Osu!
Osu! | |
---|---|
File:Osuungimped.png | |
Developer(s) | peppy |
Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows |
Release | September 16, 2007 |
Genre(s) | Music |
Mode(s) | Single player |
Osu! is a rhythm video game for Microsoft Windows, based on the Nintendo DS titles Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan and Elite Beat Agents. The game can be downloaded for free at the game's official site.
Gameplay
The game is primarily played using a mouse to click 'beats' displayed on-screen in time with the music. This is analogous to tapping the beats on the Nintendo DS screen with a stylus. At the top of the screen, a health bar is present, which is constantly drained. If the player hits or clears a beat, the health meter at the top of the screen fills slightly. If he misses a beat, a large part of the meter is drained, and if it gets completely empty, he fails the song. There are three types of beats in the game: Hit circles, sliders and spinners.
A hit circle is a circle with a number on it. There is an outer circle that closes in on the hit circle, and when it aligns with the outer edges of the hit circle, the player clicks it. He gets 300, 100 or 50 points, depending on the timing he has, multiplied with his current combo. Every time the player hits a hit circle or an end circle, touch a slider tick, or clear a spinner, the combo is raised by 1, but if he misses, the combo is reset back to 0.
Sliders consist of a hit circle, an end circle, and a path connecting these circles. When the player clicks the hit circle, a ball appears, rolling along the path from the hit circle to the end circle, and they must keep the mouse button held down as he follows the ball with his cursor all the way to the end circle. There are tiny circles along the slider path, which increase the player's combo. These are called slider ticks.
Spinners are large circles filling up most of the screen. The player must click and hold the spinner , while spinning the cursor in circles around it. For each individual spin, 100 points are gained. A set of bars in the background gradually light up, one by one, as the player spins, and when they have managed to light all the bars, he clears the spinner. For each subsequent spin they make, they get 1000 bonus points.
Beatmaps
The game uses player designed "beatmaps", which are the files containing the actual gameplay-data, created using an in-game editor, which allows the user to pick any song they like and create beats for it. Beatmaps for specific songs can then be shared through an in-game uploader directly linked to the main site. Moderators then modify and give comments to beatmaps. After the moderators are happy with the beatmap, they approve it for ranking. Statistics for each quality approved beatmap, known as "ranked" beatmaps, are maintained on the Osu! website. Scores for each ranked beatmap are totaled to determine a player's ranked score, which determines a player's ranking in the community.
Community
As of March 2nd, there are currently 6847 members in the community. This number grows as more people join.
Numerous members in the osu! community help the developer, peppy, the best they can with other features implemented in the game.
- Echo -- Programmer of the osu! IRC Chat Bot, BanchoBot
- LuigiHann -- Skinner/ Global Moderator
- Awp -- Official Bug Tester / Beatmap Moderator
- Loginer -- Official Beatmap Moderator
- Saturos -- Official Beatmap Moderator