Well damn, this happened a little faster than I thought it would. And you know what that means, right? It's time to put that insane ol' master plan into action!

IIIIIIIIIIITS CIRNO!

-

So here's the thing that seems like the sort of wild success I managed to hit with the MLP Sim Date all those years ago. I was not expecting something this simple to be such a big hit here, but you know what they say - "don't let your memes be dreams". I'd like to give a special thanks to @Chdonga for the inspiration to drunkenly create this game and to @SevenTheEasterBunny for all the motivation and encouragement that made this project go from a mess of animations and badly coded buttons to the thing you all have enjoyed so much.

To me, the early 00s was a magical time, and to see the reviews where they mention how this game takes them back to this awesome time before the end of the world, that's a big achievement to me. As Shia Lebouf said 'DO IT! JUST DO IT!". Liquid courage helped out with that, but what was more important was the inspiration and encouragement I received from the project director and producer, and everyone who field-tested the early prototypes, ran QC checks and gave a lot of useful advice. I'll keep all this good advice in mind, because I've already started work on the next project.

Before we go on, though... lemme just say; Southern-style fried catfish is delicious!

Still, I was dead drunk when I put it together, so the code needed to be cleaned up somewhat. No plan, no prototype and no backup's great and all, but the cleanup turned out to be a lot of trouble (as seen in the funky errors caused during early release). But on the bright side, I understand how it works now.

Always comment your code!

I was surprised that ruffle actually managed to interpret that mess of code the first time around. It's a far cry from the early versions that would wig out when made to run a simple loop. Now that is impressive. Between this game and Robot Finds Kitten, I believe I can standardize all of my releases for ruffle compatibility now. One of these days, I'll actually do that.

Though, I did find some issues with ruffle, now that I took some time to push it to the limit. For one, it cannot render japanese characters in dynamic texts just yet, while the same output in flash works just right. While this basically breaks any game with the text in dynamic mode, a lot of .jp swf files I snagged from japanese internets and 4chan /f/ back in the day are pretty much unusable in ruffle for the time being. Darn shame, too. I hope that this is just early version weirdness and hey, given their track record with making things properly working... I hope it gets fixed real soon.

...when it does work, maybe I'll add that extra Samurai Shodown-inspired death variant with gold coins spilling everywhere and japanese text as a finisher to the katana-based attacks like I wanted to in the first place...

-

So, what next? I've done some work to streamline and perfect this new gametype's core system so it can run without being dependent on redundant and frankly horrible implementations of badly-written code like it was on its initial test. The last refit was particularly nice, and I hope I can make more of this type of games in the future. Learning and DRUNK SCIENCE sure is fun!

All I need is some free time and some alcohol to get those li'l hamster wheels in my brains rollin'.

Regardless of my irl situation - shitty as it is, the game development will continue! Non-stop! Topless! Akai! Aoi! AIUEO! Basugasubakuhatsu! (If you know where this is from, lemme know. I'll give you something nice!).

--------

In other, but equally important news, my friend JohnnyGuy has been having some tough times. I'd appreciate it if you went over there and gave him some kind words of encouragement, help and support.

EDIT: 1,000 fans!!??!?! This is madness!

Madness? THIS IS NEWGROUDS! *kicks myself off the wall for no reason*

---

PS: What do I draw now that the numbers milestone is done? What should I draw next? And for what number?

Well, that didn't take long.

888+ fans! I've been a bit slow on the production front this year because IRL was death incarnate (DEY TOOK MAI JERB!!11), but this is the sort of thing that really drives home the motivation. Hitting that milestone means its time for ART!

Pretty cute, ain't she. I ended up going for a comfy/cyberpunk combo this time. Next time I hit 999 fans, I'm definitely drawing Cirno. You just watch!

Now, you might be here for some exclusives. Wait no more, these are flashes thought long lost after a disaster in 2014, I present..

The Tsundere School Tutorial!

Originally designed (more like drunkenly cobbled together) in early 2014 to help some fellow members get a handle on flash AS2 coding and understand the basics of animation and coding, you can tell this is one of my earlier works. I had to clean up some code before uploading this because, whooey, it honestly wasn't that good. Still, I hope you find some use out of it.

The second exclusive: The triumphant return of Sex Kitten 7! 

Those goddamn commie nazis up at the RIAA somehow thought that a short extract from a music piece was a litigious offense, and newgrounds had to remove it from the collection. I replaced the classic Aphex Twin music with a continued loop of the game music composed by OG forkheads music talent Rellis. Seriously, what kind of shit was that. It was a short segment for use in the credits ffs! I bet those goose-stepping megacorp crackheads would do away with fair use and parody if they had the chance...

[Angry rant about copyright goes here]

... I really should have done this back when I got 777 fans, huh. Oh well.

Moving on... 

So, what have I been upto these days? Well...

As the games I made grew ever more complex, with my friend @johnnyguy mentioning that the last one was 'by far the most lengthy and directionally confusing in the game ive played', I'm adding the next, much-requested feature in; an integrated navigation system to the next game in the works! Building off the map used in Negima Sim Date and putting a modern touch to it, check out the previews here!

Obvious beta is obvious, but yeah - I intend to fully flesh this out as an interactive map for you to explore. With this done, I hope you all won't be getting lost now in the game world now, huehuehuehue. Hell, maybe I should do the same for SKOB now that I think about it. It would make it a little easier to play, right?

Also, have another preview of the work in progress that's Sex Kitten Casino!

A scenic view made by my friend @joshexdirad for this game. You can use the binoculars to check out all the awesome detail he put into this work, too! Also, the help file now properly describes the controls, AND had information on the 'running' function as well. No more having to be stuck at an uncomfortable pace! Zip around the building like the hyperactive ADHD Arne you were destined to be!

In other news, with the superb success of Sticker Tycoon,

I've started working on a brand new business sim game that DOESN'T involve so much clicking. Can't reveal too much details about this, but if you've played Dopewars for DOS or Dealer right here on newgrounds, you probably have some idea what it's gonna be about. Will it involve the forkheads classics? Duh, of course. Will there be over-the-top violence and comically-bad pickup lines? Hell yeah!

And here ends the update for now. Thanks for being swell, all 888+ fans and everyone else who has been reading up to this point so far (YES, YOU! READING THIS RIGHT NOW!). I hope you all have a good day in general, and an awesome spooktober in particular!

PS: Go check out the contest that @SevenSeize4President is running here!

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!

to all you ker-razy yankees out there!

MURRICA, FUCK YEAH!

Here's hoping you yankees and everyone else who celebrates this holiday has a great time of it!

Now Imma go set off some fireworks and randomly shoot guns an' stuff, 'cause MURRICA!

-

So, what exactly is the good news? Remember in my last update that I lost my job due to Corona-chan being dimicky? Turns out, I got my old job back and I'll be in the workforce starting July 15th. I was about 10% through my emergency reserves when the big scare was over and done with.

Its not exactly a fun job, to be sure - but it's kept me in the black for a good two years and I'm honestly glad that I'll be getting access to my work computer where I left some of my game projects waiting. I was kinda bummed because I kept thinking I'd have to rebuild them all for scratch, so this is sort of a huge relief. I should have been more careful and emailed all the project stuff to myself beforehand.

ah well, lessons learned.

Also, I'd like to take this moment to thank everyone who sent in those technical manuals I've been looking for. You people couldn't have given me a better birthday present! I'll definitely use these tomes of mystical knowledge for... you guessed it, even better game development!

Time for me to get EXTRA DRUNK... is what I said earlier today. What a party, though. Too bad I fell asleep in the afternoon...

Do I get a midlife crisis now? The 8-ball says no. Maybe next time...

-----

Moving on, it's time for YET ANOTHER STUPID ADVENTURE!

It's been way too long since we had one of these games. I plan to correct that RIGHT NOW DEGOZARU.

THE STORY SO FAR (Yeah right):

Our hero(YOOOOOU), newly rich after his latest misadventures - gets in trouble with what appears to be the extended family of the McSluts... or so you think! Can our intrepid sex god (YOU!) manage to put together a force of perverted fun before his nuts get used as a shower cap?

This game comes with not one, not two - but THREE different endings! Inviting all 20 girls to your summer pool party will take guts and moxie... and a whole lot of Diligence. Pay attention to what the girls have to say, heck - talk to the dog that temporarily joins your adventures for a bit if you want some advice. Can you put together an awesome pool party, and get the magic good? Or will you do things your way? The outcome might be a little different from what you're expecting...

File size: 7.4Mb

I hope you have as much fun playing this game as I had making it!

-

So, what have I been upto aside from losing my job and getting stuck indoors due to Corona-chan's World Tour? First off, I saw the writing on the wall early on january and started stockpiling supplies and food - and there's plenty more stored so far. I'd say I'm down to 80% of my full reserves, so - plenty of time to relax, take it easy - maybe do volunteer work for free meals. In other news, I've started to spread my portfolio out - starting with some amateur-level music that's completely free for people to use in their own game projects and movies here on newgrounds.

Check out the latest 'productions' below

-

In other news, I finally took a look at some of my unpublished projects when I didn't even know how to assemble a proper music player. Which one do you think should make a dramatic comeback with fresh new tunes, working code and smooth animation?

is it Amy Winehouse's Magic Drug Adventure?

or Mario's Flag Collab?

what about The Treehouse?

Lemme know what you think in the comments!

-

Speaking of projects, here's some choice previews from the latest projects being worked on! Check 'em out, lemme know what you think; maybe throw in some ideas?

Reel #1: Negima Sim Date - 0.41b.

Finished the addition of a hidden character's completed route! To unlock this route, you'll have to do a great job at teaching in class, and catch that mystery babe's attention... this route doesn't have chapters per se, but following it to the end unlocks a brand new ending AND allows Endless Summer Mode to be unlocked!

Calendar system to help you keep track of ingame events and more! The blue marks are 'inbuilt' holidays while green marks will show up as you play the game and get information about random events taking place in the world. The helpful memo pops out whenever a day is highlighted to detail what happens. Pingasuary 9th is a very interesting day, and you should keep this in mind.

EVEN IN YOUR DATING SIM, F.O.E!

Incidentally, the HP counter can now be switched by clicking the meter from physical number to % counter by popular request.

Reel #2: Sex Kitten Casino.

This game was supposed to be released today, but the sheer complexity of its new engine and the fact that some of our asset artists went MIA due to Corona-chan's rampage around the world is why you're looking at this preview today!

Project Casino sports a souped-up new game engine that knocks Sex Kitten RPG2's clear out of the water. When you see it...

Did ya see that? Complete stage control! The floor textures aren't quite done yet, but you get the idea, right? This new game engine's gonna be kickass I tell ya what. Also, I did the pixel art for those casino dealer babes. Who knew that I skill I picked up almost 20 years ago could come in handy today?

-

2020 is turning out to be a pretty good year in regard to project work. I'll get more done when the room stop spinning... But for now I must sign off, due to the fact that - as per ancient tradition, I'm gonna be yelling like Super Yukari.

Welcome to the FUTURE, where the PROBLEMS OF THE FUTURE, is officially TODAY!!

Also, happy belated new year!

I've always wanted to do something for pixel day these past few years, but every time I remembered - it was already too late. Not hours or days; sometimes it'd slip my mind for weeks, even months! So this time, I got my act together for pixel day...

Yeah right, I wish.

It's not a full-fledged game, artwork or animation, but still I managed to do SOMETHING this year. Behold! It's a spritesheet of our very own Pico!

Comes complete with alternative costume, poses, weapons, items, a bazooka and more!

I used to do this kind of thing a lot back in the early 00s, so working on this was kind of nostalgic. Who knows, you could find it to be of great use.

I should make a sheet for Darnell, Nene, the goth bunch and the uberkids next.

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

So what else have I been up to?

Well, between comically failing two exams, trying to work on projects, and then dealing with some mad outtakes at work that fall right into 'HOW NOT TO RUN A BUSINESS 101' territory, not much. I did make a new years' resolution to get gud in Japanese and finish N5 this year.

I'm not sure how well I'll do since I failed on that last year; but hey, 20% is at least something. I'll keep at it.

Now I have to go and get my act together.

Get my act together...

Get my act together...

Get my act together...

It's Day 9, of Month 9, of year 2xx9!

10 years have passed since that fateful day in 2009, and let's celebrate this most idiotic of days by BLASTIN' CIRNO PICS!

To me, you are the strongest.

For you had the strongest effect on my heart.

PS: Summer was hell. I'm glad Cirno's there.

Oh shi-

First off, as per tradition: THANKS 777+ FANS!

Hmm, that also means this is news #100. So instead of wasting your time talking about the predictably boring bits of my life, lets jump right over to the good stuff.

First off.... ART!

Since my friend Vixuzar isn't ar-OH SUP @ghxulers! GET OVER HERE 'CAUSE WE HAVE A PARTY GOIN' AND YOUSE INVITED!!!. I don't know what I'll draw when I hit 888 fans (help!) - but no worries, I'll definitely draw a Chiruno at 999 fans!

Speaking of projects... Sticker Tycoon's finally released!

Well, it started off as an injoke, but now its real. I guess that 'dont let your dreams be memes' has some wisdom to it after all.

Without further ado, lets take a look at it...

Original idea from: https://web.archive.org/web/20150711211645/https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1383362

The story:

24901miles finds a box of sticker paper which was mailed by accident by a really badly-run company that's pretty much about to commit sudoku 41 times. Hooray, the dangers of outsourcing!

Feb 5, 2015.

That's when newgrounds user 24901miles got around a thousand dollars worth of sticker paper in the mail and shared the news with the regulars of that time. By the time the next day had rolled around, discussion had started in earnest and newgrounds user Ronald-McDonald-LoL mentions that "Sticker Tycoon" would be, quote "sounds like the worst video game ever." when 24901miles idly mentions dreams of being a Sticker Tycoon.

That's when I started work on this game.

I didn't even know half the things I know now back then. Four years in the making, constantly sidelined by other, more interesting projects until it stands no more a prototype experimental, but a fully operational business sim (I hope). I hope you have fun playing this game as much as I had fun making this thing for the last 4 years.

This game is around 4.1Mb. This game requires at least 40Kb of hard disk space for save game files. 

NOTE: Some browsers don't support local object creation, and that may be why your save files aren't working right on it.

For further information, see this thread: https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1439483

Version 1.075

Play it here, and leave a review if you enjoyed it/found any bugs!

-

In other news, I'm also 34 years old as of today. Its been an interesting life, and instead of getting a midlife crisis, I'll work on more '34' stuff, bwahahaha! Y'all like that, don'tcha.

-

Once again, a special shoutout to the 777+ of my fans who's been an inspiration through thick and thin, through good times and bad. I really dont know how I'm gonna celebrate when I get 888 fans... help?

Thank you, thanks again - and look forward to more projects coming up now that I don't have to contend with over-working! Expect to see the next installment of your favorite sex kitten game series out later this summer! (so far, its done by 40%)

PS: Have a preview of my next project(s).

(This building's the 'save point'.)

and

e's done jinxed it now, hombre. Dohohoho...

PPS: Making Sticker Tycoon was a learning experience. I might try my hand at different genres and even more business sims that aren't such a clickfest later on...

PPPS: Seriously. I have no idea what I'll draw when I hit 888 fans. Help me out here?

PPPPS: I got banned from heaven for this.

PPPPPS: PARTY HATS FOR EVERYONE! YOU GET FREE RECIPE FOR PARTY HAT!

PPPPPPS: These postscripts are getting silly. I'll stop.

You remember what invisionfree is?

Well, it's gone. Been gone a while. I just realized it today.

Feels bad man.

Time flies when you have fun, huh? I didn't get as much projects out as I wanted to in 2018, though. Blame cram school and a hectic schedule caused by IRL. Seriously, screw reality. Dropping that subject, lets talk about some better stuff that's happened.

First off... this thing!

https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/723351

Did I have a blast making this. Made stupid mistakes, too. While blissfully unaware that the 8-year old ceiling roof was on its last legs. Managed to fix that, so no worries. Hooray for power tools!

Next up, lets take a look at newgrounds. What a comeback! The site is being DISCUSSED as a VIABLE place for artists, musicians and animators, not just given a passing mention and disregarded as a has-been with a dead community in places as far as the fringes of the net now. It's a good stroke of luck, and a lot of good work done by the newgrounds crew that's put behind some momentum to Make Newgrounds Great Again. Sure, there's things that need to be changed/tweaked upon, but with the recent updates, newgrounds is really taking steps to taking New ground! I'm sure glad I stuck around this place to see this revival happen.

Speaking of stuff happening, what was the cause of the sudden 'dry spell' of projects this year? Well, two words. Cram school.

Yeah, pretty much this. I could swear I could feel my brain cells die and enter a vegetative state. Good thing winter break is here. I somehow survived and passed all topics in this round. 

I hope...

Next on the list...

Turns out that christmas flash actually got some discussion going and now, in addition to SKOB and Sex Kitten Casino, we have some actual progress happening! Winter break may be over, but I got shit done, and I hope I can release a lot more finished games than last year. Get my act together, get my act together, get my act together...

Last, but not least...

Happy new years to all my friends, fans and visitors to this page!
2018 was a turbulent year. Good times and messed-up ones too.
May 2019 be a year worth remembering.
Another year with our friends, another year to work on things that we want to.
I hope this year brings joy to you. Yes, you, person reading this page.

Goodnight.

Remember that crazy regulation that was proposed in the EU back in July this year? The one where memes would be illegal and all OC would be stopped under the guise of 'protecting copyright'? Got some bad news for ya - those unelected bureaucrats took a page from the FCC's playbook on net neutrality and tried that shit AGAIN... and it passed.

On Wednesday, the European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs voted to move forward with its new Copyright Directive. Article 11 narrowly passed with a vote of 13 to 12 and Article 13 passed with a wider margin of 15 to 10. The legislation will now have to undergo a plenary vote by the full Parliament. There’s no set timeline on when that will occur but its expected sometime between December of this year and the beginning of 2019.

Explaining what’s wrong with these two points of the legislation in detail is difficult because the articles themselves are so vague (think FOSTA, but for internet content). That’s the primary issue for critics. Both articles make unprecedented demands on anyone operating a popular website to monitor copyrighted material and to pay fees to news organizations when linking out to their articles.

Let's look'em over with some input from our european correspondent.

"Article 13 is a provision in the proposed EU Copyright Directive mandating that all content uploaded to the internet be monitored and potentially deleted if a likeness to existing copyrighted content is detected." This will kill memes too. This section of the directive will completely reconfigure websites’ responsibilities when it comes to enforcing copyrights. Until now, the so-called Ecommerce Directive has given online platforms broad protection from being subject to copyright penalties when they simply acted as a conduit for user uploads. It’s very similar to the laws in the U.S. that exempt YouTube from penalties as long as its making its best effort to take down infringing material when it’s reported. YouTube uses an automated content recognition system combined with an army of human beings to review the material users’ upload. It costs the company millions of dollars to do this. Critics of Article 13 say that every popular platform—estimated to mean the top 20 percent—that allows users to post text, sounds, code, still or moving images will need one of these systems.

Article 11 has been variously called the link tax or the snippet tax. Designed to mitigate the power over publishers that Google and Facebook have amassed in the last decade, it codifies a new copyright rule for linking to news organizations and quoting text from their stories. Online platforms will have to pay for a license to link out to news publishers, and this will theoretically help support organizations that are vital for public information and drive users to their homepages.

That all sounds decent in principle, but Article 11 doesn’t bother to even define what constitutes a link. Details will be left to the 28 individual countries in the EU to figure that out. That opens the door for political abuse of how news is spread in each country, and it will likely have the opposite of its intended effect.

That's why it's called a link tax. Pretty much they are trying to decrease the flow of information and freedom of speech on the internet so they can get more power and people will not know what EU is doing and it'll probably result in a nice european federation (aka The 5th Reich). At least I fear it'll go on that path.

So yeah, I think next step is to gtfo of EU as fast as possible but it doubt it'll be possible since this thing is too unknown by most people so they'll just vote for parties without thinking about leaving EU. Oh also this thing "To avoid being sued, international internet platforms would be motivated to comply with the strictest version implemented by any member state" which could mean either Everyone gets shit internet or we in EU will lose service to all those places since they can't meet up with the EU standards for this shit."

-

The consequences of Article 11 and Article 13 remain a matter of speculation, but the nature of the legislation—both its design and its vagueness that makes it ripe for abuse—make it all but inevitable that they will leave the internet torn and tattered in its wake.

However, the civil liberties group the Electronic Frontier said the vote was the “worst possible outcome” and MEP Julia Reda was unconvinced by the amendments, calling Wednesday’s vote a “severe blow to the free and open internet”.

“This law leaves sites and apps no choice but to install error-prone upload filters,” she wrote.

“Anything we want to publish will need to first be approved by these filters, and perfectly legal content like parodies and memes will be caught in the crosshairs.”

<sarcasm>We all know how amazingly good the Chinese "Great Firewall" is at blocking 'illegal content'.</sarcasm> Like that one time Garfield was flagged as a nude picture. It's the same thing today, but with the excuse of "copyright enforcement" over 'banning politically/adult/sensitive content'.

Once again, whether it is in the Americas or in Europe,  these bureaucrats prove again how detached from any sense of reality they are. It is technically simply not feasible. And even if, it would be cheaper to just turn off service. Maybe that's their intended goal; to switch off the internet because it's something they can't worm their greedy fingers into.

Man, those nazis must've been mega-spooked because Trump got elected 'by the power of memes', lololol.

According to legal analysts, there will be no room for OC in europe after this. "Copyright trolls will claim any and all OC for themselves and sue you for using it. This "law" will effectively remove all content from the internet unless it is explicitly licensed and paid for. Everything else will be blocked due to unresolved copyright ownership. That MSPaint doodle? SUE! That freeware game you made? Some chump with cash to spare just copyrighted the name. A conversation regarding company products? SUUUUEEEEEE!!!

What they don't get is that OC is what made internet culture and it is what will continue internet culture. They want to turn the internet into just another TV channel and threaten anyone who doesn't comply with lawsuits.

Be careful out there, and remember to use OPSEC to make sure those nazi scum can't track you down.