NG TREASURE HUNT: SWASHBUCKLER’S LOG

Day 5-7: Low Supplies, High Morale (March 20-22)

Ahoy!

For those wondering where the logs have gone, it's been a mixture of a couple of things occurring:

1. IRL stuff has been getting a little in the way, and that's where a good portion of my focus needs to go to;
2. We're actually running low on things to showcase here in the logs, particularly in the games.

Yep, the tagline today isn't just a joke - we're starting to run low on things to show here, particularly with our game submissions, which is so far the portal with the least amount of entries. In fact, one of the highlights for today's log was found within the past 24 hours.

I don't wanna leave portals out of the log highlights, so if you didn't submit a game and want a further chance at some of the cash prizes, don't be afraid to look around the portals you didn't submit for - not just games, but also animation, art and audio! You can absolutely submit for more than one portal, and that in turn can get you a better chance at some of the cash being offered.

All of this is to say that while you absolutely don't have to, feel free to keep looking around and submit for portals you didn't submit, or if you have an extra slot in one of the portals, feel free to fill it! We have time, and there's plenty of gems that can use some discovery.

HIGHLIGHTS

This section will showcase some of the works that have been accepted into the NG Treasure Hunt, with due credit to their creators. Note that this is not an indication of their placement or ranking in the hunt. If you're seeing this and aren't familiar with the Treasure Hunt or what's going on (or what's in it for you!), you can find info on that here!

Animation

For Hatsune Miku's birthday last year, @PannoCatto did this short but funny animation.

@boymylife created a really well animated PSA for his college last year that deals with... well, I won't spoil it here, but you should go check it out - it's short but enjoyable!

Speaking of enjoyable, @AzureChuck created this animation that has a funny premise and an extremely charming ending too.

@studioshowoff created this fun animation that plays like a reality TV show, but it's funny and has a cool animation style to boot!

Games

@FeverDev created a turn-based RPG with both first- and third-person perspectives about a human looking to unravel the mystery behind their prison tower.

For another game about fending off enemies, @DevGio created a defense game where you fight off viruses that are all looking to destroy the computer at the center.

@Jamal-Creates made a shoot-em-up game that's all about survival against a collection of monsters. Simple, but with a cool pixel artstyle and a lot of fun to see how long you can survive!

If you're looking for another shoot-em-up gem, @tazergames created this simple but engaging game with one premise: travel through rooms and shoot up your enemies.

Art

A lot of artists here on Newgrounds are commissioned, and a bunch of them also post their work here on the site - such as this commission that @funktoonmix made of Meowscles!

Neco car. @Za1ntdoesart . Neco car. Bottom text.

@AppleStixTime created an animated piece of art of Stich that feels like something right out of the movie or TV series!

@JamesTDG also created this really cool piece of pixel art, for all of you monster truck fans out there!

Audio

If you're looking for an epic showdown, @Arponax 's track from the Boss Battle competition last year combines Electro and Rock to give you just that.

Reviving a work from 2015 and publishing it last year is @Mawnz , who made this fun and enjoyable Chiptune song that feels like a retro adventure!

In the same Chiptune genre, @SkittleWaffle made a chiptune song during Jamuary that's enjoyable and peppy!

@scavengercrab created a relaxing but fun Synthwave track, which is the perfect way to end of today's highlights section.

ON THE HORIZON

For those who applied to be judges, we worked some things out and we're finally able to get back to you guys on that, so keep an eye out on your inboxes. A huge apology for the delay!

We're about 10 days away from the deadline - as a reminder, the end of the submission period is Sunday, March 31 at 11:59 pm EST!

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NG TREASURE HUNT: SWASHBUCKLER’S LOG

Day 4: Twisted, Scary Fun (March 19)

Ahoy!

Things have been a little unpredictable so far on the seas - it seems like our form isn’t working as much as it should, and as a matter of fact it is indeed allowing people to submit things that were submitted by someone else. While I work on fixing the issue, if you’re one of the people that submitted something, I should have the time to notify you soon after this log is posted, with things getting settled behind the scenes.

Speaking of which - thank you for your patience as we settle some details behind the scenes! Things have been quiet mainly for that reason, but we intend to keep as much to schedule as we can.

HIGHLIGHTS

This section will showcase some of the works that have been accepted into the NG Treasure Hunt, with due credit to their creators. Note that this is not an indication of their placement or ranking in the hunt. If you're seeing this and aren't familiar with the Treasure Hunt or what's going on (or what's in it for you!), you can find info on that here!

Animation

A comedy without dialogue is no easy feat, but @PlusOneGhost managed to pull it off with this futuristic joyride showing how two robots can’t quite get the job done.

For something a little more twisted and similar to an analog VHS video, check out this animation from @Algojuker and his concrete friend!

Short but honestly really funny, this gem animated by @logdogdraws shows just how Skeletor might defeat He-Man… without a crucial bit of knowledge.

@Ducksen , @fredoku and @JennyGlynn teamed up to give us an asdfmovie-styled animation featuring some pretty unusual jobs with a funny cast!

Games

@succojones , @OwlBag and @StufflingDX ‘s game is extremely simple: touch the bugs. That’s i- HEY! No crushing them.

This twist on billiards, done by @Spebby , @Flodotelito and @nomlan , is a ghoulishly fun experience that’ll give new life to the age-old game.

Don’t let the style of @Default and @chiptami ‘s game throw you off - this gem is a fun and unique experience where having a bomb or few (hundred) can get you through the icy wonderland!

@CrudeWax , @Dahakka , @markokop and @MissEmilieVA brought us a unique retro paranormal hunting game from the eyes of a local police department.

Art

@ohmepeepee created a pretty cool graphic piece that’s worth checking out!

It’s a bird… it’s a plane - oh no wait, it’s a UFO, drawn by @prismvisual doing its usual routine. No need to panic, it’s just a UFO.

@Jessxjess ‘s piece is a twisted but fun image of a character on the hunt.

And of course, it’d be hard not to talk about twisted fun without one of the icons of the weird and abstract, given a nice drawing by @FlakyMC !

newgrounds.com/art/view/flakymc/ina

Audio

@xaevtheworld made a fun song that’s easy to jam out to on an energetic afternoon!

With the subject of twisted fun, it’s no secret that @XHarrier36 ‘s remix of @DJDUBMUSIC ‘s song is a killer!

Oh, and speaking of secrets - did you hear the ones that @Whirlguy ‘s keeping?

To finish things off, enjoy this crazy fun and insanely distorted gem from @somanylynx .

newgrounds.com/audio/listen/1259767

ON THE HORIZON

As a reminder, make sure all gems you submit follow the rules outlined here - while we are still fixing our form from all of the bugs (read: “might not have known to deploy the script” - it’s my first time working with Google App Scripts, so apologies with that!), it won’t be able to detect the submission date or awards that the entry has - so far, those are the two biggest rules that are causing found gems to be DQ’d.

If your gem was DQ’d, you’ll receive a heads up from me about that. If you’re also curious about whether or not a gem you found was DQ’d, don’t be afraid to ask!

<- Next Log | Previous Log ->

NG TREASURE HUNT: SWASHBUCKLER’S LOG

Day 3: Monsters, Collaborations, and Creativity Galore! (March 18)

Ahoy!

I’m sure you’ve noticed that there’s two logs that were published today - one for yesterday, and one for today. As mentioned in the previous log, my hope is to make a log for every single day instead of combining some logs like last year. What that means is that as long as there is a good flow of entries, then there will be seventeen logs to showcase some of the cool and interesting works that are submitted for this year’s hunt!

If you want to view the logs from previous days, you’re able to do so in two ways: 1) by going to the bottom, where you’ll always see links to move to the next and previous logs, and 2) using the tag “ngth2024” when searching for Blogs.

My hope is to also give a little theme to these logs, as you’ve probably noticed by the taglines appearing with each of them. We’ll see how this goes, but for now, let’s not wait any longer and see the highlights for today!

HIGHLIGHTS

This section will showcase some of the works that have been accepted into the NG Treasure Hunt, with due credit to their creators. Note that this is not an indication of their placement or ranking in the hunt. If you're seeing this and aren't familiar with the Treasure Hunt or what's going on (or what's in it for you!), you can find info on that here!

Animation

Last log, we included a student project by SirPoToo. This log, we’re going to start with another project - the one this time comes from @Gridlock500s , and it’s both a touching and enjoyable animation to watch!

@MongoPangolin and @HorseFolder created this animation just in time for Halloween last year. It feels like something out of Animaniacs!

@KimolGuess turned a test of a rig they had of Bowser into a pretty fun short animation, and it’s worth checking out!

Lastly, for those looking for something creepy and similar to an analog VHS in a pixel artstyle, @RBako has you covered with this pretty cool animation!

Games

For Christmas last year, @BroquiGames delivered a traditional Flappy Bird game… but with a little bit of a heavier twist than usual!

Quite a few demos for full games are shown here on Newgrounds, and this particular demo from @RyanSilberman is a charming take on Frogger with their own unique twists as you progress throughout the game.

@KillerRabbit222 created this unique pixel Run-n-Gun last year, where survival and collecting Pirate Ducks are of the fittest!

One of my personal favorites so far is a game from @DrDevGuy - it’s a simple, one-button puzzle that has a good artstyle and a unique premise!

Art

Starting things off today is a unique take on the Sonic characters - @RahksArt envisioned the main quad of characters as characters in an D&D-esque universe!

With as much creativity, @STREETVISIONZ created an album full of unique car design models, both in lavish and enjoyable ways!

Speaking of albums - while I’ve seen a lot of uses for that Art Portal update I’ve been gushing about in every log, one thing I haven’t seen too much of - but would be really interesting to see more of! - is art trades. This gem showcases one such trade between @dogmuth-behedog and @Lt-Abdelhak - and both of their pieces look really good!

Another cool piece, or pieces I should say, come from @SpicyMarsh. They created a 3D, low-poly pixel model with a few poses that are fun to look at and enjoy!

Audio

While I’ve been a music person here on Newgrounds for almost six years, I’ve never seen an album where a label clashes with another one in a battle, so to speak. However, this gem from @Desx74 proves that it can happen and it can make a really cool, energetic result!

Speaking of collaborations, @Thingerthing collaborated with a friend to make a trippy but enjoyable experimental-accoustic gem.

@SPIRALi created a really enjoyable Glitch-Hop track that’s full of energy and creativity throughout!

For last year’s Newgrounds Underdog Audio Competition, @X3LL3N brought everything they could for the final round, and it turned out an enjoyable and creative take on the Dance genre!

ON THE HORIZON

As a reminder, make sure all gems you submit follow the rules outlined here - while we are still fixing our form from all of the bugs (read: “might not have known to deploy the script” - it’s my first time working with Google App Scripts, so apologies with that!), it won’t be able to detect the submission date or awards that the entry has - so far, those are the two biggest rules that are causing found gems to be DQ’d.

<- Next Log | Previous Log ->

NG TREASURE HUNT: SWASHBUCKLER’S LOG

Day 2: The Waves Of Energy (March 17)

Ahoy!

The first couple of days of entries went really well! Pretty much everything that has been submitted before now has been vetted, and those that had entries that violated the rules were notified. It seems like our automated method has a few hiccups in determining which entries were already submitted, so we’re going to look into that today.

In the meantime, there’s a couple of things I want to mention:

1. Be sure to look at the credit details, as that will be where you find the date an entry was published and if it got any awards - two rules we outlined in the forum post! Portal awards include, however are not limited to: frontpage, daily/weekly/monthly feature, and anything else that shows in addition to the tags. For reference, here are the awards on another NG entry, Killgar's Kode - HOW TO SURVIVE ANYTHING:
2. We didn’t expect for an uptick in this for this year’s hunt, so we didn’t explicitly mention it before now, but please do not submit your own entries. The point of a treasure hunt is to find hidden things, and the point of the NGTH is to find cool stuff from other creators. While your own things can be gems to others, providing your own work as gems is kinda like bringing your own eggs to an Easter egg hunt - it defeats the purpose of going out there and looking for cool things, especially considering there are a bunch of other competitions that will happen this year on NG that you can submit your own stuff for!

HIGHLIGHTS

This section will showcase some of the works that have been accepted into the NG Treasure Hunt, with due credit to their creators. Note that this is not an indication of their placement or ranking in the hunt. If you're seeing this and aren't familiar with the Treasure Hunt or what's going on (or what's in it for you!), you can find info on that here!

Animation

There are a bunch of animators that like giving their own spin to content from others, and one of the groups that get this treatment frequently is a group known as OneyPlays. @TerrorGeneric combined one such clip with their own animation from a show that one of the members currently produces, Smiling Friends.

Some animators also like making animatics synced up to music, which is the case with this animation from @DerpyJackArts . Here, they use the style and characters of Cult of the Lamb to make an interesting animatic!

Other animators utilize Newgrounds to post things from their school projects, which includes this project from @SirPoToo . It'll be interesting to see the full version sometime down the line!

And then, of course, are the animators who do their craft for fun and for leisure, which is the case with this simple looping animation from the team of @CherryCursor , @Corstonado , @Paul , and @SHADOWFOX2 .

Games

A game with an incredibly interesting concept, @Mantis1 and @muddasheep give a prison breakout puzzle with a twist - your main perception is from one of 9 cameras placed in every room, cameras that can only tilt but never move.

@weazeltech created a tower defense game that has a cool artstyle and an enjoyable experience overall!

There's been a recent craze with the online IO games - slitherio, aggario, you name it. @ClayLoam took a crack at it here on Newgrounds, creating an RPG-like environment that you can play in alone or online!

@Fe26 created a short but pretty memorable experience, with a 3D platformer that you navigate through as a rolling, somewhat unpredictable marble.

Art

Starting things off is a pretty cool fanart piece from @Darent-Z , who made art of a character from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom known as Purah.

From the OC side of things, @Mirtile created an art piece with four of their characters that look like they're having a blast!

Speaking of OCs, @Freshlylemon published an entire album of doodles and artwork for one of their newest OCs. All of this was made possible through the art portal update, which was talked about a bit in the previous log!

If you're looking for something twistedly fun and really well created (I almost was convinced this was hand drawn actually!), this art piece by @Serafin-corpse is sure to fit the bill.

Audio

On the ambient but ethereal side of things, @Kallen took their spin on the title track from Rain World: Downpour.

If you're looking for something a bit nostalgic, especially something in the category of Trance music, then this gem from @Euphoric-Danique is worth a listen!

An interesting infusion of modern hip-hop and lofi, this gem from @Safrann is a really interesting and calming listen.

@Rombit 's take on an industrial song is also incredibly interesting and definitely changes textures the more you listen to from it.

—--

ON THE HORIZON

We will start letting those who were curious about judging know about further details with regards to that, so if you requested to judge, keep an eye on your inboxes!

(EDITOR'S NOTE: You may notice this is for day 2, but being published a day late. Have no fear - there is another log coming later today for you to view, and that one is of course for day 3! Unlike last year, each day should have its own log, unless things get really slow with submissions.)

<- Next Log | Previous Log ->

NG TREASURE HUNT: SWASHBUCKLER’S LOG

Day 1: Sails Away! (March 16, 2024)

Ahoy everyone!

For those who don't know, I'm SplatterDash, and I'm one of the people heading the second recent Treasure Hunt alongside my amazing partner-in-sailing, @The-Great-One . We're excited to host this event once again, and in keeping with tradition similar to last year, each day of the hunt you can find a log with some highlights of things we've received, as well as some light updates with the hunt, here on my news page (because we're not here to clog the NG News section of the BBS)! With the submission process becoming more streamlined (with a few bugs, but nothing that'll set us back too far thankfully!), that means TGO and I will have more time to focus on other elements of the hunt, such as these logs and judging.

Speaking of judging - yesterday I received a flurry of people looking to judge, so a HUGE thank you goes out to everyone who applied! We'll start reaching out to judges within the next day to get things settled and also include details so that you know what to expect as a judge. We're looking forward to what'll happen this year, as things have already been busy across the board - below is just a taste of some of the things we've gotten!

HIGHLIGHTS

This section will showcase some of the works that have been accepted into the NG Treasure Hunt, with due credit to their creators. Note that this is not an indication of their placement or ranking in the hunt. If you're seeing this and aren't familiar with the Treasure Hunt or what's going on (or what's in it for you!), you can find info on that here!

Animation

There's been a ton of animations coming in of all types, which also includes music videos and animations synced to the background music. One such gem was made by @Zalay , who created this video using a retro 90s animated style.

In classic Newgrounds fashion, @Octavyan played off of the classic Spider-Man and Elsa meme and turns it into a funny, modern adventure when they run into an unexpected visitor (or two)!

Similar to Friendly Neighborhood, there's been plenty of animated series here on NG, some of which go on to become shown on national and international televisions and streaming services. One such underground series, started last year by @Nicotoon and @MimiScappini , takes place in an animal mental asylum and is a great setup for the later episodes to come!

Another series, created by @NewgroundMediaGroup , released a trailer last year. For those who are into the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon game series, this trailer is worth a viewing!

Games

While we haven't had too many games found so far, the ones we got are pretty good. There's even a good collection of multiplayer games, both local and multiplayer - including this local multiplayer lasertag-style game from @UnevenPrankster (with shoutouts to @Ugasisvelta for beta testing!).

Another local multiplayer game comes from @BestLeatherEver and @venoMantis , with this one being a Touhou-inspired bullet hell competition. Grab a friend and battle it out!

Of course, the singleplayer environment has even more going on. In this unique gem from @FreakyDAYZ , jump around this retro platformer and collect items to move along!

Lastly, this game from @saadisaadi1 and @MasterCannoli is a platformer where you can manipulate the items in the stage as you get stronger - and the way to get stronger is to be around candles!

Art

In a similar fashion to last year, the portal with the most found gems so far is the Art Portal - there's actually so much that at the time of writing this, I was able to plan out four and a half logs worth of gems! And there's no lack in quality with these artworks - to get us started, @aw0 created an album cover for a Bandcamp album, and it looks fantastic!

All kinds of art are submitted to the hunt - and I do mean all kinds! One prime example is this self portrait from @digitalpops , which is haunting and stunning to look at!

Original characters aren't the only thing you can find in the art portal - there's a lot of fanart for other characters, both on and outside of Newgrounds. For those who are fans of LEGO: Monkie Kid, check out this fanart from @Missis-Maple394 of one of the show's characters, Chang'e!

Late last year, Newgrounds rolled out a new feature for the Art Portal - multi-image support. This was huge in enabling artists to create comics, galleries and much more, and a few of the found gems used this feature. In addition to being another original character, one of these gems comes from @Waterina , who created both a color and B&W version of a character named Goth Annie from League of Legends. You can view both on one submission thanks to the feature rollout!

Audio

Starting off with a chill but refined quality, this found gem from @Tyhond is perfect for a peppy, but not overly energized, cafe in the early afternoon.

If you're looking for something more energetic, this gem from @Rici-Ellipsis is perfect for listening and getting pumped to!

On the shorter but sweeter side of things, @KatdotBrush created this short loop that sounds perfect for a video game of a bygone retro era. I'm also hoping they enjoy Newgrounds - it's always good to see new faces!

We've had a few remixes show up as gems too, which are always nice to hear. Take a listen to this upbeat bounce-y remix of Ebimayo's "Goodworld", with the remix done by @EXT4NT !

ON THE HORIZON

Like last year, my hope is to do one log for every day of the submission phase. With the automation of submissions occurring (although it's not 100%), it gives TGO and I more time to pick out some unique entries for showcasing here.

On the subject of submissions - we've had to disqualify a bunch of gems, some of which fell through the cracks of our form, but others that went against the rules and our form can't detect it (such as the date when entries were published). I will clarify a little more tomorrow, but make sure that you look at the rules and check to see that your gem fits within them. If your entry did get disqualified, have no fear - you'll hear from me and be able to resubmit new entries to replace the disqualified ones.

On one final note, if you want to modify your entries, you can message TGO or I at any point in the submission phase with clarification as to what entry you're replacing and what you're replacing it with. Once it's hand-vetted by TGO or myself and cleared, we can make that change happen!

<- Next Log

Man.

It's been a hot minute since I did a lil update post or anything post on here, but things have been so busy that I haven't really stopped to do one of these in a bit. Because of that, there's a lot I wanna talk about, but I'll start off with saying this:

If you're someone who likes to harass others and basically bully them instead of putting your energy into worthwhile things, do me a favor and get off of my account, because those aren't the people I will interact with even in passing. This isn't just because of a specific event, this is just more of a general statement that I wanted to say. I don't like when other people are harassed, and I don't like to harass others, so if you do that stuff, don't expect me to be around you for long.

Okay, that said, lemme get into some stuff.

Reflecting on Expo 3

Back in October I teamed up with Bibirobo and Zennie, alongside a team of great artists and VAs, to showcase Funkin Expo 3. While my name has appeared in an FNF direct or two this was the first time I was involved in a Nintendo Direct-esque event of any community, let alone my first time in the organizer position. The broadcast aired on October 21st, and you can watch the broadcast here.

Doing music was of course an interesting thing, as I was not only creating a bunch of tracks for the broadcast but also some sound effects that were dotted throughout the show. In fact, all of the songs and sound effects in the main portion of the broadcast were created by me - some of these songs will find there way on here to NG, in one form or another, later on this year. The change in scenery was interesting and fun to work with as well, since all my work so far has been with mods and the occasional game here on NG (mostly with Tankmas).

From an organizer standpoint, I'll be the first to admit that while the product and production period weren't perfect, they were at least interesting. The main issue we ran into was time planning, and all of us are aware that it was prevalent in the final product. We had ambitious ideas but we didn't give ourselves enough time to do so, yes the things we did do I'm happy we got to do. If I had the chance to do it again, the extra time would definitely be the one thing I would give, but otherwise, I think the production had a few hiccups but went okay otherwise.

The one thing I did want to address, however, was the audience response, because it was atrocious. Honestly, I didn't care if people liked the event, but the response a lot of people had were targeting and harassing the mod teams and Expo team members for a few reasons, but one of them that got under my skin and I wanted to talk about was that the broadcast didn't have the "popular" genres - you know, the Ourple Guy's, the EXEs, the Imposters, the mods that are ripping off something or another.

The mods we chose for Expo, while they were slim pickings, were chosen because they were creative and stood out as being projects of passion, not for money or fame. And in my opinion, that scope was what got a really diverse roster of mods that did include mods based off of IPs - Spooky's, SCP, Ross V2 are just a few examples - but also included original ideas as well. Not to mention, all of them deserved their works to be shown and for people to see the cool stuff the community's working on. If we had shoved in one of those mods from the "popular" genres, yes it'd attract attention but it'd also be seen as pandering too.

All of this is to say that if you don't like Expo, there's nothing wrong with that - if you don't like what you're watching, you have the ability to change what you're watching, or even create what you want to watch if it isn't available. But going and harassing teams and people that spent multiple weeks putting trailers and footage together for the showcase - and this goes for any direct in general, both inside and outside of FNF - just because it wasn't what you wanted to see isn't acceptable.

Despite our plans for an additional showcase, after the response of Expo 3 and after the stuff about a particular someone who liked art of a specific nature (and art from Shadman), we ended up talking with the team and made a majority collective decision to retire Funkin Expo. While I did like the work I made, and I still connect with my co-organizer Zennie even today, with the retirement of Expo I don't find myself desiring to do anything more in terms of FNF directs/broadcasted events.

Of course, I do know of a bunch being made and have looked around at a few. One of 'em I heard about was Funkcon, which is kind of an E3 style event specifically for FNF, but I have no interest for now in making music or organizing for that. If Funkin Awards 3 were to happen sometime down the line, I wouldn't jump at the opportunity to do that. Even if it was to make something completely new, I wouldn't say yes to it, and it's for the same reason why I don't wanna ask Zennie about doing a new broadcast event, at least for now.

The market for these broadcasted events has grown within the past year or so, to the point where there's a lot of them that are happening. When a market like that is saturated so much, you have to do something unique to make yourself stand out and gain traction, which is kinda necessary for events that try to showcase what the community's doing. But I don't wanna sit there trying to do something unique - I wanna do my own thing and have fun doing so. That was the mindset Zennie and I even had planning Mini 2, which was the showcase planned for after Expo 3. But I'm not confident that it'll be that way for these events, at least not in their current state.

I don't wanna make it sound like I'm calling all of these events bad, because they're not bad by any means. But I do want to say that I don't wanna try an event that's trying to one-up another event - I wanna do something that's relaxed and creative without that "one-up" need, and while they're not impossible to find they aren't easy either. So I'm happy for the work I've done for Expo 3, but for now, I wanna take a rest from FNF broadcasted events.

Treasure Hunt 2024

@The-Great-One and I are getting things into swing for the 2024 NG Treasure Hunt! We're working on a few things based on last year's notes - automating the submission system is definitely one of them - but we're looking forward to how things go this year! I'm going to try again with the logs that I did last year, but with the new system, we're hoping to make that an easier thing to do than last year.

Speaking of things made easier - we've given a bit of a change to the judging system based on feedback. This is also a good time to note that both of us are looking for judges in the Game (looking for 1) and Animation (looking for 2) fields! In general, the qualifications we have for applying to be a judge is as follows:

• Must be on Newgrounds for a minimum of 3 years.
• Must have at least 10 reviews in the Portal they wish to judge in.
• Must have at least one submission in the Portal they wish to judge in that is 4 stars or higher and not part of a collaboration.

If you're interested, shoot me or TGO a DM here on NG! There is a vetting process involved, but we will explain it to you as you apply so that we can see what you can do.

Geometry Dash

Back in late 2021, I decided to leave the general GD community, and despite 2.2's release a couple of months ago, I don't have major plans to backtrack on that decision. Yes I still do play from time to time, but I don't intend on making it a regular thing or having it replace the music work I do.

That being said, there is something I noticed with 2.2, which is the changing of music and how good it'd be for things like the new platformer mode. While I don't intend to create levels with the new mode, what intrigues me is the music aspect of things, since it's a new environment that I'm willing to try out on the music side. I'm also familiar that some of my songs get used in underground GD levels, and as of writing I don't have a problem with this and will even admit that I've played a few of these levels. As long as integrity stays intact, I'm all for helping people out, which is what leads me to say this:

As always, if you're interested in music for something here on NG - be it a game, animation or FNF mod - you can feel free to talk to me, but if you're also interested in a song for a GD level, feel free to talk with me as well. I can't guarantee I'll say yes to everything, but I will guarantee that I will not be accepting cash payment for my work. Why? A few reasons:

1. I don't utilize a cash-related app like PayPal or Venmo (and every day I'm in the online community I find that to be a great thing)
2. Even if that's not my intent, I don't want to be the person who works with, say, a kid who steals their parents' money so they can have a unique song for a level in a four-dollar game (not saying it always happens, but it does)
3. I'm out here to do this for fun, not for money. I already have a job that can support my income, and as much as it would help me to make the music I make online for profit, my intent in doing this is to have fun and enjoy what I make.

That being said, I still do care about my works upholding their own integrity as well, so pretty soon I'll be rolling out a document outlining the rights of my songs in lieu of payment. The only thing that would have to happen before I go through with things for someone is that they agree to the document in writing (a NG or Discord DM would do). That's the only thing I would mandate, but otherwise the way the song works is up to the requestor. This document would also most likely find a place in my About Me, so that you can view it before requesting a song. But that'll go up in a few days!

I'm looking forward to another new environment, but I'm not leaving my works with FNF behind - I still have a few things I need to do, and I have no intent dropping the ball on those works either. I don't intend on leaving my collabs I'm in here on NG behind either, and in fact I think I wanna get into the Audio Triathlon when it opens back up for submissions in round 2. But this is something new I wanna try, as I did with Expo and Treasure Hunt, and I look forward to doing that!

So this has been something on my mind for a hot minute, and after seeing not only recent events but also everything I've been exposed to in the past two years, I have reason to believe that there's a somewhat common problem with online grooming and people not doing the right thing - namely, the perpetrators. I usually don't like butting into things like this, but given how much I've seen it happen and how it's still a problem, I think I wanna say a few words, not just for Newgrounds, but really for any person in any community who wants or needs to hear this. If you don't, I don't mind - at the very least, this serves to get my words off of my back, and because of that I'm satisfied with whatever happens to this. But here's my perspective about grooming, how to avoid doing it, and what to do if you've done it for some stupid reason.

Keep in mind before I begin - I am in no way a voice that replaces victims of grooming, as I never have been a victim and I hope that I, like you, never become a victim going forward. I don't want to speak on the behalf of those victims, but instead on my own knowledge and experiences as a bystander of several grooming callouts. That also means that this is in no way a Bible of grooming knowledge; in fact, I encourage you to do further research for more information if that's interesting to you. This is my way of helping those around me not do something stupid and giving some knowledge about the subject as well, because like School House Rock put it, "Knowledge is Power".

So in order for us to talk about how to not be groomers, it's probably best to define what is grooming from a general standpoint.

We'll use a few definitions. These definitions are from, in the order they appear, NSPCC (UK), RAINN, Metropolitan Police, and Bravehearts.

From these definitions, in general grooming is an act of sexual exploitation where an individual, regardless of age/gender/physical characteristics, builds a relationship with a minor or vulnerable adult to abuse them through acts of physical, mental or sexual means. Naturally, this means that there's a power dynamic at play - while it's impossible to generalize the motives for every groomer, it's easy to tell that there's usually a desire for power over an individual. I've seen only one individual where that wasn't the case.

Which leads me to the major thing that grooming practices - disrespect. By trying to manipulate an individual to perform sexual acts, or acts in general, it completely disrespects the victim and, naturally, can make them feel intimidated or afraid to tell someone what's going on. I feel that's why it's so hard to address the problem from the victim's side - it takes balls to bring what happened up to light, even if it's just to the everyman.

With that being said, how can we prevent ourselves from grooming others? Simple - in the same way grooming practices disrespect, practicing respect can help lead us to not groom or manipulate people.

This sounds a lot easier than it is in some cases. For some, respecting other people comes naturally; for others, not so much. To be specific, here's some tips and tricks relating to avoiding grooming practices:

• Everyone you talk to is a person. If you treat people like people, or in other words how you want to be treated (which I'm sure has been said a trillion times by now), then it'll make you less prone to abusing them, unless of course you'd be fine being abused as well.
• Respect boundaries. Every person has those things they're not comfortable with doing, so if they're not comfortable with doing something, it's okay. Forcing them to do something won't turn out good in the long run.
• Common sense. I get it's not so common nowadays, but it should go without saying that there's things you definitely shouldn't do, even in a relationship.

It all boils down to just practicing respect - a concept I know I've talked about on my now-defunct Twitter account, but still hold with to this day.

As I mentioned before, I've seen a bunch of groomers in the past couple of years, and it's unfortunate that I've seen a bunch of them. But with all of them, without fail, their rehab paths generally look like this:

The groomer's actions get revealed once someone else calls them out for their actions. They then usually make at least one apology, usually less than half-baked, and then either remain in the community or leave for less than a year, if not less than six months. Then, they try to enter back into the community while justifying themselves or, if possible, shift the negative attention to another topic.

That said, the amount of groomers who I've seen correctly go through the rehab process is exactly 0. The reason boils down to a simple word - accountability. I have failed to see a groomer be legitimately accountable for their actions, and instead, they choose to hurt others because of their carelessness.

So, in the event you do something as stupid as grooming (which I hope you don't ever choose to groom someone), what should you do?

1. Take a leave before the call out. People are still going to be angry no matter what, but waiting for someone to call you out is only going to make you look more selfish than if you own up to what you did and leave on your own terms.
2. If you make an apology, make it genuine. A genuine apology has three parts that are all genuine in their own right - the "I'm sorry", the ownership of the fault, and the plan to fix the problem. People may not accept it, but making it genuine shows at least some care.
3. Leave the online gig. The priority from here on is to focus on getting better - keeping yourself in the same environment you were called out in isn't going to help, it'll only hurt. Take yourself off of everything you can, including any alt accounts, and stay completely away from the previous environments you were in.
4. Take all the time you need. Focus, but don't rush the process - mental habits, especially one like this that's rooted in a larger issue like disrespect, takes multiple years to fix. How long it exactly takes depends on the person - while a recipe says it takes 10-15 minutes to bake a loaf of bread, in reality it's ready when it's ready. Any earlier and the bread starts hurting people; it's the same concept here.
5. Don't force "I'm better" on others. If - and that's a really large if - you choose to come back, let the people see what you've become. Saying you've done x, y and z isn't going to get people to trust you; show, not tell.

It's intentionally a long process for rehab because the issue, as mentioned before, is a larger issue than just "I had sex relations with someone, oops". It's disrespect that needs time to be fixed.

Again, I get that I have no true place to be saying this stuff, but I say it because I truly am tired of people not only failing to help themselves, but continuing to hurt others because they pulled actions that were ignorant of others. If a person wants to genuinely help themselves for the greater good, then I do wish them good luck with that because I believe every person has the capacity to help but the choice to hurt - and at the end of the day, I would absolutely prefer if people changed and redeemed themselves rather than take their own lives. But I can't keep pretending that so many of these groomers are changed people when they're clearly not. And again, this isn't just one person I'm talking about - it's a good handful of people who haven't proven they're no longer hungry for power.

That, by the way, is why I chose not to name anyone off here. As has been mentioned a time or two before, the cruelest kind of attention to give to someone isn't negative attention, but rather no attention, and that's what I intended to do here. They haven't told me they changed, so I don't believe I should give them what they want until they prove their change.

Even if there was some things that were disagreed upon here, I hope this brought some knowledge on grooming and my perspective with things. Again, I encourage you to also do your research if you want to learn more, and form your own opinions with things - this isn't the only perspective with this issue, and it shouldn't be the only perspective either.

Brief little tangent to start things off:

So at the tail end of May I deactivated my Twitter account since I noticed I was having a pretty bad mental state going on there and browsing for what felt like a large waste of time. Looking at what happened recently, and I do mean everything, not just the most recent stuff... yeah, I dodged a bullet with that LOL. Ah well, at the end of the day it gives me and a lot of others more incentive to use Newgrounds instead. I get NG isn't the perfect platform, but when you compare it to the other options it seems like it's one of the few things left standing with an honest and caring reputation, and I hope it stays that way since it works out really well.

I've been here for over five years at this point, and in my time I saw the Tumblr exodus, the Sponjibobbu anime copyright strike on YouTube, the Funkin'in, and a lot of other events bring people to NG. And honestly, knowing there's a lot of collabs in the works and being formed by members new and old - I'm actually a part of five collabs here on NG - it's showing that while a lot of different people are hopping in, NG's spirit of collaboration and community's still going pretty strong in my eyes. It's not perfect, but it's definitely something that some other sites can't really say they do too much, which is a neat little thing.

Alright, lemme get into the beef of things lol

Where I've Been

Long story short: I've been offline for a pretty long time due to things IRL, and now that I came back this month the time I'm putting online is going towards the projects I'm working on. I'm trying my best to balance everything, but there's a lot I have to work with - around ten FNF mod projects, of which I'm actively working on five of them at the time of writing (on various aspects, including story, coding, and of course music); a video game project which is just beginning development, of which I'm working on the story and alongside two others on the OST; an FNF-related non-mod project that I get to help organize and make music for; the aforementioned five NG collabs, which I'm really looking forward to working on/continuing; and being a judge for both the ADM and UAC, which I know has been a really rough start but I'm really looking forward to giving feedback for. (Sidenote: if you were someone I was supposed to judge in either of those two during the last round, you can still PM me for feedback on your track!)

Needless to say, it's a lot, but I enjoy that amount of work since it keeps me going and it gets me doing new things consistently. That being said, I think it's obvious that I need to pull back on joining any further projects until I clear my plate, so I'll be refusing to join additional projects until I can do that. It sucks because there's one I particularly want to head, and I know I need time to learn the skills necessary to set that up, but I'm finding it's better for myself if I monitor how much I'm putting on myself rather than trying to make everyone happy like I want to. If I'm on a project of yours, don't worry - unless I say so later down the line, I'm not going anywhere.

On the bright side, know that I'm putting my all into these projects I'm on because I want it to be the best representation of me. I don't wanna half-bake anything I do, so even if it's something I'm not familiar with I'm gonna give it my all, and even if it doesn't work I wanna learn from it. That's why I'm working a lot with people and on projects with others, since it's fun to work with people and it allows me to learn from it too!

Upcoming Stuff

Out of the projects I'm working on, there's a few I both can talk about and want to talk about, which I'll mention here.

Funkin In Time, which I've been working on with @JRetrioX and a great team of people, has been making really good progress so far! I won't talk too much about the general stuff since I don't wanna steal his thunder, but you'll start seeing the music I made for it come out soon enough. At least, some of it - there's a lot more that needs to wait a second for future updates, but I'm fine letting it wait since we wanna collectively put quality over quantity for the initial release! I'm also working with him on another project, which will come soon.

Back in May, I released a few tracks for a mod called Vs Alfie: Megamix. The two that I could release here were remixes of currently existing tracks, but the original song I did can be found on YouTube. I'm also working with the mod's creator, Mk, on a standalone game that might have some teased items later...? Not too sure about that, but stay tuned!

Vs Dami. That's it. That's the post.

There's some standalone tracks on their way as well. My song in the Sleepland Music Collab is complete and waiting for a release soon, so that'll most likely be the next thing that comes out here on NG. Plus, my song in another NG collab is also coming along well and miiiiiight be the cause of some nightmares when it comes out... and some broken arms.

Life ain't half bad for me. It's certainly been a roller coaster, but through it all I'm still here and I'll still be here. I'm happy with what I got going, and hopefully soon everyone can see what I've been cooking for a hot bit. But for now, I hope you all are doing great wherever you are too!

Heyo!

In the case you haven't seen the NGTH results, please check them out here! I wanna take a moment to congratulate both the creators and discoverers of every single gem that won the competition - there were a lot of entries and quite a few high-quality ones at that too!

I wanna take the time to reflect on the process that happened with the NGTH, as well as talk about the NGADM and a few other personal updates.

NGTH Reflection

The idea for the NGTH came to me back around November/December when I was looking back at the NG Wiki's History page. I saw that something that haunted Tom was that the last NGTH prior to this years' - which happened all the way back in October 2011 - never saw itself through to completion. I wanted to give back to NG and bring a smile to peoples' faces, and looking at the Treasure Hunt's concept from the posts linked in the Wiki gave me interest because it was a unique competition style that I hadn't seen around on any site too often. So I proposed to Tom that I could revive the hunt, and it was through him that I found out someone else had the same idea - my co-host for the competition, @The-Great-One .

It was then that we came together and planned a lot of things out, including the timeframe of the competition, paying the creators as well as the winners, and other such details. We couldn't cover everything, especially since this was the first time the competition had been launched in some time and it definitely needed a tuneup, but I think we covered enough to bring interest back into the competition. There's still plenty of things to look back upon, so I want to reflect upon it as myself and TGO look to host it again in the future.

My biggest thing I wanted to look at is how A-rated content is considered. When the fact that A-rated content wasn't applicable for trophies came up early in the submission phase - a fact I didn't know about as I don't dabble with A-rated content on the site too much - it was dismissed because there wasn't a piece of A-rated content that broke the precedent of winning a Treasure Hunt. That was changed this year with the winner of the game category, Shoku's Treasures. While quality is always the focus of these competitions, and I will not deny that Shoku's Treasures won fairly and with quality in mind, my worry is that the entry pool will become saturated with A-rated content because of this loophole, so I may consider placing a certain other measure for A-rated entries to make sure they're still hidden gems, but not overpowering the entry pool. My initial thought is a view threshold where A-rated entries have to have below a certain view count at the time of their submission to the hunt, but that is a very early thought that'll need some extra fleshing out.

Speaking of fleshing things out - the judges. Before talking about things with regards to judges, I want to give a huge thank you to all the judges who helped out - @Capim and @MrShoeShine7 on animation, @BrandyBuizel and TGO on games, @Xinxinix and @Template88 on art, and @ZaneLittle and @Cyberdevil on audio. All of them were capable judges that had good tastes, and I would be fine bringing a majority of them back if they showed interest in the next time. I would, however, like to start organizing the next judging pool sooner rather than later. I also need to work out the kinks of the judging system to not compromise integrity but also give judges as much freedom as possible - the system used this year had that aim, but I'm not sure if it provided a lot of freedom or if it restricted judges on some fronts. That'll play into the screening process that will happen for new judges, since again I would like to not compromise integrity for judge freedom.

One other major thing I want to look at is automating the process of submitting entries for the Treasure Hunt. It was a lot of work for me to see each person's entry, go to the spreadsheet, add their name, vet the entries that person submitted, and then add it and all its info to the appropriate lists. Needless to say, it was time-consuming and could definitely be smoothed out, either by a Google form or maybe bribing PsychoGoldfish to do something for the site like how the Art Secret Santa has it. Automating can also help me write logs every day, as I can easily go into the lists that the automated process spits out and spend more time looking at entries and figuring out which ones I can showcase that day - or heck, I can even ask for judge input with that as well!

Lastly, I want to consider timing for the next hunt. I think the two-week timeframe for submissions worked out well, but the timing for when the competition happens is gonna be a bit of an issue. In January and February next year, there's gonna be another Flash Forward jam, Pixel Day, most likely an NG Winter Festival, and a potentially big ENA day given that the release of Dream BBQ is coming up soon. It'll be busy, so hosting it during those two months isn't gonna be ideal. The thought Tom and I have is to move it towards September-October, that way a prize pool can also be raised for it without interfering with another competition. I also want to shorten the judging phase quite a bit - this year I was extremely lenient since I know the judges have lives outside of NG, but it led to the judging phase being three months long. I think it could be quicker, even with 300 entries in one of the categories, but I need to find that balance between timeliness and leniency to figure that out.

Overall though, I think the first revival of the NGTH went really well given everything that we had to consider. I'm incredibly thankful for TGO being my partner-in-crime, stepping up as a game judge, offering advice and helping on the organizational side of things and helping to update the spreadsheet during a portion of the submission phase. I'm absolutely down to host this alongside him next year, and hopefully we can fix the things we need to fix and find the balances we need to find, but I'd say that with all things considered we had a really good competition this year.

I'm also down to hear more thoughts with the hunt and how things went this year. While I have a list of things I want to look at, I also realize I might be leaving a few things out or need to look at additional things too. If there's anything you want me to look at, let me know! I'm going to talk soon with TGO and include Tom on the conversations for the next hunt, since the year's almost halfway out and next year will come sooner than we think!

NGADM Update

Originally, I was planning to take up the hosting torch this year for the Newgrounds Audio Death Match. Due to things happening on my end, mentally and with IRL things, I am no longer able to host. If there is anyone willing to do so in my absence, please let me know. If there are also individuals willing to become judges for the ADM, please reach out to me as well. Note that both potential judges and hosts are subject to being reviewed by audio moderators to ensure we choose someone based on quality.

As a heads up: the total commitment time for the ADM is usually from late June to October/November, both as a host and as a judge. Main responsibilities for hosting include determining the format of the competition, reaching out for promotional materials, creating materials for the judges, and so on, so hopping on board sooner rather than later will definitely help with that. Main responsibilities for judges include checking that each song qualifies, judging all works fairly, and assisting the organizer(s) with whatever is needed.

Personal Updates

As you may have heard, and might probably notice, I have removed my Twitter from my links and will be deactivating my account on there briefly. Given all that is happening on the platform, what and specifically who introduced and basically yelled at me to make an account (spoilers, they turned out to be a jerk), and that my mental health hasn't been the best while on that platform, I'm hopeful that this'll help me out a bit.

What it also means is that I'm downscaling once again back to NG in terms of my music and general audience. I have no qualms with it - I honestly consider NG to be one of if not the best of the platforms out there - but I know it'll be jarring for some. I'm not planning on going anywhere, and my other platforms are still accessible as well, but that'll be a bit of a heads up with that. A majority of my updates and communications will be through news posts like these here on NG, and I think I might share some music I enjoy occasionally as a pick-me-up. We'll see how that goes.

My mental health has otherwise been up and down, mostly for personal reasons I'm not comfortable with disclosing. I'm gonna keep my head up with everything going on and look out for myself, the way I always have and always will. I will be placing emphasis on prepping for IRL matters a little more now, but I will still be willing to work with others and create works here on NG and beyond. I can't wait to show what I got soon, because there's a ton of music that's coming up with projects and it'll be fun to show it all off!

NG TREASURE HUNT SWASHBUCKLER'S LOG

Day 14: February 17, 2023

Heyo!

I didn't expect things on my end to be busy, both with allergies and IRL work, but I don't want to leave this unfinished. No, this isn't the results page, as that'll come in due time; in alignment with the previous logs, I want to showcase some more works as we close off the submission period. All of us, including the judges, TGO and myself, have our work cut out for us with the amount of entries we have to go through - how much, you may ask? Well, here's the number of individual entries (not the overall amount of people who submitted!) per portal:

185 animation entries

+ 115 game entries

+ 272 art entries

+ 182 audio entries

-------------------------------

= 754 individual entries across all four portals!

While there has been a larger amount of entries in previous years, the fact that there's so many entries this year is an incredible comeback for the hunt. My hope is to be able to do this next year alongside @The-Great-One , but we'll see where time takes us!

HIGHLIGHTS

This section will showcase some of the works that have been accepted into the NG Treasure Hunt, with due credit to their creators. Note that this is not an indication of their placement or ranking in the hunt. If you're seeing this and aren't familiar with the Treasure Hunt or what's going on (or what's in it for you!), you can find info on that here!

Animation

For those looking for how Madness would look like as an anime, @TarKade created an opening with this idea in 2021!

A dramatic short that has a pretty interesting message, @ChrittyEatsShit looks at a man on a balcony wanting to smoke a cigarette.

If you're familiar with "Among Us: The Incredible Story" from back during the 2020 Purple Imposter jam, creator @ChrisShwafer continued the series with other games as well, including in this gem from back in 2021!

@PokkeStein's comedy from 2021 swaps the roles between humans and monkeys in a pretty funny way!

A uni project from 2013, @Butzbo tried his hand at stop-motion for some animation practice!

Games

An interesting adventure game, @DaNeel 's journey is weird, interesting and even a bit funny!

@BlackthornProd 's two-player 2018 game is a journey throughout the mind and a great game to grab a friend and play with!

It is as silly concept, but @Akari21 's game from earlier this year pits you as a pigeon (with a cannon) against other enemies wanting to take your hatchlings.

This Flash game from @Berzee is a real-time strategy game where you can create a village and fight off bandits using the people you hire from resources!

Try your best to survive in @ImmanentDeath 's 2022 avoiding game!

Art

You miiight wanna be a bit careful with that saleswoman @Puapka hung around with back in 2021...

@jeneiakos98 payed tribute in 2017 to one of the greatest bounty hunters in the galaxy.

On the subject of tributes, @RodneyAmirebrahimi created this one back in 2020 for David Gilmour!

We've also seen quite a few art trades occur here on NG, with one example being this trade from @AphrosAnimation a couple of months ago!

This 2017 illustration from @yurgenburgen is an interesting little easter egg hunt for the eyes with the amount of detailed textures it uses.

Audio

One jewel that was found was @Quarl 's 2013 entry from their EP, Object vs. Person.

Created with the feel of an n64 game, @Bertn1991 created this cinematic track back in 2020!

newgrounds.com/audio/listen/908324

An interesting little jewel that was found was @Frequality 's theme they made for JonTron back in 2014. And yes, I did look it up because I didn't believe it, but it's apparently true! Sometimes, you'll never know where a place like Newgrounds might take you in the future.

One of the greats here on NG's Audio Portal is @Waterflame , who's known for making a lot of good songs, including the used-to-be backing track for the Newgrounds Podcast, -Gabberfly-. Even still, a lot of their older songs went under the radar, such as this one from 2012!

A trio that made an interesting Ska track is the trio of @TheThirdRates , @Spazkid , and @NolandNG !

At this point, the only thing that lies ahead is results. As to when they'll be announced?

We have no rush: the results will be announced when we're ready. We simply ask for your patience, as it can take up quite a bit of time to go through all nearly-800 entries and make sure we're giving honest and good scores. It might take a bit, but it'll be worth it in the end!

As I wrap up the log, I wanna take the time to thank @TomFulp . As much as TGO and myself had the idea, Tom was a great resource to understand how we should go about the hunt's revival this year and for helping to bring the prize pool together. Talking with him about this, and about things in general really, has been a warm and great experience and it honestly makes me glad that I've stuck with NG for nearly five years. So again, a huge thank you to Tom for making this possible!

And of course, TGO and I wanna thank all of you. If anything, I think we achieved our goal of bringing light to works that were overshadowed, missed or left out in the past ten years, not only because a lot of them finally got frontpages but because a lot of people pointed them out and found great works that were shared to others. I mentioned before how I hope TGO and myself can do this again next year, albeit with some changes to help us out on the backend of things, and it's honestly because of the things that happened this year and the strength that the revival had. Hopefully this can also encourage people to keep doing the things they love here on NG too, since it helps to show their works aren't being forgotten!

We're glad that this year's revival of the Treasure Hunt got a lot of recognition, and we're hopeful that hunts that occur in the future have a great turnout as well. Again, thank you all for your help with giving recognition and attention to the hidden gems of NG. We'll see you when the results are ready!

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