DISCLAIMER: If you don’t play Osu!, this article will probably make no sense. Osu! Is a rhythm game created in 2007 in which you have to aim to hit circles in rhythm to a song. Here’s a YouTube video of some gameplay.

Back when I was in high school, I came across a game called Osu! while bored scrolling through the different game directories on twitch. When I first started playing it, I got bored very quickly but when I realised one of my friends played it, it became addictive to improve and become better than the other person. However, my friend got bored of the game, so I stopped playing quite soon after. In the summer of that year (2016 I believe) I became fully addicted to the game, trying to get my rank to be the best it possibly could. I stopped playing around the time I met my girlfriend this time last year and I thought why not get back into it during lockdown as I have nothing but spare time on my hands.

I spent the first few days just trying to de-rust and gain back my original skill in the game. I was having so much fun just playing old songs that gave me some nostalgia and got my skill back fairly quickly. I made a word document trying to improve each skill as quickly as possible with sections for ‘hardrock’, ‘streaming’ and ‘aim’. This worked for a few days, but my happiness turned into frustration as I had set unrealistically high expectations of myself. Improving in Osu! Takes lots of hard work and dedication and you don’t often see instant gratification.

I didn’t realise myself getting frustrated until my girlfriend pointed it out to me during a phone call while I was playing one evening. So, I deleted the word document and told myself I would play mainly for fun, not for improvement as it is a game after all. I downloaded loads more songs that are tech maps which I’ve been having tons of fun playing. Don’t get me wrong I’m still trying to improve, just when I realise myself getting annoyed, I stop what I’m doing and play maps that are more fun instead.

The main skill I’ve always struggled with is streaming, my aims always been good but as soon as I see a stream, my hands lock up and I either get terrible accuracy or miss the entire stream and fail the song. It seems really difficult to improve at streaming; it just seems like the best way to improve is to play stream practice maps each day such as the long stream maps as well as death stream compilations. I have to keep close eye on how my hands are as you get better at streaming when your hands feel sore, but I have to also make sure they don’t hurt in an unhealthy way as that could cause RSI. I can see myself slowly improving streams over the last week and hopefully will keep improving until the end of lockdown.

I’m not sure if I will continue to play after lockdown. Normal life for me is quite busy with work, my girlfriend, my Open University course, and my family. I would like to keep playing after lockdown, but I have to make sure that I’m keeping my priorities straight as playing Osu! in the grand scheme of things is not important. It will be fun to see what my rank is by the end of lockdown. At my peak back in 2018, I was around rank #6,500. At the start of me playing again, I was rank #12,268 and now I am currently at rank #11,501 at the time of writing this article.

<3 Jordan