Locus 2025

Locus 2025 is a multi-layered contest launched in early 2025 to bring the creative circles on osu! closer together.

Submissions to this contest include the following elements:

• 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).

Links

• Registration form
• Contest listing
• Contest announcement
• Nexus

Teams

To be announced.

Schedule

Rules

Failure to abide by these rules MAY lead to immediate disqualification.

• Team composition

  • There can only be a maximum of 5 people per team.

    • An individual can fill in for multiple roles (eg. a mapper can also contribute to some design elements).
    • How teams allocate these roles is entirely up to them.
  • Participants cannot be part of more than one team.
  • Teams must not publicise their entry anywhere outside of the officially sanctioned Teaser #1 and #2, or otherwise identify themselves until the contest results have been announced.
• Teams must submit their entry as a .osz by the submission deadline. Do not upload your entry to the website via BSS — there will be a separate submission for this.

  • Song requirements

    • Must contain the original song in .mp3 (192 kbps) or .ogg (208 kbps) format.
    • DRAIN TIME SHOULD AIM TO be between 1:30–3:00. Length of song should be reasonably close to this.
    • No restrictions on genre, but must be suitable for all ages (ie. not explicit).
    • Composers must own all the usage rights to samples (so it can be licensed).
  • Spread

    • The .osz should aim to contain an ENHIX spread that satisfies the current ranking criteria for the osu! game mode. Your submission should contain no more than 5 difficulties.
    • Other game modes are not supported.
  • Visual elements

    • Any images, storyboards, or videos produced must be integrated into the .osz on submission.
    • Designers must own all the usage rights for these as well.
  • The entry must abide by the song content rules and visual content considerations.
  • Teams may be asked to email examples of WIPs/assets used throughout to demonstrate ownership of said content. Full spread and graphical design elements are not mandatory requirements. However, the entry will be heavily penalised by the voting process (see below).
• Teams who submit an entry agree that we have the rights to use that song in anything and everything related to this contest.

Operational procedures

Team registration

Teams must be registered in order to submit an entry. Teams are allowed to choose their own team name on registration, but the osu! team reserves the right to request a change if deemed unsuitable for the event. Team members are to remain anonymous for the duration of the contest — they will be revealed at its conclusion.

Register through this form.

Submission

The details of how to submit entries will be announced later.

Teams should follow the #osu-locus channel in the osu! Discord server for updates.

Nexus

We cannot expect every composer and graphic designer who is interested in participating to be familiar with navigating the osu! community, so the Nexus was created as a support system to help those who are looking to form or join viable teams.

• The Nexus is a website that will allow users to self advertise.
• Potential participants who are looking to form a team may browse the Nexus to contact someone who they feel is suitable. We expect the majority of interactions to be composers seeking mappers.
• Once a team has been registered, the team member's bios will be updated to indicate that they are no longer available.

The Nexus is not a compulsory process. It is designed as both a support system as well as an additional avenue to help individuals form teams. Participants are welcome to form teams through their own methods as well, but they must still register their team if they intend to participate.

The Nexus is available on the Mappers' Guild website.

Voting system

A form of community voting was chosen to determine the ranking of the submissions, as it best reflects the osu! community spirit. To combat bandwagoning, a unique elo voting system was developed:

• Voting will only be open to osu! accounts that are at least 6 months old.
• All valid submitted entries will be checked to ensure they are entirely anonymised.
• Voters will be assigned 5 random entries. They will be prompted to sort the entries under the following judging criteria:

  • Song Quality
  • Beatmap Quality
  • Visual Presentation
• Voters must submit a score on every entry before they are able to vote. They will be expected to evaluate the entries across a single difficulty of their choice (e.g. Normal).

  • If an entry is missing a specific difficulty or does not have any visual design elements, it automatically scores last place under their respective judging criteria.
• All votes will be treated as comparisons and fed into an elo system of sorts to determine the overall ranking of all entries.

  • 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.

Teasers

Teaser #1 and #2 are optional submissions. Registered teams are allowed to freely submit a 5–10 second video clip showcasing their work. These clips will be stitched together to form a "trailer" that will be featured on osu!'s social media.

The osu! team reserves the right to deny any clip if deemed unsuitable for the event.

General enquiries

A Discord channel (#osu-locus) will be created on the osu! server. Announcements will be posted there — it will be up to teams to ensure they are caught up with the latest updates, though we will endeavour to inform registered teams of any updates.

For specific (private) enquiries or disputes, email mangomizer@ppy.sh.

Prizes

The top entries of the contest will earn equal prizes. The number of "top entries" will be influenced by the number of submissions in the contest.

• 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 that was submitted by 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.

Finally, there is a wildcard prize. peppy will pick his favourite entry and that team will earn a separate mystery prize.

Results

To be announced.