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[Sowelu]

http://osu.ppy.sh/

It's a rhythm game--circles and sliders pop up on the screen; click them and drag them with the beat.

Free, and a very active community making beatmaps for it.  The interface is almost Macintosh-like, which in this case is actually a good thing--it's tremendously usable; the game is simple but the interface is pretty darn shiny.

When you first start off, you'll need to get some beatmap packs under Beatmaps -> Beatmap Packs.  Unzip them straight into your 'songs' folder inside your Osu! folder.  You don't even need to restart the program, it'll find them next time you go to the song list.  The packs can be very big, but oh well.  Make sure you get Internet Pack 1, because it's awesome, and Beatmap Pack 93 is my other favorite so far.

After playing it for a few days I can take most four-star songs (on a five star scale), and I'm starting to make my own beatmaps.  I was very sad to discover that The Pillows (who did the music for FLCL) have very inconsistent BPM, so now I'm doing music from Wolf's Rain and Iji.  Again, making beatmaps is pretty darn easy from a technical standpoint (of course it's a creative challenge), and submitting drafts is built right into the game...drag an MP3 into the editor, make your beatmap, press 'upload', bring up the IRC tab and type /np to give people a link to your song, get feedback.

It really doesn't take long for this game to give you visual kinesthesia from every song you hear.

[Soulwynd]

Small question, do they:

1. Include the songs with the packs
2. Or do you require a matching mp3 to use a beatmap? (which I think is more likely)

[Sowelu]

Small question, do they:

1. Include the songs with the packs
2. Or do you require a matching mp3 to use a beatmap? (which I think is more likely)

Songs are bundled in the packs.

When you download a beatmap (or a beatmap pack), the beatmap is just a ball of other files, containing the actual game data, all the media (many have background movies), AND THE SONG.

Only one download from only one place needed.  Quick and easy.  It would honestly be hard to make it simpler.

[Soulwynd]

Hmm, interesting. I didn't think they'd add the songs in the packs. Don't they get threatened or something, distributing music like that?

But it seems worth a second look, I liked EBA.

[Okenido]

This will destroy my mouse faster than Diablo...

[Sowelu]

Hmm, interesting. I didn't think they'd add the songs in the packs. Don't they get threatened or something, distributing music like that?

But it seems worth a second look, I liked EBA.

Well, a lot of their songs are totally not things anyone would come after them for--a huge number of them are either wholly original, obscure internet bands, or remixes.  A lot of the rest of them come out of Japan, frequently from anime, sometimes otherwise.  And when you've only got eight thousand songs or so on the site with that level of obscurity, including hosting the in-development beatmaps that aren't even finished...well, it becomes quite possible to handle individual takedown notices, I guess.

That and I don't think they are trying to clone the song libraries of the original games.  That's what got some DDR-emulator libraries in trouble--they would say "Okay, here's 500 songs from all these DDR machines, let's clone them all verbatim and host them".  Osu! focuses on user creations, so that just doesn't happen.

[dei]

Will definitely get this once I get a new computer later this month. Sounds really interesting, these beat and rhythm games.

Question though: does this require internet updates? I don't have a private connection for internet, so that would be a problem.

[Sowelu]

Well, if you want to download new songs you need internet, clearly.  And Osu! has lots of internet-enabled features, but I don't think you strictly need them at all.  They're just nice to have.

I don't think you'll be able to upload your scores to the global servers if you have no internet connection, even if you connect it later.  But it still tracks them locally.

[IndonesiaWarMinister]

I know about this.
Decided to post pone playing this until I have a tablet.
Since my hand (and mouse) nearly died the last time I play this.

[Yanlin]

Well, if you want to download new songs you need internet, clearly.  And Osu! has lots of internet-enabled features, but I don't think you strictly need them at all.  They're just nice to have.

I don't think you'll be able to upload your scores to the global servers if you have no internet connection, even if you connect it later.  But it still tracks them locally.

This makes all the highscores fake. Everyone can simply edit them.

[dei]

I got both the internet packs and the second anime pack. I can play most of the 1 stars and some of the 2 and 3 stars and complete them at C or higher.

Problem for me is I have poor eye-hand coordination, and the videos in some of these are annoying when I try to play.

[Jack_Bread]

I know about this.
Decided to post pone playing this until I have a tablet.
Since my hand (and mouse) nearly died the last time I play this.

My sister tried using her tablet. She said you have to double-tap it to get it to work.