Rules

No matter the song, chart, storyboard, or troll level, these guidelines serve as a baseline for all charters to follow. Not following the proper guidelines below can get levels unlisted. And possibly deleted due to copyright or other issues. This is not a guide, but guidelines to keep in mind. If you need any help with any of the below, you may ask in the Cytoid Discord Server.

Do not plagiarize

• It is ok to copy and use patterns from other charts into your own chart, but do not take someone else’s charts and reupload them as your own, even with your own edits or variations.

• Works (songs, illustrations, or other special cases) that have been plagiarized also fall under this category, even if the charter did not intend to plagiarize.

Certain songs are blacklisted from the Cytoid.io database

• The following list provides a series, game, or artist’s work that you cannot upload to cytoid.io due to copyright or artists’ wishes (remixes are allowed as long as it’s not the original). This includes songs that originate, feature, or are exclusive to the following games or artists that cannot be used.

  • If permission was obtained, contact the Cytoid Twitter or a moderator on our Discord Server to notify them of the usage before uploading the level.

• Songs that are ported over as a result of a game collaboration, or featured elsewhere officially (e.g. in BMS contests) are fine as long as the collaborating game(s) is also not in the following list.

• The whitelist is an approved list of games, artists’, or illustrators’ work that can be used, as permission has already been obtained by Cytoid. This is typically only used for official levels or special events, but you are free to look at what artists are approved.

• Anything with a Creative Commons license can generally be used.

• As a community-based game, many people do not ask for permission before charting a song. While we generally accept this behavior, even if what you are charting or intend to chart is not on the blacklist, the Cytoid moderators still reserve the right to take down a level if necessary.

• This list may be updated in the future.

THE BLACKLIST

• Companies and Games

  • Rayark Inc. / Cytus, Cytus II, Deemo, Deemo II, VOEZ
  • lowiro / Arcaea

• Artists

  • HyuN
  • Luca / LucaProject
  • NeLiME

• Other works

  • Freedom Dive - xi
  • Conflict - siromaru + Cranky
  • PUPA - Morimori Atsushi

THE WHITELIST

• Companies and Games

  • NONE AS OF NOW

• Artists

  • This list. (artists whose status is "Approved (Community)" or "Approved (Official)".)

• Illustrators

  • This list. (illustrators whose status is "Yes" but not "Yes (Need follow-up)".

Proper metadata is required

• Linking to the song source and illustrator source is required. Do not put “Unknown”, “google.com”, etc.

• Do not use “cytoid” or “io” anywhere in the level ID. This is reserved for events and official levels. we will delete any non-approved levels that include these keywords.

• Do not put yourself as the artist or illustrator if you did not make the song/illustration.

• If you, the charter, created your own song/illustration, you are allowed to not include a source for that specific section. Song edits (such as trimming the song down to length) and/or Photoshopped backgrounds do not fall under this category and must include the source.

• For level ID, follow this format or use a variation of it: (charter name).(name of the song)

• The title of the level should be in its original language or official translation. Use the title_localized parameter to put an alternate song title.

• For reasons listed in Certain songs are blacklisted from the Cytoid.io database, we recommend not using unique difficulty names from existing rhythm games, such as CHAOS, GLITCH, CRASH, Future, etc.

Song metadata

• The song source must direct to

  • The video/song where the artist or company uploaded it.
  • The artist’s YouTube, SoundCloud, or any other source that the artist uploaded it.

• If you're unable to find the song on the artist’s, link to the album or single that the song came from. You may use an album details site for this if the original album page is down.

• If the artist is uncredited, use the name of the game, product, etc. As the artist name.

• Using a reuploaded source must always be the last solution.

Illustration metadata

• The illustration source must direct to

  • The image where the illustrator uploaded it
  • The image where the illustrator permitted it to be used (eg. a promotion image for a game or company).
  • The original illustrator’s Twitter, Tumblr, Pixiv, or any other source that the original creator has uploaded the image.

• Never use a reuploaded source for this. (sources that do not come from the artist or other official or permitted use from the artist. This includes reuploads that credit the artist).

• Respect the illustrator’s rules. If anywhere they explicitly say that their work is not for personal or commercial use, don’t use it. You may ask for permission to use the image from the illustrator, but if you do, we recommend letting a moderator from the Cytoid Discord Server know about this.

• Use Google reverse image search or SauceNAO to find the source of an image if you don’t have it already or are having trouble finding the source.

• If the illustration comes from a game (eg. screenshot of the game or the illustration is a background/wallpaper), we recommend attempting to do a reverse image search with SauceNAO before using the game’s name as the source.

• If the illustration comes from a video or a screenshot of the video (such as a music video’s title card), you may use the link to the video as the source, and the animator, illustrator, or official uploader of the video as the illustrator.

Storyboard metadata

• If necessary, you may include sources for storyboard assets in the description of the level instead of the illustrator metadata.

• Storyboard source should be roughly treated the same as illustrator metadata with the following exceptions:

  • Double linking isn’t necessary (eg. sources for assets used doesn’t need to be linked if the illustrator source also contains the assets)
  • If a video is used for the storyboard, unless the video is made by the charter, link to the video used if the illustrator source does not include it.

Keep NSFW down to a minimum

• Content such as sexual content, pornography, and imagery of “private” parts are disallowed. But some contents are acceptable to a respectable degree, including small amounts of partial nudity where “private” parts aren’t shown, or offensive language.

Notice from author

This game is not osu!. Please respect the game by not calling levels or charts “beatmaps” or call RT “PP”.