I'm Terribly Sorry for being CN#100 by a PP farm chart.. (2025/03/05 02:00 UTC+8)

Chart is Try Again by USAO (Inner Oni) https://osu.ppy.sh/beatmapsets/1875585#taiko/3859766

Back in 2015, after dabbling in osu!droid for a while, I switched to osu! thanks to my old elementary school friend and classmate, Yevgeny. He invited me to play with him, and at the time, we both used a mouse and keyboard. Yevgeny absolutely dominated me—he could clear four-star maps with a 70% success rate, while I struggled to keep up.

Over time, we drifted apart and talked less, but I remained in awe of my classmates’ skills in various music games. During high school, I played a lot on my own, especially after the daily power cut at my dorm. That’s when I picked up Taiko—its niche community and accessibility made it easier to practice compared to std, which I eventually started playing with a tablet.

Sometimes, I’d sneak off to local arcades for a few games. My parents weren’t thrilled—they’d been footing the bill for my extracurricular courses tied to schoolwork—and eventually, I got caught. To my surprise, instead of punishing me, they let me play at the arcades a bit after finishing my courses. Since I consistently aced my school tests (straight A’s, no kidding), they were fine with me having some fun.

My love for rhythm games and programming grew from there. Between 2016 and 2017, I tried mapping in Malody and submitted my first map, PEPSI ★ MAN (https://m.mugzone.net/song/3309). Truth be told, it was an unauthorized copy of a ranked osu!taiko map (https://osu.ppy.sh/community/forums/topics/374907?n=1). Surprisingly, it caught the attention of a Malody Taiko publisher (their equivalent of a Beatmap Nominator), HXJ_Crafter, who invited me to join a core group of Malody Taiko mappers. That marked the start of my mapping journey. I haven’t copied maps since, and this is actually the first time I’ve confessed to that little incident.

Years went by, and while I never earned a publisher role in Malody (which was a bummer), my later maps received solid peer reviews and earned me some recognition in that small community. As far as I know, Malody remains the only active Taiko community for custom charts in the *Taiko no Tatsujin* style, distinct from osu!taiko. I’m truly grateful for the Malody Taiko mappers—they helped me grow into a skilled mapper.

In my final years of high school, I joined the Phigros team as an official chart designer. The charting group was led by Catcats back then. Some of my ideas were pretty innovative, which got me accepted onto the team, though I ended up spending most of my time translating from Chinese to English. I stepped away from charting after finishing the EZ difficulty for Rrhar’il on my own. Life got complicated—college applications were looming, the gig was unpaid volunteer work, and I started feeling out of touch with the modern mapping techniques pioneered by creators like 198 and 野从. I didn’t have much direct contact with them, sadly. Phigros has since grown into a much bigger project, which is great for the game, but it’s no longer the tight-knit, niche team I once knew.

In college, with more time on my computer, I dove back into osu! and osu!taiko. Ranking up in Taiko was a breeze due to its smaller player base, so I grinded a bit for a decent ranking in China. I didn’t obsess over PP, but I’d retry maps to boost it. Always on the cutting edge, I was among the first to play osu!lazer, only switching to Stable for RGTS 2025. Along my osu! journey, I contributed as an osu!wiki translator, an osu!web translator (with the Chinese translation group), and, in 2025, an osu!lazer contributor. I’m so grateful osu! has been a constant in my life—I want to stick with it forever. To me, osu! is a miracle of open-source development, a pinnacle of beatmap sharing, and a paradise for rhythm game fans, all completely free-to-win. Amazing work, osu! team.

My journey continues, and so does osu!. Thank you, osu!, for being a part of my life. Wherever I go, you’ll always have a place in my heart.