Project Loved

Project Loved is the voting platform that promotes beatmaps to the Loved category. It is run primarily by the Project Loved Team.

Moving a beatmap to Loved

Beatmaps are moved to Loved by a nomination and voting process.

Members of the Project Loved Team called captains regularly nominate beatmaps for a specific game mode. These almost always come from submissions from the osu! community.

To submit a beatmap for Loved, please visit the beatmap submission page of the Project Loved website and fill out the form. The submission may be viewed under the listing of its respective game mode along with the others. Below are the listings where these submissions can be viewed:

• osu! submissions
• osu!taiko submissions
• osu!catch submissions
• osu!mania submissions

Nominated beatmaps are then posted to the Project Loved forum, where community members may vote whether they want the beatmap to be Loved or not. Maps reaching a specified threshold percentage of "Yes" votes at their polls' end time will be moved to the Loved category:

Eligibility

There are some very minimal criteria that need to be met for beatmaps to be nominated for Loved. Each game mode has its own specific criteria for Loved beatmap nomination and priority, but all modes follow these rules:

• It is not in the Qualified, Ranked, or Approved categories
• Its creator does not disapprove of it being Loved
• Its creator is not restricted
• At least one difficulty can be passed

Although many Pending and Work-in-progress beatmaps meet these criteria, few are voted into the Loved category due to the more selective nomination and voting requirements.

Beatmaps entering the Loved category are required to follow some additional rulesets:

• Some points from the Metadata section of the ranking criteria:

  • Song title, artist, and source should be correct in all cases.
  • Beatmap tags should properly list all contributors (guest difficulty creators, storyboarders, etc.).
• Song Content Rules
• Visual Content Considerations

Additionally, in order to keep the audio quality of the song at a reasonable level, beatmap audio files should have an average bitrate of at least 128 kbps.

Any problems with these rules are usually sorted out while the beatmap is up for voting.

osu!-specific criteria

Starting from February 2023, beatmaps of the osu! game mode considered for Loved will follow these new categories as well as the rules and guidelines below, which are similar to the ranking criteria, but adapted for the more lenient process Project Loved is known for.

Categorisation

Every month, beatmaps are chosen according to 9 categories, with the goal of ensuring variety for every selection of beatmaps by the captains.

Additionally, up to three wildcard beatmaps may be chosen from any category, adding to a total of twelve beatmaps per month.

For any questions regarding what goes in each category, contact the osu! Loved captains.

Rules

All rules are exactly that: rules. They are not guidelines and may not be broken under any circumstance.

• The beatmap must abide by the beatmap submission rules.
• The beatmap must not be currently in the Qualified, Ranked or Approved categories. Ideally, a map should not be going for Ranked and Loved at the same time, as they are mutually exclusive.
• The beatmap must be submitted at least 1 year before Loved nomination, except for beatmaps that break ranking criteria due to their concept. Submitting a beatmap solely for Loved is discouraged when Ranked might be a better option. Exceptions include sliderator usage, Aspire maps, storyboard gameplay gimmicks, etc.
• The beatmap must have at least 30 favourites. This is a minimum threshold to indicate a positive and existing community reaction to the beatmap. Brigading for favourites is discouraged, although captains cannot verify whether that happens.
• Every person involved in the beatmap must not disapprove of it being Loved. This includes guest difficulty creators, hitsounders, skinners, and storyboarders. If any user involved in the beatmap explicitly disagrees with their contribution being Loved, then it is to be removed from the beatmap after its nomination.
• The beatmap host cannot be restricted. Guest difficulties from restricted users will be judged on a case-by-case basis once the map is considered for nomination by a Loved captain.
• At least one difficulty of the beatmap relevant to the Loved submission process must not auto-fail. Leaderboards are pointless for beatmaps with broken score submission. For the same reason, this also forbids beatmaps that are relevant solely because of an unpassable difficulty, even if they have other difficulties. If the beatmap has a difficulty that auto-fails, a new difficulty with the problematic hit objects removed needs to be also included, preferably removing the original.
• Every difficulty of a beatmap must have a minimum drain time of 20 seconds. This is lower than the 30-second minimum of the ranking criteria for the sake of being less limiting.
• A beatmap must have at least some form of mapping contribution from the person submitting it. This specifically avoids "beatmap compilations" which, even with the original mappers' permissions, do not represent the kind of original work showcased in Loved.
• Beatmap timing must not negatively impact gameplay. Unlike the ranking criteria, which requires near-millisecond-accurate timing for all beatmaps, there is some leeway for complex songs. If unsure whether the timing for a beatmap is appropriate, contact one of the osu! Loved captains.
• Beatmaps with concepts relying on storyboards must not be easily abusable by players through file editing. This judged on a case-by-case basis to ensure fair competition for people who play the beatmap as intended. Issues may be mitigated by using approach rate 0, making invisible notes' timing windows more natural, and utilising difficulty-specific storyboarding via the .osu file instead of the .osb file.

Guidelines

Guidelines may be ignored under exceptional circumstances. These exceptional circumstances can be justified by an explanation as of why the guideline has been ignored and why not ignoring it will interfere with the overall quality of the creation.

• All ranking criteria rules and guidelines not explicitly mentioned as rules here still apply as guidelines. Enforcement happens on a case-by-case basis during the Loved nomination process, and the mapper will be contacted about any required changes. Note, however, that full spreads are not required except for the Ranked Rejects category.
• Beatmap metadata should be as accurate as possible. Beatmaps that are nominated for Loved voting go through a final metadata check by specialised members of the community. Correct metadata makes searching beatmaps easier when looking for a song. When in doubt, contact a Loved captain.
• Uninherited timing points should be the same in every difficulty of a beatmap. This may be ignored for certain gimmicks involving changing BPM, slider velocity, or other factors that are not relevant in every difficulty.
• All difficulties in the beatmap should be finished. This means reaching the start and end point of the song, excluding unmappable sections, intros, or outros. For example, in a 5-minute song with multiple difficulties, if the Extra and Hard difficulties are 4:30 in length, the Insane cannot be 1 minute long. If all difficulties have large amounts of the song left unmapped, the audio file should be cut accordingly.

Nomination priority

There are no strict rules governing which maps a captain must nominate for Loved, but generally the nominated maps are very well known and appreciated by the community (as the title "Loved" implies). Sometimes a beatmap will also be preferred if it is significantly older than others or contains beatmaps with unique and high-quality mapping styles.

Further information

All of the organisation and planning for Project Loved is done in the #osu-loved channel of the osu! Discord server. There is also a #project-loved channel in the osu! Community Discord server. Any questions, concerns, or suggestions may be directed there.

In addition to the discussion channels mentioned above, there are dedicated hubs for each game mode:

• osu! Project Loved Discord server
• osu!taiko Project Loved Discord server
• osu!catch Project Loved Discord server
• osu!mania Project Loved Discord server