In addition to Beat Saber, one of my absolute favorite rhythm games is Audica. Audica has a slightly higher initial learning curve than Beat Saber, but if you get past that initial challenge (mainly becoming comfortable with sight-reading), you’ll find a game with incredible depth, one of the best flow-states in a rhythm game and pure, addicting, unadulterated blissful joy waiting for you.
The game offers quite a lot of songs, modes and modifiers (between the included songs and the additional DLC that are both free and that you can purchase), but let’s talk about taking the game to the NEXT LEVEL with community-created content.
Some of my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE Audica content was created by the community. We’ll explore this a bit in two sections:
First, if you’re not already part of the Audica Modding Group Discord, I highly recommend joining! Get help, meet players, compete on leaderboards and more!
Btw, if you’re a new player (or even a seasoned one), I highly recommend watching this video that gives invaluable tips on how to become a better Audica player
1. Custom Songs
Thankfully, no mods are required to play custom songs with Audica. Harmonix added support directly into the PC and Quest versions of the game to play custom songs and even create brand new maps directly in the game! (sorry PSVR players, the Playstation version, unfortunately, doesn’t support custom songs)
a. Downloading Custom Songs
i. In-game (PC) / Directly on your Quest
If you play the PC version of Audica, I HIGHLY recommend the Audica Song Browser 2.0 mod that lets you download songs in-game and let you immediately play them, manage them, favorite them, etc.
Go to the modding guide here to install it!
If you play the Quest version of Audica, I HIGHLY recommend downloading Noteloader, a fantastic Quest app that you can sideload to download songs directly from your Quest.
NoteLoader provides audica players a way to download, delete or edit .audica
files on their Quest without requiring a PC (after it’s sideloaded).
b. Manually
You can go to http://maudica.com/ or the Audica Modding Group Discord to download songs manually. If you download the song files this way, you’ll need to manually copy the songs to your song’s folder on your PC or Oculus Quest.
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i. Custom song location for PC version:
- Steam Right-click on AUDICA in steam and go to “Properties”. From there, go to “Local Files”. Click, browse local files, and it will open your install folder.
- Oculus Store (PC) By default, Oculus games will go to the
C:\Program Files\Oculus\Software\Software
folder. Inside there should be the “harmonix-project-k” folder, which is AUDICA.- Once you’ve located your install folder, head into
Audica_Data\StreamingAssets\HmxAudioAssets\songs
. - Drag and drop your downloaded .audica files into this songs folder.
- Once you load up AUDICA you can find your custom songs below the list of OST songs. Enjoy!
- Once you’ve located your install folder, head into
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Custom song location for Oculus Quest version
- Connect your Quest to a computer.
- Browse to
InternalStorageData > Android > obb > com.harmonixmusic.kata
. - Drag and drop your downloaded .audica files into this Audica folder.
- Once you load up AUDICA you can find your custom songs below the list of OST songs. Enjoy!
Here is a great video tutorial if you need more guidance (though note that the custom song folder has changed since this video!)
Important note: Custom Songs are generally harder than OST maps. It’s usually safe to assume that a song’s difficulty on a custom song is one level higher than what it says (if you’re comparing it to OST difficulty). Don’t be afraid to play a map at a lower difficulty! When you browse the available songs, you can view which difficulties they were mapped for.
If you’re looking for which songs to get started with, I highly recommend the Audica With Fantastic Flow Vol. 1 playlist! It’s a curator hand-picked collection of great maps with almost all having a decent difficulty spread (we are due for a “Vol. 2 soon, so look out for that!)
osu! to Audica Converter
Learn more about the amazing osu! to Audica converter here
2. Mods
(Note: These mods are for the PC version only. There is a modding platform for the Quest version, but not many mods have been made yet for Quest and currently, modding disables the leaderboard so isn’t advised). That said, custom songs, custom guns and a few other things all work out of the box with the Quest & PC versions (no mods necessary!)
Melon Loader
The first thing you’ll need to do is to download and install the latest MelonLoader version from here (this is the main mod loader for any PC Audica mods)
Audica Song Browser
https://github.com/Silzoid/SongBrowser/releases/latest
This absolutely essential mod lets you
- Download & Reload songs in-game through the game menu
- Reload the songs folder with F5 (if you manually copied any song or playlist in)
- Display available difficulties for a song next to the mapper tag
- Delete songs
- Favorite songs
- Play a random song
- View a skill-based ranking system (offline only during beta)
- Display the difficulty of a song using a calculated rating (which is a much more accurate way to see if you can play a song then just the 4 difficulty levels)
Installation:
- Download the latest MelonLoader version from here
- Grab the latest mod release from here
- Place the dll into Audica/Mods
- Use the Download Songs button from the ingame settings menu.
ParticleKiller
Hate how many particles explode after shooting a note? Is that slowing down your PC or making it hard for you to sight read? Then this mod is for you!
Settings can be adjusted by editing
Audica\\UserData
after running the game with the mod for the first time.
https://github.com/octoberU/ParticleKiller/releases/latest
HitScoreVisualizer
You may have seen this mod for Beat Saber. It sets a different color for ranges of points you receive from a note, so you can easily glance at the color to know whether it was a “good hit” vs a “not so great one”
Updated to work with MelonLoader v0.2.6
https://github.com/Mettra/HitScoreVisializer_MelonLoader/releases/latest
Custom Guns
This is built into the game and there’s no mods necessary! To download many amazing new guns, go to the #CustomGuns channel on the Discord
Arena Loader (Custom Arenas)
A mod to load custom arenas from the #finished-arenas channel in the Discord. There’s some truly amazing new arenas, so I HIGHLY recommend this one to keep your game fresh!
Requires MelonLoader 0.2.5 or newer.
Notes
Fixed a bug where arena buttons weren’t showing up
https://github.com/octoberU/Arena-Loader/releases/latest
Custom Avatars
No mods necessary! Download custom avatars in the Discord!
The game also supports LIV to create more detailed avatars or to “put yourself in the game”
Authorable Modifiers
What does it do? This mod allows custom maps to make use of in-game modifiers. Install Score Overlay and Arena Loader for the full experience
https://github.com/Contiinuum/AuthorableModifiers/releases/latest
Custom Drums
No mod necessary! Go to the Discord to download custom drums. These are the sounds that play when you fire your gun and hit each target.
ColoredChains
https://github.com/octoberU/ColoredChains/releases/latest
Auto Lightshow
What does it do? Auto Lightshow automatically creates a lightshow for all of your maps! Pick your flavor between Standard and an alternative Lightshow. Big thanks to @Zerny for helping so much!
https://github.com/Contiinuum/AutoLightshow/releases/latest
Spectator Camera Fix
Requires MelonLoader 0.2.3 or newer Fixes the bug on Oculus/OVR where spectator camera doesn’t work correctly when starting Audica
https://github.com/Contiinuum/SpectatorCamFix/releases/latest
Discord Rich Presence
A mod to display your current Audica activity to Discord Patch notes Removed formatting tags from song titles https://github.com/octoberU/Audica-Discord-Rich-Presence/releases/latest
Auto Recenter Disabler
Updated Alternity’s mod for MelonLoader 0.2.3 and higher Disables Autorecentering
https://github.com/Contiinuum/AutoRecenterDisabler/releases/latest
Follow Camera 1.2.0
Updated Alternity’s mod for MelonLoader 0.2.3 and higher A camera that acts similarly to LIV’s third person camera
https://github.com/Contiinuum/AudicaFollowCamera/releases/latest
Gameplay Settings
Updated Alternity’s mod for MelonLoader 0.2.3 and higher Adds Gameplay Settings Menu to Launch Page
https://github.com/Contiinuum/AudicaGameplaySettings/releases/latest
HMD Detection Disabler
Updated Alternity’s mod for MelonLoader 0.2.3 and higher Disables HMD Detection
https://github.com/Contiinuum/AudicaHMDDetectionDisabler/releases/latest
Trippy Menu 1.1.2
Turns on Psychedelia in the menus, can change the speed to your liking. Setting found in Settings > Misc.
Notes
Thanks to Continuum for the ML 0.2.3 update. Fixed a bug where turning it off wouldn’t reset the Psychedelia phase instantly.
Github
https://github.com/Alternity156/AudicaTrippyMenu/releases/latest
Gun Beam Redirection Disabler 1.1.1
Cancels the redirection to the target, the beam travels where you actually aimed just like in early access.
Notes
Fixed compatibility issue with other mods.
Github
https://github.com/Alternity156/GunBeamRedirectionDisabler/releases/latest
Score Percentage 1.1.1
Shows your score percentage from the maximum possible score in the song list, top score from song history and in-game.
Notes
Fixed compatibility issue with other mods. Fixed a broken hook. Integrated ModsPref, the json file in
Audica\\Mods\\Config
is no longer used, use the config in
Audica\\UserData\\ModsPref.ini
instead.
Github
https://github.com/Alternity156/AudicaScorePercentage/releases/latest
Grind Mode V2.1.2
Requires MelonLoader 0.2.3 or newer Grind mode can do 2 things: It lets you skip long song intros, and it helps you grinding the leaderboards! You can set it to automatically restart a song after X amount of misses, or automatically restart as soon as you can’t beat your current highscore anymore.
Whats new?
- removed ModMenu dependency This mod includes Intro Skip and Grind Mode.
https://github.com/Contiinuum/Grind-Mode/releases/latest
CustomModifiers 0.2.1
Allows you to change the values of some of the modifiers (Tempo Ramp max speed, Aim Assist, Target Speed, Extra Particle scale amount, Psychedelia phase speed and song speed) To use, boot the game once, close it, then in
Audica\\UserData\\ModsPref.ini
change the values to your liking. When activating modifiers they will now use these values instead of the original ones. Tempo Ramp cannot be set under 1.0, no cap for how fast. Aim Assist cannot be set under 0.0 and over 1.0. Song Speed cannot be set under 1.0. Everything else is uncapped. Please note that if you use this and the Particle Killer mod, you might not get the wanted result when using Extra Particles.
Notes
0.2.0 Fixed issue with Tempo Ramp and Extra Particles, they should now behave as expected. Added support for song speed manipulation. If you’ve used this mod before, boot the game once to get the value in
ModsPref.ini
. Fixed issue where the
Delete Song
button from the Song Downloader would not disapear. 0.2.1 Hotfix Fixed Tempo Ramp for real this time.
Github
https://github.com/Alternity156/CustomModifiers/releases/latest
SongRequest 0.1.0
Allows your Twitch chat to use
!asr <query>
<query>
can be an artist, a song title or a songID, it is not case sensitive. To use, simply install the dll, and then boot the game. Once you have requests the text on the “Song Request” filter button located right above the official filters will turn green and will be populated with the songs in request order (latest request will be the last song). Currently only looks in your own songs, but have plans to make it look in the api also.
Notes
When playing a song (more specifically when the AudioDriver starts to do its thing) the song will be removed from the list, there is current no way to manually remove them other than starting the song and going back to the main menu. Known bugs: first time the song list loads songs are not processed. You can either go back out and back in again, or shoot the Song Request filter button to make it process. When requests aren’t processed, the text on the button is white. When it is processed, the text is either green or red, depending on if there is songs or not. Sometimes the request doesn’t go through. 2 possibilities when that happens: Song is not found even though you have it, or the message in chat doesn’t even show up. Currently investigating this bug. Finding more bugs as more people are using it: apparently it doesn’t work if the player is playing a song, only works when the player is in the song menu or in the main menu. It seems to be an issue when processing requests when a song is done (specifically when going back to the song list after the stats screen).
Github
https://github.com/Alternity156/SongRequest/releases/latest
MenuGrabDisabler 0.1.0
Disables the ability to grab and move menus.
Notes
Requested by
@manamander
Most likely only useful for people using Index/Touch tricks.
Github
https://github.com/Alternity156/MenuGrabDisabler/releases/latest
Timing Assist 1.1.1
Decrease the timing window to practice your timing. Found in Gameplay>Settings
Notes
Updated to work with ML 0.2.3 and above. Alternity did most of the porting.
Audica With Fantastic Flow Vol. 1 won’t let you download, the link is down and won’t let you download it.
Fixed!
Hello,
The method described (copy .audica files into InternalStorageData > Android > obb > com.harmonixmusic.kata) doesn’t work neither on my Quest 1 nor my Quest 2.
I’ve managed to copy .audica files in InternalStorage\Audica on my Quest 1 and it works fine in this specific folder
This method (/Audica folder) however doesn’t work on my Quest 2.
Do you have any tip ??
Thank you
I updated the guide. The folder was changed when the Quest 2 came out.
That;’s really cool man you have written such useful content thanks for sharing this with us man
Thankyou so much for sharing this
Nice Blog keep it up
Thankyou so much for sharing this
Brian, I’m a Beat Saber addict anmd i really like the list of Mods which are easily available using MeloanLoader. Appreciated!