Osu!

Last updated

osu!
Original author(s) Dean "peppy" Herbert
Developer(s) osu! development team
Initial releaseSeptember 16, 2007;16 years ago (2007-09-16)
Repository https://github.com/ppy/osu
Written in C#
Middleware OpenTK [2]
Operating system Microsoft Windows
macOS
Linux (open beta)
Android (open beta)
iOS (open beta)
Size
  • osu! lazer
  • 670 MB
  • osu! stable
  • 220MB
Available in37 languages
List of languages
Arabic, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Czech, Danish, English, German, Greek, Spanish, Finnish, Filipino, French, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Lithuanian, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Serbian, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Traditional Chinese
Type Rhythm game
License Freeware (stable build)

MIT (osu!lazer code)

CC BY-NC (osu!lazer assets [3] )
Website osu.ppy.sh   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

Osu! [lower-alpha 1] (stylized as osu!) is a free-to-play rhythm game originally created and self-published by Australian developer Dean Herbert. It was released for Microsoft Windows on 16 September 2007. The game has been ported to macOS, Linux, Android and iOS. In terms of number of players, it is one of the most popular rhythm games. [4]

Contents

Osu!'s gameplay, based on the Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan series of rhythm games, primarily involves clicking notes, which appear as circles, using the mouse. Since the game's release, three other game modes have been added, taking inspiration from Taiko no Tatsujin and Beatmania . [5] [6]

Gameplay

Screenshot of a beatmap being played in osu!standard Osu!Lazer Screenshot with Argon Skin.png
Screenshot of a beatmap being played in osu!standard

Osu! is a rhythm game in which hit circles appear as notes over a song's runtime, and the objective is to click on the circles at the appropriate time and in the correct order. [7] [8] [9] The core gameplay is inspired by the Nintendo DS rhythm game Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan and its sequel Elite Beat Agents. [7] Rings called approach circles close in on the hit circles to visually indicate the click timing. [8] Other types of notes, called sliders and spinners,[ citation needed ] requires that the player click and hold while moving the cursor in some way. [9] [10] If the player misses too many circles, they fail the song and must retry from the beginning. [8] [9] Different in-game settings, called mods, can change gameplay in different ways—for example, by speeding up the song or decreasing the size of circles. [11] [12]

Songs are mapped to levels called beatmaps, [7] and the same song can have multiple beatmaps of varying difficulties. [9] Some beatmaps, including a tutorial, are bundled with a new installation of the game, but more can be downloaded from the game's website. [7] [8] Beatmaps are community-made; they can be created and uploaded by users. [8] [10] [13] The game also allows for a high amount of graphical customization. [14]

In the game's single-player mode, scores on beatmaps can be compared with other players, who are ranked on an online leaderboard. [8] Scores are primarily measured using their performance points, which account for various aspects of a player's skill. [11] [15] Users can add others as friends and chat in-game, [10] and the multiplayer mode allows groups of people to play beatmaps synchronously with each other. [8]

Game modes

The game's original and most popular mode, based on Ouendan, is also known as osu!standard. There are also three alternative game modes, osu!mania, osu!taiko, and osu!catch. [10] [13] In osu!mania, a mode based on rhythm game series such as Beatmania [7] and Guitar Hero, [10] the player must press the correct keys on the keyboard when notes reach the bottom of the screen. [10] osu!taiko is based on Taiko no Tatsujin; it involves circles moving from right to left, requiring keypresses when they reach the left side. [7] osu!catch is the only game mode that was not based on an existing rhythm game. [10] In it, fruits fall from the top of the screen and the player controls a character at the bottom whom they can move left and right with the goal of catching as much fruit as possible. [10] [16]

Development

Osu! was conceived by Dean Herbert, an Australian developer known online as "peppy", [10] as a port of Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan and Elite Beat Agents. [17] Herbert had experience creating video games prior to Osu!, having made some during high school and university, [18] :05:34 but has said he did not think it would become his job. [19] :00:20 He began developing Osu! while attending university and had a working build of the game after a few hours, which he shared with friends. [18] :00:50 It was written in C# using the XNA framework. [18] :03:24 The game's first public release was on 16 September 2007, [20] and an open beta was officially available starting on 17 October. [21] Due to the game's growth in popularity as well as user feedback, Herbert later added the extra game modes osu!mania, osu!taiko, and osu!catch. [17] After releasing Osu!, Herbert, who had been working full-time for an IT company, gradually reduced his work hours to focus on maintaining Osu!. [18] :39:49

According to Herbert, as of a July 2014 interview for the official Osu! YouTube channel, the user interface of the game client and official website were undergoing full "revamps". [18] :34:42 In the same interview, he expressed interest or intentions to add major features to the game, such as a multiplayer power-up system inspired by Ouendan and TetriNET , [18] :16:14 3D rotation of the field of play, [18] :25:23 and expanded multiplayer lobbies. [18] :37:40

Community

An audience watches players idke and RyuK compete at the osu! TwitchCon booth in 2018. Osu! TwitchCon 2018 Booth.jpg
An audience watches players idke and RyuK compete at the osu! TwitchCon booth in 2018.

Osu! World Cup is an annual tournament which comprises a group stage and bracket of the 32 highest-seeded national teams in the world, generally with 6 to 8 players on each team. [22] There are also many community-hosted tournaments, differing in skill level, types of beatmaps played, and how the teams are composed. [23] [ non-primary source needed ]

Reception

Jeuxvideo.com reviewed osu! favorably with 18/20 points in 2015. [24] In 2010, MMOGames.com reviewer Daniel Ball said that while the game was very similar to Elite Beat Agents , it was differentiated by its community's large library of high-quality community made content and customization. [25]

osu! has been used and recommended by professionals in other video games, such as Ninja and EFFECT, as a way to warm-up and practice mouse cursor aim. [26] [27] [28] Due to the game's emphasis on quickly moving the mouse cursor to precise points on the screen, some players of multiplayer online battle arena games and first-person shooter games use it to improve reflexes and mouse control. [29]

Notes

  1. Pronounced variously in English: /ˈs/ , /ˈs/ .

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References

  1. "osu!(lazer) Updates: May 19, 2024 · news". osu!. Retrieved 24 May 2024.
  2. "a long-overdue update". ppy blog. 30 June 2016. Archived from the original on 8 November 2020. Retrieved 20 August 2021. Until now we used some XNA code for input handling and low-level structs. These dependencies are almost compeletely [sic] removed from the project now, with OpenTK or similar open-source frameworks replacing them.
  3. "GitHub - ppy/osu-resources: assets used by osu!". GitHub. Retrieved 19 January 2023.
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  15. "osu! PP world record broken by 15-year-old". Dot Esports. 25 July 2019. Archived from the original on 12 August 2019. Retrieved 12 August 2019. For instance, former Overwatch League pro Hyeon "EFFECT" Hwang said he plays the game for one hour before matches to warm up his hands.
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