Silentroom - Shuu no Hazama [Rainshower] by rrtyui

avant garde

this map says a lot about society

Ppl need to learn from this imo

cookiezi once referred to rrtyui as a "hard worker"; maybe a backhanded compliment, the sting of which is made worse by the fact that rrtyui's best scores, though great, have not stood the test of time, whereas cookiezi's best scores can be considered pretty much immortal at this point. curiously enough the "hard worker" epithet seems to apply to rrtyui as a mapper also, but there's no backhandedness here. i think his maps are truly timeless. for many years it seemed like he was practically reinventing himself for every new map he made; new style, new ideas, new gameplay. in a certain sense he was the hardest working concept mapper. a number of years back (after atomosphere and chirality and so on) he became interested in the more visually iconoclastic styles; you can see the influence in his Favorites tab on his userpage. zev, hailie/cheri, monstrata alien, stuff like that, eventually culminating in experimental outings like giselle, hella deep, and white cube. what separated him from the other mappers was his discipline, his absolute faith in the strength of ideas. nowhere is this more evident than in rainshower--the thing is stuffed so full of ideas on a second-to-second basis that it threatens to overwhelm the viewer. it's actually insane. silentroom is NOT an easy artist to map, especially this track, but rrtyui somehow manages to make what is for me the quintessential silentroom map. all of shuu no hazama's emotion is perfectly conveyed, the map is every bit as chaotic and ambitious and grandiose as the song.

first, as with pretty much any good map, its different sections are so well differentiated, while still working together as a whole. rrtyui doesnt use bookmarks so a while back i made this graphic, kind of scuffed but does the job https://mel-oe.s-ul.eu/a8WZa3H4

00:23:767 (1) - slider section. to create a little extra structure he groups the sliders into twos 00:23:767 (1,1) - 00:26:526 (1,1) - 00:29:285 (1,1) - 00:32:043 (1,1) - . the ability to actually shape the music beyond just putting objects where sounds are--very important. he also alternates between slider-circle 00:24:802 (1,2) - and slider 00:24:802 (1,2,1) - to further separate the pairs.

00:34:802 (1) - till 00:39:802 (1) - is one long transformation pattern, he uses a lot of them throughout. theyre a great n easy way of creating a sense of progression, especially when the music is a bunch of atonal droning noise

00:45:491 (1,1,2,3,1) - throughout the map he deliberately plays with angles that most people including me avoid like the plague: 90 and 45 degrees. during this section (and some other sections too) he crams in a ridiculous number of patterns, even tiny two-object patterns. what do i mean by pattern? some examples from this section:
00:45:836 (1,2) - this "long-short" sound packet is the building block of the section
00:47:474 (2,3,1) - same visual shape, but also same movement: counterclockwise. connects the "short" sound of the last packet with the "long" of the next.
00:54:112 (1,2) - same thing
00:55:491 (1,2,3,4,5) - new higher pitched sound calls for new pattern: till now the patterns and NCing have been short but this is a 5-object pattern of vertical objects
00:56:871 (1,2,3,1,2) - similarity in movement and visual
00:58:250 (1,2,3,1,2,1) - same thing.
01:02:388 (1,2,3,1,2) - horizontal-vertical into vertical-horizontal
01:03:078 (1,2,3,4,5,1,2) - one object can be part of two different patterns
01:05:147 (3,4) - transformation; counterclockwise into counterclockwise-ish

01:08:164 (1) - new section, new genius transformation pattern. easy to tell what's going on here. the vocals here are also beautiful, like a choir from beyond the mountains. very lovely

01:30:319 (1) - this section has three object-chains. the first two end by decreasing in sv. the third has a higher pitched sound, so the chain ends by increasing sv.
01:32:388 (1,1,2,3,4,5,1,2,3,4,5,6) - three ncs, each one goes right to left

01:48:940 (1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,3,4,5,6) - very cool stop and start stream. the end of one section and the start of another section are both part of the Same Pattern

in section 1a rrtyui is mostly riffing on the same ideas as the music is repeating its rhythms, but in section b he goes absolutely buck wild. there is literally all sorts of shit in here. new patterns stop and start seemingly at random but none of it feels overdone. everything makes sense.
01:56:526 (1,2,3,4,5) - sudden stream cutting across the playfield, very beautiful
01:57:560 (1,2,3,4) - literally materializes out of nowhere disappears and you never see it again
02:00:664 (1,2,3,4,5,1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4) - down, left-right, left-right, up. one of my favorite patterns in the map
02:04:112 (1,2,3,4,5,6,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,1) - a simple c-curve of circles somehow evolves into an s-curve of sliders
02:05:750 (1,2,3,4,5) - this is just here for some reason. but again, it works somehow
02:06:526 (1,1,2,3,1,2,3) - left-right-left into up-down-up
02:11:009 (1,1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4,5,1,2,3,4) - beautiful pattern across the top that then peters out downward
02:17:474 (3,4,5,1,2,3,4,5,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8) -
02:23:767 (1) - until 02:35:836 (1) - genuinely demented. he sustains tension during the entire climax of the song with vertical sliders, while the entire map is thrashing itself left and right

02:47:043 (1,2,3,1,2,3) - you can consider the third slider in each of these the "payoff." notice how he delays payoff here 02:52:216 (1,2,3,4,5,1,2,3) -

map has a lot of these "folding/unfolding sliders" transformations
02:25:405 (1,2,3) - 02:26:095 (1,2,3) - 02:30:664 (1,2,3,4,5) - 03:24:457 (1,2,3) - 03:35:147 (1,2,3,1,2,3) -

02:58:250 (1) - brings back slider section (and the same transformation pattern afterwards) to tie the whole map together and prepare for the ending. the first time i saw the last section i was a little disappointed because it didn't go quite as crazy as the middle section, but it has since grown on me in a big way. i like how chill it is, and i like that it gives the spotlight to the climax at 2:25. it also expresses the melody and harmony in a way the other sections don't. when watching the map i never skip the ending anymore. perfect last pattern also

the quality of a map isnt defined by how long of an essay you can write on it. ive seen plenty of complicated idea-heavy maps that i feel didn't work. but to me this one is perfect

upvote for melloe

the transition pattern is pure osu mapping maybe 1of my fav map moments ever

hey everyone, melthony loetano here, the internets busiest mapping nerd and its time for a review of this rrtyui map, Shuu No Hazama

upvote melloe

yap

rrtyui gyatted in the sauce

rrttaygui

Michelangelo Buonarrtyui

aint reading allat @melloe but good on ya

this map is like pretty creative in theory but it doesnt land for me, the storyboard is hilarious though definitely recommend trying to play it with sb once

not my favourite by rrtyui, but hot damn that foreground sb slaps

+0.5 it clicked

fym +0.5 it clicked did u rate this map 4 before it clicked

yea i like the map more now hector

my goat

02:06:785 (1,2) - anybody know why he did this

? lol

if anyone figured it out its probably smokelind

pdc 2020 was rly fun

any time i remember this map exists i get excited

he's walking his own way

literal chills

🌹🌹🌹 all just amazing stuff

final rating on giving it my 3rd and final 5 for the website

unmatched in six years and nothing even comes close. an era of mapping that starts and ends in three minutes and forty-one seconds

this is his most fun map for me too i think lololol
most likely it's just because it sits in that perfect difficulty pocket for me though, my skill cap is like 7*. that being said the chorus (01:51:698 (1) - 02:35:836 (1)) might be the most fulfilling playing experience ive had ever

/s/2017429 also worth checking out the updated version of this map. remapped bits (03:19:990 (1) - end) might honestly be better which seems impossible

i really like the black bars thing, but the hitsounds are kinda no good