Or, as I've recently learned to say it in Japanese... 明けましておめでとうございます!

So far so good, no nukes flying around haphazardly, bringing down the sky and all. Somehow, we all survived 2024 lolololol. And hey, watching the first sunrise of the new year's put some Motiva++ in my veins. Right to the meat of things, then - a lot of people have asked me why I wasn't too active on the internet in 2024, and now that I'm done with it, I can explain why.

31st December 2024 was the payment deadline for a bank loan I had taken out. Much of my online life, R&D, internet expeditions, game development and otherwise having fun doing stuff was heavily dialed back because I had to do freelance work and commissions on top of my real life job to earn every coin I could to make sure I could hit the deadline. I wasn't sure if I should mention this before since I wasn't sure if I could actually make it - but damn, I somehow pulled it off. Selecting a shorter deadline is a risky route to take, but it reduces interest payments, that's why I did it.

SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED, I HAVE DONE THIS ONLY ONCE BEFORE, WOULD NOT RECOMMEND.

The mortgage is next, but compared to the bank loan cutting so close, I can manage to pay this off WITHOUT compromising on what really matters.

But you know, it wasn't all bad/doom/gloom - despite the rush of work, I learned a lot of new things, new compression methods, new programming tricks, new drawing methods during that headlong rush to make the target goal. Now that I'm done, I'm going to use everything I've learned to make even better games and art moving forwards.

WE NEED TO GO WIDER.

I would also like to take this moment to thank the absolute kings over at the Newgrounds Reading Challenge for pushing me to read books that also served as a supplementary education for game development, business and doing things my own way. Of the books I read this year, these three books are my recommendation for anyone walking the path of game developer.

1. Game Design: What Makes a Development Team?
2. Game Developer’s Market Guide by Bob Bates and others
3. How to Start Your Business and Make it Work, DK Books (multiple authors and editors).

Making free games is fine too, but the reason why I added the business book is because it provides an excellent insight into how one should market and distribute the finished products. It's for this reason that I hope that the Newgrounds Reading Challenge continues on for many more years to come.

Also, guess what's 100% ruffle compatible?!?

One of the more complex games I made is now pretty much 100% forklif-UHHH I MEAN ruffle certified. It was a bit of work having to recode and redo some broken segments, but now everyone can enjoy this piece of newgrounds forum history as it was meant to be played.

Ya know, I should make more games like this. Might have to do some R&D on save files some more in a post-swf world...

Next up: Progress on the next sex kitten game! (the green lines indicate areas of the game coded to be playable thus far).

Once it reaches all-in, adding in game events will begin. As per my standard working procedure, the first event (game intro) is already done. The GUI system is also functional, with some snazzy new gameplay features that depend on real time! Things didn't go quite as planned last year, but with the bank job finally done, I'm confident that this game will be done just in time for the 21st anniversary of the Sex Kitten series!

I've got some other projects on the backburner for now, but for the time being, this is getting my full attention.

2025 brings financial freedom, but with it - new challenges and more stuff to do. And hey, it's never a boring ride. Yes, it started with a WTF and it might be tougher than 2024... but you know what I gotta say to that?

BRING IT ON!

I AM EXCEL!

YOU ARE DOGGU!

Context:

Also sleep debt is real. I should sleep more.

UPDATE: Egg in the face of the domain registrar, itch.io is back in business!

Also Funko corpos be OMEGA MAD.

-

So yeah, according to this

Sauce

What a metric fuckton of BS. Why, back in my day people could make any kind of games and these fragile turds weren't even a thing.

Of course, its one of these nameless "acquisitions" that send quality control down the crapper.

inb4 mass lawlsuit due to lost revenues.

On the bright side, someone from there commissioned a game dev project from me regarding this mess, which is nice. Just waiting on request details now.

This has been the best day of 2024 as far as I'm concerned. First, foremost - for all you fans of lostwave, you'll instantly recognize what I'm going on about when I say

THE MOST MYSTERIOUS SONG ON THE INTERNET.

HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED.

You heard me right! What has been considered as a mistitled song by some, others claiming that the song was proof that parallel universes existed, has finally been identified after what feels like years of quiet sleuthing from fans around the world.

AND WE HAVE A TITLE FOR IT.

"Subways of your mind", was recorded by a little-known 1980s German band called FEX, along with two other songs

Heart in Danger and Talking Hands - songs that feel like a 'well done' from the band for the discovery of the song.

The band had been oblivious to the online phenomenon this entire time. AND YES, THE BAND MEMBERS STILL SURVIVES TO THIS VERY DAY.

When the track first entered public consciousness, the community's approximated name and time of the music track did not show up in any music databases, and the audio quality meant that the lyrics seemed to shift with every listening. Undaunted, online sleuths tried to work out what instruments could be heard and analyzed the lead singer's accent. These first attempts to identify the song, soon classified by many as being in the 1980s' "New Wave" genre, yielded little.

It could have been 1970s music. Some even called it a prank. No one knew.

Well, until now.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

That's right - the band is planning a reunion in light of this information. Man, this feels like how I felt when Ohashi Junko found out about the massive surge of popularity for her music at the twilight years of her life. I am glad to be alive to have witnessed this moment.

I thought things wouldn't get any better. Much to my surprise, things did get better.

Donald J. Trump won the election against what looked like a Stalinist "show me the man, I'll show you the crime" judiciary, running against a crooked cop with a history of jailing innocent people to supply cheap labor. A right-proper velvet revolution. And for the first time in four years it feels like this nonstop trauma chain of hyperinflation, censorship, forever wars and the global economic crisis domino reactions is coming to an end.

For a moment, I just sat back as people around the world celebrated the defeat of the party of warfare, the party of forever wars, the party of cruelty and disregard was defeated by the ballot box. I watched, overawed at how out-of-touch, self-appointed "elites" in their digital ivory towers screamed at who they deemed their 'vassals' for the "crime" of not doing as they ordered. They once sneered down upon anyone who disagreed with them and silenced any sort of open discussion. Now they were demanding why they were not being taken seriously.

How could anyone take them seriously when their sole response to any kind of disagreement or questioning was to scream "everyone I dont like is a nazi!"? Funny thing is: after calling everyone to the right of Pol Pot a nazi, then they complained about the 'nazis everywhere'.

They wanted compliance or bust - so convinced that they were on the right side of history. I watched as they now screamed and threatened to harm those who would not toe the line, and as the night continued - start thrashing and screaming in a fit of anger over not getting what they wanted. Some of these people were these condescending, abusive scumbags who thought that silencing anyone who disagreed with them somehow made them a good person.

It did not. It left them in a misguided echo chamber that cut them off from reality. For a while, it was really nice to see myself get vindicated after all these years. They were so angry with me for having opinions they disagreed with, they denied it all so vociferously is now accepted today as cold, scientific facts. I'd be lying if I didn't say I had a bit of lulz at the impotent rage of these petty tyrants.

As I watched the numbers roll in, they began to lash out at innocents. Legal immigrants somehow got blamed by these petulant, alleged "adults" for choosing to protect themselves. Women were called "race traitors" for picking what they deemed was the side who listened to their voices. Men were called 'subhumans' for trying to find a way out of crushing hyperinflation and trying to put food on the table for their families. It was a purity spiral through and through. They might not have known it, but the dehumanizing rhetoric of these zealots is exactly why the democrat party lost.

The ugly truth is that the democrat party abandoned the working class.

What these angry people were doing by screaming "nazi" or "fascist" at anyone who dared disagree with them or go against what was effectively state media's dictate was not just driving away moderates from the democratic party vote. No wonder - the complete termination of dialogue meant that no problems would be discussed or even solved - what the far left were doing was making actual fascists and national socialists look like reasonable people compared to them. These self-appointed commissars who wanted you beaten up, ostracized, put in camps or even exterminated because you dared to speak out against corrupt corporations and government overreach are making absolute fools of themselves.

A few of those now "melting down" on social media were just frightened, reduced to hatred because that's what they were taught - not knowing any better. And they deserve an out - no one deserves to live in fear, trapped by the cruel lies of a social media web.

Leave them be. Smile, if you must. The election is over, but the real war begins now.

Censorship from powerful international organizations is rife as ever, with libraries coming under cyberattack and powerful publishing companies threatening the Internet Archive for the "crime" of keeping knowledge open. Even now, a corrupt United Nations harasses digital artists in pursuit of imagined "obscenities" against pixels and lines on paper rather than try to help resolve humanitarian situations in Africa and the Middle East. Ignorant government officials are on the warpath against small businesses. Corporate crime and human trafficking is the norm, rather than things that should have been eradicated as the world entered a more civilized age, and the nuclear clock stands the closest it has been to marking the beginning of nuclear war.

Doing something, no matter how little to pull the world back from this collective chaos does seem like an impossible task - but then I'm reminded of those sleuths searching for what once was lost media. It might have seemed pointless at times, especially when leads ran dry over the years - but driven by their own passion and resolve, they kept searching.

And they succeeded.

And hey, if old man Trump won against the full might of the corporate media machine backing the democrat party, then it's reasonable to believe that everyone around the world, can work together to pull back our very existence from the brink by setting aside this artificial hatred for one another.

Won't be easy, but nothing worth having ever is. And a world without censorship, without exploitation and without war is absolutely worth working for, no matter how tough things get.

... and now for the bad news. I think I fucked up my schedule and IRL decided to troll me by giving me promotions.

HEAAAAAAAAAAAALP!

(fucks sake I can't believe I fucked up the schedule and overshot by a week)

20 years and one week(maybe, I think, sorta) ago, the first forkheads crew released this wild piece of gaming history that would change the world forever.

lol jk it was just random stupid fun. Despite the simple idea, the lolsorandom story did set off what I think is one of the most long-lasting eroge series on newgrounds. It was made in a time when animesque 'sim date' series were taking their first steps and the first sex kitten game's stupid, yet memorable dialog, a-to-b plotline and the ease playing through this game gave generations of newgrounders the first glimpse into the world of chaotic stupid that would be the signature of this series to this very day.

And it would inspire this idiot to start learning the secrets of Flash.

And whooeeey what a mess that was! I did not stop even when Adobe retired the flash player system as a whole.

NEVER GONNA STOP, and in the immortal words of Hanzo... NEVERNEVERNEVERNEVERNERVERI'LLEATYOUREYESOCKETS.

also OCTOFUCKER POTATO CANNON

Despite the fact the series is just one year off from buying beers, it's still fondly remembered, and this scene:

got a shoutout on this video.

... I want to poke that thing in the cheek but I know she'll probably maul me with a sledgehammer AND a chainsaw.

My sides are probably orbiting the Small Magellan Cloud after hearing her voice rendition.

... or does she sound EVEN MORE SUPA-HYPED UP? That's INSANE!

Speaking of Insanity, it's come to my attention that the Sex Kitten: Insanity! game is no longer available on newgrounds. It's unfortunate that the original forkheads crew didn't give me the *.fla for this project, so I can't really change the audio or anything to fix that.

So, for now, I recommend using this wayback machine link as an alternative. Not to worry, they've got ruffle too.

-

So, what's next on our legendary idiot hero's journey? Did his life go out in a blaze of glory after the events of Sex Kitten 10?

Nah.

Sure, 2023 didn't get a game release but blame that on my IRL; after many years of the average office worker's life, I finally managed to swim up the corporate stream and into the Director Zone. No, no, not the

GREAT DIRECTOR WATANABE

sorta director, more of an assistant director who actually has to do all the directing while the Director has to deal with things like the recent PR fallout due to the CrowdStrike cyberFUBAR. It's a pretty nice job, but given that there's a lot of work to do... well, my free time kinda took a nosedive LOL.

So yeah, that PRRRRRRRRRROMOTIONS meant a lot of work while the company finally made it back to pre Corona-chan world tour 2020 at the end of 2023. With all that hard work outta the way, I've started working on the next stupid Sex Kitten adventure. Sex Kitten 10 ended on a cliffhanger, and things stayed that way for a bit, but no more!

Look forward to playing this fiery mess this summer or the Australian summer of 2024 (if I somehow fuck up my schedule and workflows yet again)!.

Possibly.

This year looks to be the year of corporate seppuku, and up next on the chopping block is Unity, one of the game engines used to make games right here on newgrounds.com.

So, what'd they do?

Starting January 1st 2024, they plan to charge relatively successful devs (200,000 installs/life to date and 200,000$ or more in income for the last 12 months) who get their games installed 0.20$ on the regular rate.

And their clarifications on this matter just makes it WORSE somehow.

SAUCE.

Hope you're good with just handing out charity copies, and just asking for donations if Unity is your go-to engine.

So if your game gets over 200,000 installs (yes, not unique installs), I hope you got a wallet chonkier than a big time gacha game dev's because this is gonna start costin' ya somethin' REEEEEEEEAL UGLY. That isn't a shot in the foot, that is straight up blowing your legs off. What the hell were they thinking?

Of course, devs who've been using Unity are NOT taking this lightly.

Sauce.

Multiple developers have pointed out the obvious issues with this new fee, that would essentially be a meatgate to F2P games, mobile developers, and the small of indie developers suddenly finding they have a hit on their hands.

It would be a system where developing a successful game on Unity could bankrupt the developer behind that hit.

Shit's on fire lol.

This is just going to push devs to other platforms. Godot is totally free. Unreal is only 5% of revenue over $1M (50,000/million bucks).

No company is going to agree to a contract that opens them up to unlimited liability based on an interaction between third parties (Unity and customers installing their game) that they can't even audit. What then? Big game studios moving away from it, leaving small-time devs to get "taxed"?

What exactly the end-goal here?

This is a stupid business idea. Of course, it still looks like stupid business. Another thought I've had is that it might just be corporate sabotage. You almost never actually hear of it, but it definitely exists. This is suicidal enough to make me suspicious.

It would seem that the ancient pasta has come to pass.

What a future, huh?

Me, I'm using Flash MX2004 as the Old Gods intended. Complete with a serial number provided by Adobe lolololololol

Some whiny weirdo was trying to ruin this party with the apocalypse which was supposed to happen yesterday. So I was NOPE CHUCK TESTA and kicked the end of the world in the FACE 'CAUSE ITS PARTY NIGHT UP IN THIS HOUSE! YEAAAAAAAAAAH.

Alright now on to the good stuff.

It's 38 years of MY GODDAMN LIFE and STILL not dead yet, despite all the whining on normiespace about how THE END IS NEEEEAAAAAR! Feels good to win despite all the skeevy goons trying to get everyone on the internet hooked on fear porn lololololololol. Can't touch me! More importantly, I'd like to take this moment to thank everyone who sent me birthday greetings on this day, and for everyone who sent me presents for this day. I appreciate it, thank you all.

A very special shoutout to that anonymous individual who sent me a whole stack of free sound effects on a CC0 license. If you're reading this, cheers - I'll put'em to good use.

Well, 10 more years and I can yell 48!! again. LEGALLY. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Until then, I'm gonna sit back, relax and enjoy this ACTUAL summer vacation I've never had the chance to relish in YEARS. And by that I mean mostly work on games YEAAAAAAAAAAH!

So, what else is happening?

New game design!

The old system was great and all, but it's not 100% smooth sailing with ruffle since it depended too much on a lot of things that should have been done better than with random moving components and loops that should have breaks in them. I'm working to build a new design that does away with the shoddy movieclip-based designs 2014 me came up with and replacing them with optimized code for a better user experience.

Holy crap functions inside functions operated by ingame events! How did I NOT figure that out?!

I am retard.

Smooth animations (screw spins SMOOTHLY while it falls oh yeaaaaaah)and better minigames! Also lol placeholder UI/backgrounds.

...so what's this game about?

Here's a preview: EVERYTHING'S ON FIRE.

夏だね....

Look forward to it this summer! (maybe. You know how IRL is when it gets in the way)

Fresh NFT (newgrounds fun token) drop!

Since I know you fellas LOVE Newgrounds Fun Tokens, I went ahead and designed (COUGH COUGH) [just put'em together with MSPaint as directed by the Old Gods] one more for this momentous (riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight) occasion. Without further ado, enjoy!

Or maybe download and/or print them out like a Sticker Tycoon.

Whats next?

I've been pretty busy this summer, reading up on actual game development stuff rather than just trial-and-error'ing it through (with plenty of ctrl+z'ing, which I can assure you, takes up a LOT of my time lol). I'm confident that I've got what it takes to (Bane voice) go mobile - cross platform and all that. It'll take time, that much is true - but I'm confident that I'll have something to show for my troubles.

I have no idea how it'll end up being, but one thing's for certain - it'll be interesting!

Well, that's that from me for now. Now I need to go wrestle this hangover back into Oblivion with the power of MAGIC WATER so I can work on this wacky game some more. Byyyeeeeloooo!

PS: You read all the YEAAAAAAAAHs in this newspost in the voice of the announcer from Sega Rally Championship.

PSS: If I celebrate my birthday for two days due to time zone issues, do I age twice as faster?

o7

PRESENTING: IN PERSON. THE DODO-

-uh I mean

The Newgrounds Fun Token!

Full-size for downloading and stuff.

I'd like to thank @Edeshye for giving me the idea to do this.

... also, I clearly did not think this through and called it the Newgrounds NFT which... ends up being recursive as Newgrounds Newgrounds Fun Token. FUG XD. Oh well, I managed to do this just fine so this EVIL SCHEME is a GREAT SUCCESS!

... maybe.

Also, christmas is almost here and I've got a bunch of presents so far. Way too hyped for the big day already. A very big thank you for everyone who sent me these presents!

And on that note, I'm gonna go christmas partying like Iwakura Lain Santa.

See you in a week.

This wild and wacky analog fx on this video was made by my friend @Kehmicle! Check it out!

So what's been happening on my end of the projects?

Well then, take a look at this!

I'd say it's about 50% done at this point. Next's the shop, trading quest and filling out the remaining empty spots. SK10 will be the last game that uses the old V6 design type, and I hope to introduce the MK-7 (full ruffle compatible) games to you in the future so you can play these stupid games anywhere, whenever!

Newgrounds sure has some crazy good content out recently. Check these fine stuff out.

BONUS CONTENT:

Take a look at the materials of one of my favorite webcomic artists.

And now for relatively boring news...

Things haven't been so hot on my end. 2022 looks like it's gonna be intense, and only double digits from the red zone. Still kinda burned out from having to work through black friday, and now the holiday season's already hit home for me. On the bright side, all this overtime's putting mad cash in my pockets. It's getting so that I can just ride out the next apocalypse in relative comfort lolololol.