can be quite difficult, but we would like to encourage people to have a go, and try to have a good time.

To help get things started, we've constructed a site affectionately dubbed as the Nexus to assist in linking mappers, composers and visual designers looking to participate together. Using this site is NOT a requirement — you are welcome to form teams on your own if you are able!

To get started, visit the Nexus via the Mappers' Guild website and register your details today!

For the full list of rules, operational procedures, and support available to you, please refer to the wiki page.

Announcements for the contest will be coordinated through the #osu-locus channel on the osu! Discord server

Good luck.

—mango, Matrix, and a bunch of other people