*Update at the bottom of this post

So this isn't really meant for the people who are interested only in Tankmas or the other shenanigans I do here on NG, but I will say for you guys that I hope you enjoy what we're putting out this year! We've got a lot more coming on and it's only gonna get better from here.

Instead, this is mainly for the people that know me for Bob and Bosip. With everything going on, and with people taking time to share their thoughts, I want to just share with you guys about what's been going on, not behind the scenes, but with me. There's a bunch of other people that explain what's been going on behind the scenes online, but in terms of what I've been going through in that... it's just complicated.

Before I begin, I want to just mention that I am, in no way, inciting or asking for any witch hunts, callouts or cancellations towards any individual member of the team or the team entire; in fact, I ask that this post not be the reason for any of that. In the same vein, I will be mentioning no names except Amor's for the sake of the group anonymity, and I ask that you don't mention or attach names either. I have no hatred or vendettas against the team, and this isn't meant to turn them into villains - we have Twitter for that, thank you very much. Instead, I'm just giving my own recollection of my thoughts and what it's leading to with the team and my involvement. Also, there is a slight trigger warning for the mention of self-harm/suicide later on here, immediately following the second photo in the second section. Don't worry - I'm not taking my life, nor am I making any plans to anytime soon.

Basic backstory for the mod and update: I've mentioned a few times in previous news posts about the Bob and Bosip mod for Friday Night Funkin, which has currently become one of the largest mods in the game. Our last successful update, known as The Expansion Update, came out back in August 2021. Like what happened after the release of the main week, we wanted to go right into Week 2 following the release of the Expansion Update but got an idea to expand upon something already introduced in the mod.

This time, it was the EX difficulty. For those unaware of what that is, think of it as our take on the main FNF's planned Erect Difficulty, with remixed songs and charts more fit for veteran rhythm game players. When we released the Expansion Update, we had it for only the four main songs in the mod - the Tutorial, Jump In, Swing, and Split. People started looking for EX remixes of other songs so much that we decided, why not? So Week 2 was put on hold and we began work on the next update, known as the EX update.

Fast forward a few months, to November. We were working really well on the update, and our spirits were high. We had an EX remix planned for every other song currently in the mod, plus a few aces up our sleeves. Despite missing a few deadlines set earlier on, we weren't really taking it as a big deal, mainly because it wasn't a big deal.

Until it became a big deal.

On November 26 - or as us Americans know it, Black Friday 2021 - the word started to spread in our development server that the mod had gotten leaked. Not a video of Amor showing it off, not a clip of us showing snippets of the music, but a full-blown, most recent, unfinished build. And unfortunately, we weren't the only ones - the other bob mod, literally every FNF mod ever, also got their update, known as Bob's Trick or Treat, leaked to the public by an unknown source, and a handful of mods were getting leaks at around the same time ours was. The issue was, our mod was unique in that it had a large fanbase due to Amor's content creation - meaning people could see it and spread it easily. In fact, the most popular leak video has around 10k views at the time of typing this, from the last time I checked.

Now, at this point a normal person would just suggest we go up to the video, strike it for copyright violations, and go on with our day. And to be honest, I made a promise to do that. I knew the risk of going to court over it and was going to take it if it meant defending my work and the work of others being used without permission.

But here's the problem. If you press the fancy buttons to report a copyright strike on a YouTube video, you're first greeted by a page outlining everything about the copyright process with a link to the forum submission for copyright smack in the middle. On that page, below the forum link, is this piece that outlines what information you would have to provide and how it would be used:

I get everything except for the legal name. Read it again:

Your full legal name is required to complete a takedown request. It may be shared with the uploader of the video removed for copyright infringement.

Sharing your legal name with the person who used your assets without permission upfront and outside of a court? If you ask me, that is basically giving more bullets to someone who is shooting off their guns against an entire team. Let me reiterate this: they don't care about us. Don't believe me? Here's one of the comments from one of the leak videos:

Yeah, we're lazy. We're putting this whole update together for you the fans, we're making sure it doesn't have any bugs in it, and we're lazy.

Oh, and did I forget to mention that I also woke up earlier to another one of my friends cutting themselves in an attempt to take their own life? Because that was going on too, and I had to take up my time to help them and keep them alive because I cared about them. I spent the entire day telling them how much they mattered to me and to others, and all while the mod team was panicking and trying to figure out what to do in response to the leak, since it was the first time this had happened.

And I'm lazy.

So since we were in a stalemate with the leak video, we had only one option: push for the mod to get done. Pretty much everything was done except coding, and the big issue we had was that we had one coder pushing hard while the other had broken communication with us, basically talking with us every so often. As you can probably tell, we had a lot of stress on our hands, and the community where the lunkhead above resided in was laughing and prodding us. It wasn't the entire community, but enough to stress us out.

Worst part is, we still haven't found the one responsible for the leak as of typing this. It was mentioned that there were a large amount of people in the server, but it was because they were people who the team was planning to collaborate with for a number of reasons. For example, one set of people we had in our development server was the people behind the Imposter Mod, who we were planning to collaborate with for a crossover between their mod and Bob & Bosip. We also had people who were content creators and special guests that were trusted individuals - UniqueGeese, JerTheMusicBear, Mepedrop, just to name a few. While that list expanded because of the artist we brought on for loading screens, most of the people in the server were either trusted friends of Amor, people we were collaborating with, or people working on the mod. We didn't bring just anybody into that server, but having that amount of people made finding the leaker similar to looking for a needle in a haystack.

Fast forward another week. We had set a date for release - December 4th/5th. This was also the date that the build needed to be done at, and... you can see the issue here. It also happened that one of the coders got sick on the day of the 5th, and the update's work fell on the shoulders of the other coder, who had somewhat fixed their communication issue.

But for me... I was mentally breaking. After a moment where Amor fell under stress in a VC I wasn't present in but saw unfold in the text chat (nothing bad happened to my knowledge), I felt like I was suffocating and did what I could to wash myself off of the mod for the time. I moved everything related to B&B, including Amor's public server known as The Bob Lounge, into a part of my Discord that I reserved for Nitro emotes and never looked at, and I muted Amor's DMs. The only communication I kept was with a single member of the team, which I won't name, but it was only in the case that I needed to get something off of my chest.

I saw my own mentality taking a skydive in terms of the mod. Despite me doing everything to turn every notification off and keep my conversations down, I basically couldn't stop myself from looking at the server, and when I eventually brought it up to that member I was talking with, they suggested I talked with Amor. Realizing my mentality was dropping out, I took a walk on the cold morning of December 6th for errands and to just breathe, then I came back and asked Amor if I could talk to him. My intention was to speak with him in a call, but when both of us were ready on the morning of the 7th, I couldn't bring myself to do it. So I talked with him in text and let him know everything on my mind, being open to the fact that I knew I wasn't alone in my stress, and asked the question "how are things getting better?".

The conversation went better than expected, with Amor understanding and apologizing for what was going on and saying that he wished things didn't turn out this way and that a lot of it was outside of our control. The communication was the issue with why things were taking a turn for the worst according to him, and I also realized that was a large issue at play here. At the end, when I mentioned that the happiness I had for the mod was becoming stress extremely quickly, he told me:

Then that's fine, you need a break. We all do.

The next day, I had joined a group that was much smaller for bugfixing the update. I had already unmuted Amor and was starting to feel a bit better, just still immensely under the weather when it came to the mod. When it came to the group of the nine of us, we put all hands on deck for playtesting and bugfixing hoping to still push the mod out really soon. I did my share and I continuously asked what needed to be done.

Afterwards, while the momentum was going I took the weekend to go and just unplug from pretty much everything, including Tankmas. I felt legitimately happy and I enjoyed my time, to the point where I didn't feel stressed checking in on the team as they prepared for an update despite having no emotion.

But when Sunday the 12th hit, it hit hard.

My mental health basically found the floor pulled out from underneath. My real life was getting so bad that day that I basically slept for over 12 hours and I didn't eat for almost 24. Tankmas was running into issues because of a late publish from the people I was working with and it led to panic to try and fix it up from both my fellow programmers and the others involved. And the mod... was trying. I didn't pay attention to anything, and I simply sent this message near the end of my day to the group:

Good luck with the release. I'm done with today.

I was going back into the ditch I was trying so desperately to get out of for the past week.

The release was to include a full playthrough of the update, and its premiere went off without a hitch. But when the actual update got released, it was plagued with problems on the coding side.

Twitter exploded.

My home feed got filled with more people saying what Amor's problems were instead of saying "let's give thanks to the team" messages. I get it, the mod wasn't perfect, but to see more people saying the mod's problems was... hurtful.

The issue I had the entire time was something I consider as "runoff stress". Basically, the direct stress was going on with the programmers and the team entire to try and get the mod in as good of a position to release as possible. None of it was directed to me, yet by seeing the stress going on it got onto me. I don't know how or why it does, but... it did.

And it affected what was happening in every step of my experience.

When I went back on the next day, Monday the 13th, my mental health was reset for everything except the mod. In fact, while everything was getting better for me mentally, the mod was getting worse. It had gotten to the point where I typed a message in the group chat (note that this is paraphrased to the best of my knowledge):

Honestly, if the people that are complaining are the majority, then I say we just cancel the update. So what if we please a small group of people? When the general masses are complaining about what you've done, who cares about the small group of people? After four months of work and stress, I don't. If the people are complaining about the mod, and we give them what they want, what are we doing to them? Giving them more to complain about? Telling them that complaining gets them what they want? If it's me, and I really think it is, then I need to leave the team, but... I just don't see it.

I went mad from the stress, and knowing that I said that is just... hurtful to me. No, I didn't mean to direct this at everyone who supported the mod, but that doesn't make it any less worse. I think the others, who were telling me that we shouldn't cancel the mod over a bunch of people causing a stink, took to the situation better than I did. I think everyone else had a better reaction to the situation than I did.

Later that day, Amor held a space on Twitter to clear up what was going on. While others were going on to say their thoughts, I chose not to enter the space, left the group, and turned Amor's DMs, as well as the DMs of many of the other people on the team, completely silent. The only server I have hanging on to say I am still a developer is the main dev server.

Following that space, Amor sent me a DM saying that he apologized for what was going on and assumed that I didn't want to be involved. He was being legitimately hurt from the situation and letting me know he cared about me, and what did I say in response?

In basic terms, I told him to go shove it. In more specifics, I told him that I was balanced between leaving and staying on the team, that I would come to him when I was ready with my decision, and to tell the others not to come to me until my decision was made.

He responded saying:

Ok, you have a good one splatter.

That brings me to now. As I mentioned last night, I'm still unsure whether to stay or leave the B&B team. But the issue I'm facing isn't with or involving Amor or anyone else on the team - the issue is me. I've tried weighing the pros and cons of leaving, tried considering everything with the past present and future, and... I can't make a decision. I still can't mentally accept people around me asking about how I am and what they can do, because I'm worried that I'm hurting them in this state. And the issue is that this is the only place that I'm having this mental instability - Tankmas has been a joy to work on and amazing to see growing, the other mods not associated with the team have been good to look at and help with, but... it's this specific mod that just has this poison on it that I can always taste.

Is it because of the team or Amor? Pretty unlikely, since they weren't abusing me or treating me wrong at all, whether directly or indirectly, intentional or not. Is it because of the leak? Potentially, since it was the leak that started this whole issue in the first place.

But... maybe it's really me. Maybe I shouldn't have this opportunity since I'm being a sourpuss and a negative person as of late when it comes to the mod. Maybe I should take my leave and fix myself mentally or get myself out of the spotlight. Or maybe all I need is a break when this update comes out to just breathe and celebrate the holidays.

It's one of those times right now where I'm just... lost.

UPDATE (12/15/21)

So I came to a decision that I let Amor know about, but I might as well forward it here. I'm gonna stay with the team.

Like I mentioned, this isn't something that happened with just our team, and I ended up seeing it in a new light when taking a step further back. I think I could take this situation and turn it into a learning opportunity for me to deal with this kind of extreme stress both now and in the future. While what I said isn't right, and I knew that pretty much from the time I began writing this and apologized for it, it's nothing I can change and instead something I can learn from. I'm hoping that this update can get its way out, for the better of both myself and the team.

One thing that I don't know if people were wondering or not as well was why I wrote this to begin with. I don't want to look for pity or for remorse, but rather I wanna just be open and check in with myself. As much as I hate getting involved with the drama of different communities, I also realized that I couldn't keep everything on my chest. Sometimes, talking about a situation that's going on is the best way to start getting your mind cleared up instead of bottling it up and chewing on it. Plus, if things went the other way I didn't want the reason to immediately go to "well, it's the team's fault" when they weren't the problem I was facing. Now if it was just that, could this whole post have waited until I made the decision to step down? Of course, and it might have been better to hold it off until then if it was only that reason; because there was the issue of keeping it to myself, though, I chose to simply talk about it now.

Still, I'm hopeful and thankful for the team. I looked back at the development server and things are beginning to look up for both the future and the update. We don't have a release point yet since we still have things to do, but we're looking forward to what's after the update.

Thanks again for being here guys. Make sure you look out for yourselves every day. <3

Heyo everyone, it's Tankmas time!

Just before I place up the link, a huge thank you goes out to everyone who applied this year - it was definitely competitive and while we couldn't accept everyone for space reasons, I'm still happy everyone came together to give it their shot.

Stop in every day to get a new present and give your support to the people who created for the calendar!

GO PLAY TANKMAS NOW!!

The newest update to the Bob and Bosip mod released earlier today! If you don't know what it is, Bob and Bosip is a mod that I worked on for music from the beginning. The new update adds in a whole bunch of new features - a new overarching UI, brand new Gamemode, a side week, and even a crossover with another mod! Go check it out here.

Just to put it in perspective as well, the mod did so good today that we went through four mirrors within five hours after the release - that's insane to me lol. And of course, I know that everyone wants to hear the music that came as part of the mod. Luckily, the new tracks will (mostly) be making their way here to Newgrounds, starting tonight with Swing EX and Tutorial EX! Both the original Tutorial Remix Instrumental and both versions of Swing were also updated and look absolutely clean. Tomorrow, I'll put up Conscience and Intertwined, which you can play in Week In The Background; however, you can find them in the official OST video or even listen to them on SoundCloud!

The only songs I won't upload here on NG are:

• The full Tutorial remix. I actually had the vocals replaced in the song so that they didn't use the ones from the Tutorial in the main FNF game, but I pulled a whoopsie and accidentally submitted the old version for the mod. I take full responsibility for that, and out of respect of the VA for GF (I'll mention them below) I won't put that up unless it goes live in game, which is uncertain at this time. (please don't ask either thanks)
• Both songs from Bob Takeover (Cutscene Ronsip and Ronald McDonald Slide). There's no way I could post them up here without having them removed in best case scenario or getting audio banned in worst case scenario because of the meme samples that were used and/or referenced. There's a ton, and because I respect Newgrounds I won't post them here. You can, however, find their official releases on YouTube and SoundCloud thanks to AmorAltra.

I do of course want to mention and thank a few people who helped with the songs, and I encourage you to check out their stuff (links will be in their songs):

• Ohyaholla, Bluskys and Amor for creating the amazing art that's on the discs and in each song. Seriously, it's so good.
• Every VA that allowed me to use their voice for vocal samples (MiniShoey, Seabo for Bosip, Mango for Ash, AstroSquid for GF). I hope that the voices sound good and the beats sound better :)
• My fellow partners in music, @DPZ0 and @ArdolfGD. I'm glad to be making music alongside the both of you, and man the stuff we have planned lol
• Amor and the rest of the B&B team - thank you guys so much, you guys are some of the best people I've met online.

Newgrounds Audio Death Match

I want to give a huge thank you to everyone who came out and auditioned this year for the NGADM! We had just under 130 qualifying submissions and 64 great people moved on to the next round. Because we had to ensure that our scores were solid, the submission time period for the first round was pushed back a day. You can find the updated schedule in the rules post and I wish luck to all 64 competitors in the main round!

FNF Stuff

Terrance

Recently, @JRetiroX released quite a few sneak peeks of the mod! There's some that include sprites that are being worked on, and there's one that includes a look at one of the songs. You can take a look at the most recent update here!

Elanor Takeover

Things have been going really well with Elanor Takeover on the music side, and the mod is coming along pretty well! Me and @RetroUpgrade are still looking for people to hop on and help, such as an animator, sprite and background artists, and a coder/compiler. Feel free to PM me or Retro if you're interested!

???????

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEEEEE

Bob & Bosip

There's a brand new update coming out for Bob & Bosip tomorrow at 3pm EST! This new update, called the Expansion Update, will include two new weeks (none of them are Week 2 ;) ), a fresh new UI, and of course new music. Similar to the original release, the songs that I made will be put up here on Newgrounds, except for one that I'll talk about when the mod releases.

If you're impatient and want to know what's in the mod, tonight you can tune in to UniqueGeese for an early access showcase of the mod! There'll be a pre-show and pre-party at 6:30pm on his YouTube and the mod showcase will be on his Twitch at 7pm (both EST). You won't be able to see it afterwards until its release, so come in and take a look! More info here.

If you're even more impatient, you can find a preview of one of the songs on Twitter. Whose Twitter?

...yep, I did indeed cave into pressure and made a Twitter account lol. To keep away from the side of the internet that is, well, Twitter, I'm not gonna use it as frequently as I use Newgrounds, and I'll make sure to post and share wholesome things only. It's over here if you wanna follow it, and I'll include it in my links eventually as well. I'll be sharing things from other projects too!

LOOONG post ahead, I needed to talk about a lot so buckle up lol.

Newgrounds Audio DeathMatch

We're currently almost 3/4 of the way through the audition submission phase with 107 submissions currently qualifying! There's still conversations with us judges that we might shift from 32 to 64 competitors for round 1, but I will keep all competitors informed on if that change will happen or not. If you haven't submitted yet and are wanting to, you still have a week to do so! Audition submissions end at 11:59 pm EST July 18, and you can edit/revise your current submissions up until that time. Check up on the previous news post for rules, scheduling and prizes; head over to the discussion thread if you wanna talk and make memes with other competitors; and submit your auditions over at the audition thread!

But what if I'm under 18 years old...?

The question has honestly been floating around for a bit from other users, and I haven't responded yet to it because I didn't have a solid answer. This year, the limit was placed for competitors of the ADM to be 18+ because of the cash prize. While there is a lot of good talent on Newgrounds from people under 18, the issue comes into play of giving said people money - it's not that we don't want to give money to them, but more from the fact that issues can arise if you give a minor a large amount of money (more likely around $200) without their parents knowing, some of those issues potentially being legal issues. I also didn't know how to implement a "anyone under 18 needs parent permission" system without having loopholes or potential backfires, so that's why the age limit was there.

That said, there was a tiny thought that came up from us judges about putting the same restriction on judges. We aren't getting payed for judging entries, but rather we're volunteers who wanted to help and have good histories on giving reviews to audio and/or creating audio that shows some of the elements in action here on NG. The answer is still blurry, but as of writing this the one spot remaining is currently pending from someone who asked about it. If it opens, the discussions will continue and I will let you know about what it leads to.

With other ADM things, the prize pool is still open for donations and most likely will remain open until the final round - more details are in the rules post. Also, HUGE shoutout to this year's artist, @travsaus , for making this year's art that showed up on the NG frontpage! While I won't be posting the image here since I will only post it up for the different submission threads, you can find it here. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the discussion thread or send me a PM. If you're looking for other competitions, TaintedLogic will also be starting up the Newgrounds Underdogs Audio Competition soon, so be on the lookout for that in the audio forums too! (I'll be there to judge for it :D )

Originally, I planned for that to be the busiest and biggest thing I would go through this year. But on the same night that the NGADM Audition Round began, something else launched...

Bob & Bosip: Some Questions, Info and Other Stuff

A few hours before the beginning of the NGADM, a mod for Friday Night Funkin' (NEEEEEEWGROOOUNDS FOOOOREEEEVEEEEERRRR!!!) known as the Bob and Bosip mod released to the public. I worked alongside AmorAltra and a team of great developers to create a part of the OST for the mod, namely the Tutorial remix and Song 2 of Week Bob (also known as Swing). The night that it released... it blew up. There are currently a couple of videos from people who have played the mod that has hit over a million views, and the mod itself is sitting at over 50k downloads. I didn't expect the mod to go big, but dang it went big lol.

If you haven't played it yet, or if you don't know what the mod is, you can go download and see more information here! There's plenty of Newgrounds musicians involved with the project as well, so you'll be supporting them too :)

With all that blowup, though, I do wanna address a few things that haven't been asked but are bound to be at some point in time. Might as well take the time now to answer them before things get really hairy lol. As a sidenote, a lot of these also pertain to my other songs, but if you're in doubt you can always ask.

Q: Can I officially release your song on-

A: NO!

NO!

No.

no.

Why not? Simple answer: it's not yours and you don't have permission. It's about as bad as creating merchandise for a large intelectual property (say, a well-known TV cartoon series) without consulting and getting permission from the company that made the property. Not only are you taking something without permission, but in most cases you have the option to make money off of that stolen work, which is a huge nono in any industry. Please do not officially release the two songs - or any song from the OST, for that matter - without permission. And no, I most likely will not give permission for an official release on a platform even if you ask nicely because I don't wish to give that permission to just anybody. There is one person who I have given permission to upload the songs on YouTube; more info on that later. And no - it isn't just me with that mindset; quite a few of the other B&B musicians have the same idea. Don't believe me?

NOTE: Loops, music videos and anything of the sort count as an official release!

Q: Can I use your songs on a large project (i.e. animation, game, etc.) or something that will be monetizable?

A: Please contact me to discuss the details. If you don't do that, the answer is a guaranteed no. Mainly, I want to know a) what the song will be used for, and b) what the context is that the song will be played in; while my songs are free, I don't want them floating around for anyone to just use especially for larger and profitable content. 90% of the time my answer will be saying yes and giving written permission to use and credit the song; however, I can say no if I feel uncomfortable with what it's used for and the context of the project (if I do, I'll make sure to include a reason when I say it and not just say "no have a nice day").

NOTE: General YouTube videos (other than official releases) and Twitch streams do not fall in this category, but rather the next one.

Q: Can I use your songs for anything else not mentioned above (general YouTube/Twitch streams, reaction videos, talk videos, remixes, etc)?

A: Short answer: Sure! Just make sure you give credit.

Long answer: As long as the project doesn't fit into any of the above items, you can use it for whatever you wish! You don't have to ask me for permission, but you can let me know if you want - I'm always interested in finding out where it goes and how it's used. That said, though, please make sure you give credit somewhere in the content or its description. By credit, I mean including the song name, artist (Splatter, Splatterhead, SplatterDash, whatever you feel like for it lol), and a link if possible. For example:

Song Name: Swing (Instrumental)

Artist: Splatter

Link: https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/1048005

As long as those three things are included (or two if a link isn't possible), you can use it for smaller things like background music for YouTube videos, Twitch streams, Discord calls and anything else. You also have permission to remix it if you want!

Q: What if I use your songs without permission for things where I need it?

A: Well, first is a message from me asking to either remove monetization (if you have it on) or replacing/removing the song. If there's no compliance, then the flagging/reporting of the content starts up. That should be as far as I need to go, but I can and will go further if needed.

Q: Where can I find official releases of the two songs?

A: Here on Newgrounds, you can find the official releases of Swing, the Instrumental of Swing, and the Instrumental of the Tutorial remix. Becuase the Tutorial remix ripped the vocals from the original Tutorial, I chose not to upload the full tutorial song since that most likely goes against Audio Portal Guidelines. On YouTube, I've given AmorAltra permission to upload the full versions of Swing and the Tutorial Remix to his account. The Swing video is a standalone, but you can also find it with the Tutorial remix in the full OST video. Other releases - including those songs being found on another platform and the release of future B&B songs - will be announced here as they happen.

Q: I got another question or I'm wondering about something...

A: Feel free to PM me! My inbox is always open if you have questions or wanna clarify something.

More Funkin'

Other than week Bob, there's more that have been in the works for a bit. For starters, the Bob & Bosip mod is far from finished. The whole team has a lot of ideas that we wanna do, and while I can't tell you about much of them, just know what we're making is gonna be something unlike any mod out there so far :D

Besides that, I've also continued working with @JRetiroX on his mod, VS Terrance! There's been plenty of things going on with the mod, and you can find a small bit of it in the first update here. I'll also mention that we're looking for a programmer for the mod, more info here!

Also, I'm working with my friend @RetroUpgrade for the music on his mod, Elanor Takeover! Things are going well there, and there's help needed too. Anyone who is interesting in animation, art cleaning, and coding can find more info on his help thread here!

Yeah, between the different FNF mods, the NGADM, and a few other IRL things, I've been keeping busy. Luckily, with the mods I'll be able to create and release some good music this year. I'll also see if I can squeeze in a piece or two that isn't FNF related to break the cycle a bit. But ye, that's what's been going on with me, and I'll see if I can keep posted on things!

*PLEASE NOTE: Unless otherwise specified, all rules are in place for all rounds.

Below are all rules, schedules and prizes regarding the 2021 Newgrounds Audio Deathmatch (NGADM). Please make sure that you understand the rules, as by entering you agree to be held by them.

General Rules:

1. To enter, you must either: a) be a scouted Audio Portal musician here on Newgrounds, or b) be eligible to be scouted here on Newgrounds's Audio Portal. If you are unaware of what scouting is or how it works, please refer to this guide.
2. You must follow all guidelines outlined in the Audio Portal Guidelines in your submission.
3. You may only submit your own work from the Newgrounds Audio Portal. Works submitted from Soundcloud, Spotify, Apple Music, etc. will not be accepted, and neither will work from your friend made on your behalf.
4. Your work must be original - which means that you should stay away from recognizable hooks and/or memes (sorry).
5. While we do not have a solid limit on song length for each round, we do suggest (especially in the audition/early rounds) that your song is between 2-6 minutes. This allows a good amount of time to develop an idea while still being engaging with a large quantity of other songs.
6. You may submit a song that pertains to another competition, provided that it follows both competitions' rules.

For the Audition Round Only:

1. You may submit any covers, mashups, remixes, VIPs, loops, or any work started before the beginning of the round.
2. You are not allowed to submit anything that is considered a MIDI rip and/or stolen song, as per the Audio Portal Guidelines.

For All Rounds After the Audition Round:

1. You may not submit any covers, mashups, remixes, VIPs, loops, or anything that is not considered original work.
2. You may not start on a piece for the next round before that round officially begins.
3. All members who were close to entry into a round will be considered "backups" and become part of a backup pool for that round. In the case that a main competitor drops out or DNSs, a backup will be placed in their spot if there are any available.
4. If you DNS or drop out of the competition, you will not be allowed into the backup pool and will not be allowed re-entry as a competitor.

Regarding Teams:

1. If you wish to participate as a duo or band, every member must actively take part in every round. Tag teaming is not allowed.
2. If participating as a band, it is recommended that the producer remains consistent.
3. If a member of a team/duo decides to drop out, they are unable to rejoin the team/duo and the rest of the members may choose to continue without them.

Schedule:

1. Unless otherwise noted, all timeframes will begin at 12:01 AM Eastern and end at 11:59 PM Eastern on their specified days.
2. You may not submit a track after the timeframe for submission has passed. If the timeframe ends and you have no submitted tracks, you will be considered as DNS and a backup will fill your spot.
3. You may not start a track for any round until the round begins its submission timeframe.
4. You may not edit/change your track during the judging timeframe. If you wish to make changes during the submission timeframe, you may do so and notify the submission thread (in the case that judges have already judged your work).

EDIT: THE FOLLOWING SCHEDULE IS THE MOST UP TO DATE AS OF AUGUST 2. ANY DATES IN BOLD HAVE BEEN CHANGED FROM THE ORIGINAL SCHEDULE.

Audition Round Submission: June 21 -> July 18

Audition Round Judging: July 19 -> August 2

Round 1 Submission: August 3 -> August 16

Round 1 Judging: August 17 -> August 22

Round 2 Submission: August 23 -> September 5

Round 2 Judging: September 6 -> September 12

Round 3 Submission: September 13 -> September 26

Round 3 Judging: September 27 -> October 3

Final Round Submission: October 4 -> October 17

Final Round Judging: October 18 -> October 24

Judges:

The following people are on the 2021 NGADM Judging Panel:

• SplatterDash
• Troisnyx
• Spadezer
• User-Jacob
• AceMantra
• Glassedhouse
• The-Great-One

1. Any and all judges are not allowed to compete in the NGADM.
2. During the early rounds, the judges may offer feedback on pieces by request following the judging period; for the last three rounds, judges will be leaving reviews on each track.
3. If any questions arise on critique, please do not carry it outside of DMs. The judges are here to listen, but they aren't going to listen if you make the issue into a knockoff Twitter argument.
4. Please be respectful to the judges. Like you, they're human and have many other things to do in life as well.

Prizes:

1. Because this competition involves physical prizes, we must mandate that all participants are 18 years of age or older and are in a location that is open to US trade/shipping.
2. Please note that the prize list may be subject to change. If you would like to contribute to the prize list, make a Supporter donation and PM TomFulp to let him know you are donating to the NGADM prize pool.

It's currently empty in here... why not drop in a few cents in the Supporter donation tab?

Heyo! I'm proud to announce and make mention of the 2021 Newgrounds Audio Deathmatch competition, which is coming up on June 21!

For those who don't know, the Newgrounds Audio Deathmatch is an annual audio competition that pits users up against one another in tournament-style brackets and two-week time periods to compose an original song. Originally founded in 2010 by fellow audio user @Step, the ADM has brought many names throughout the years, including garlagan and F-777. This year, things are planned to get more intense as many new people have joined us from across the Internet, so be prepared for a great competition!

Prizes are yet to be completely determined. If you have a prize you would like to donate - or know of a company who might be willing to sponsor the competition - feel free to reach out to me through PM. Be on the lookout for more messages and updates later on as we get closer to the competition!

EDIT: So after Wave 2 of the EP releases, I finally saw a worry of mine come to be, where track 4 - Hallucinate - ended up being published before Shares. Idk why, but to prevent this from happening again, Hallucinate was reuploaded while it was only six minutes old and there will be a 15-minute gap between one release and the other. Apologies for any inconvenience ;)

Gettin' Freaky

Around a month ago, I ended up getting contact from a relatively new and great user @JRetrioX for the FNF Animation Jam. Unfortunately it wasn't able to be completed in time due to both of us being caught up in real life stuff (me more in this past week than ever), but we're both working on it to be released soon. I'm actually pretty happy with how it's turning out so far - JRetrio is doing a really good job on the animation, so definitely give him some love!

Speaking of which, in the meantime you can check out his Twitter to find a few sneak peeks, look at what he already has here on NG, and even support him through commissions! Who knows, the animation might turn into something larger in the near future...

My Craft

I'm finally happy to mention that in the next week, a whole slew of songs will be arriving here to NG as part of a free collection/EP/album/whatever-you-wanna-call-it called My Craft! It's a Minecraft-themed album that takes a lot of inspiration and charm from the game. Made up of fourteen tracks, it's a bit of a fun project that I worked on and is now ready for its release.

The best part? The EP is getting released TONIGHT! ...well, sort of.

Fourteen tracks, if released all at once, is basically destroying the recent section of the NG audio portal for peeps that might use it to find other artists to scout, especially with Pico Day (happy Pico Day!) going on and plenty being uploaded in the portal already. Plus, I don't know if NG would even allow that large of a quantity to be uploaded at once, or even if the servers would allow it lol. That being said, the EP will start a scheduled release (thanks NG for scheduled releases!) at 00:00 EST May 2nd - which is a little more than 11 hours from now - for the first two songs. Afterwards, the next two songs will be released every day at that same time until all fourteen are available.

Since the EP is free, feel free to use it wherever as long as credit is given. By credit, all I mean is just song name, author (Splatter or SplatterDash is fine), and an optional link to the song (ex. Journey - SplatterDash), or if you're using it here on NG, using the project system to give the songs credit. Crediting for each song will be given in each one's descriptions, but otherwise it's good to use wherever. And yes - wherever also includes Geometry Dash, if you want to use it there.

Other than those two things, happy Pico Day and thanks for 200 followers :D

It's been a long time since I used this section of my profile. Might as well dust it off and use it to mention a few things.

In the case it wasn't known, I've been pretty busy since the time the last post was made back in September. I helped with the conclusion of NGADM 2020 (which went really well!) and participated in Tankmas 2020. It still surprises me how the mash that I did for Tankmas became one of my most well-received songs, but at the same time, I'm happy for the things that both the calendar and each of the songs are getting.

Back then, I didn't know too much about this small game known as Friday Night Funkin (which sidenote go support my boi ninjamuffin aND DONATE TO MAKE FNF A FULL GAME GO DO IT GOGOGOGOGOGO). By the time I did finally get to learning what it was, I made it just in time for the FNF Animation Jam to start up. I offered up my help and this meme, and I ended up getting in contact with someone who was interested in making an animation for the jam at the time. Now, though, it's evolved to more than that, and with more time since the jam is over (and no the animation wasn't posted for the jam), I'm excited and hyped for what comes through with the entirety of this project.

That, alongside some other things outside of NG, meant that I was busy in a good way. But not all things that happened were good things.

Bob SMP

One of the main reasons why I posted so much news way back when was because I was helping out in an SMP known back then as Bob SMP Season 2. What happened to it since the last post is... a lot. I won't go into detail here, maybe another time I will, but I am no longer a part of the project that was once known as Bob SMP Season 2.

Originally, my thought was to wait and release all tracks alongside the release of the SMP, but obviously that isn't going to happen anymore. Now, I am preparing all tracks for release here on NG very soon. I'll mention a specific date once everything is in the project system, but since there are so many tracks I will be releasing two per day until all fourteen are released. I'm not going to clog up the Audio Portal with fourteen tracks released all at once, I'm not a psychopath lol

My hope is that all fourteen will be provided as a EP that can be freely downloaded and used with credit given. I haven't had that problem so far here on NG, and I don't expect it to be a problem either, but just know that it may be a bit to get everything in the system and ready for a release since I didn't expect it to be as it turned out. Thanks for being patient, thanks for sticking around, and here's to the better stuff coming real soon. :D

So uh, I wanted to do this waay earlier but I kinda forgot lol. Hopefully this is still in good enough time to talk about this.

Among Us

I have mentioned this before, but I'm available for anyone who needs music for their Among Us animations! Whether it's something I've already made or something completely new, feel free to contact me if you want to use something of mine in your animation.

Post-NGUAC Thoughts

This year's NewGrounds Underdogs Audio Competition was - and I think many other judges can agree with me on this - much larger than those held in previous years, and I mean that in terms of both quantity and quality of the pieces brought to us. The pieces were definitely of high quality, and while many of us didn't agree that some pieces were better than others, the competition was higher than ever across all groups.

In terms of scores that I gave out, I want to say this to everyone who participated: don't be discouraged from what you see by the numbers. If anything, feel absolutely free to contact me for a review, and I can turn numbers into a critique for you. No matter what, though, the numbers that I gave - and the reasons why I gave them - are probably way different than the numbers that Jessie and SJLS gave, or the numbers that ACXLE gave, and so on. I personally think the best part about these is not the numbers you get, but rather the feedback you can trade them in for to grow and improve. Heck, I didn't win my first NGADM or NGUAC, but I took the advice I got and I came here - chances are, a lot of others here have done that too.

If you're still discouraged after that, then just realize that at least you tried and got somewhere - even if it was the lowest score in the audition phase, you still gave it a shot. You still allowed yourself to be judged, and hey, you now have the opportunity to grow from it. You got feedback, and now it leaves you a step forward from where other people would be if they never entered at all. That's honestly the hidden beauty of the competitions, is that you can improve and take a step forward compared to never leaving the ground at all.

If you're curious what my scores were, you can find them for all rounds in this spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/146h1H3rJyeOo6YxD0DBND89UMOY7-5-MbCL7MoMbHpU/edit?usp=sharing

Congrats to VociferousMusic, who not only won the competition this year but also had the only piece that took home a solid 10 from me and a few other judges!

Bob SMP

More on the SMP soundtrack, another track has been posted! Feel free to check out the song, "Journey", here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yabAoCtbV-g

Thank you to Madeon, who edited the video this time around!

In addition, two more tracks were revealed, made by fellow Newgrounds musicians SirHadoken and Boom Kitty. You can check each of their tracks, Hip and Walk (respectively), over here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khKEBHOr4Pw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4IoW5MaGSE

From what I have been told, the final soundtrack sneak peek will be happening soon, but the peek will of course not showcase all songs. Thankfully, (hopefully) every song on the SMP OST made by me will be making its way here to Newgrounds following its opening. I say hopefully because there is one song I'm questioning - I won't say why as of yet, but just know that one song may or may not be included on the track when it comes here.

That's all for now. I'm honestly looking forward to the end of NGADM, and might get myself involved in near-future audio competitions here on the competitor side...