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. 

... and it wasn't 'or something', nahanaha. That's be pretty bad if it were.

https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/714981

Y'all enjoying your summer vacation? You probably are! Time to spice it up a bit!

Another quality (COUGH COUGH HACK) release from the forkheads crew! Our idiot hero is thrust pantsless into yet another awesomely stupid (or was that stupidly awesome?) quest to recover the pieces of two tickets to a fancy cruise! Will our favorite duo make it aboard and sail outta the boonies in style?! It's up to you!

Note: Some intelligence needed to complete this game, mostly regarding information acquisition and retention. But you'll be alright, since you played Sex Kitten School 2, right?

Q: Why is the hero not wearing pants?
A: Old internet joke. Nobody wears pants on thursday - and thats when this game was started being worked on.

Q: Why 9? 
A: Because a friend of ours is working on 8. Expect results real soon! This is not really surprising as title jumps have happened before, though...

Music score was composed by Blvck Sol, used with permission. Extra SFX by AIKI.

SECRET HINT: Click the sun at Mt. Solaria for a special surprise.

Enjoy the game! 

EDIT: Someone just gifted me supporter status. I don't know who this kind soul is, but thank you very much!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR YOMU-CHAAAAN! 

(You just read that in Yukari-sensei's voice and had horrifying flashbacks to the Yukarimobile Massacre of 2002 while Fortunate Son - CCR starts to play in the background.)

I'm now 33 years old. 2007-me would have laughed in my face if I said I was gonna end up in a boring white collar office job that's so boring, it makes my aging process speed up! Ah, but hey - here we are. Then again, I would have walloped 2007-me upside the head with a steel chair and told him not to be such a fuckwit and start learning to draw and code games lol.

Oh well. ITS TIME FOR ME TO PARTY PARTY!

-

Lets see what wacky shit I've been cooking up on the project folders.

On the sex kitten side, we have three projects working locally, and one being handled by forkheads member for a total of four.

Sex Kitten 9: "Plot" caused two tickets you wanted to be torn up to pieces! Can you find them all? (70% done)

Sex Kitten CASINO: Sequel to 10; you arrive at a fancy resort with a huge casino. Your task is to take your starting 10$ and walk away a millionaire! Are you hardcore enough to do this?! (20% done)

Sex Kitten Oh Brother!: Sequel to Casino - This one's directed by a friend of ours. Expect mindfuckery on the scale, perhaps even more than Sex Kitten RPG2 that'll leave you saying 'WAT'! (20% done)

Sex Kitten 8: An exclusive @Kehmicle project. Aside from some demos indicating that you need to move from a dingy basement, work is still in progress on this one. You might say that this story doesn't make sense - but ask yourself; SINCE WHEN DID THIS SERIES EVER MAKE SENSE?!

And on the megaproject side, we have Newgrounds Dating Sim and Negima Sim Date!

Details have been requested by @Belthagor a few moments ago, so... enjoy!

Newgrounds Dating Sim progress, currently on 0.073.891a. The HUD system is done, and the two major jobs, Portal Patrol (Needs Str and Int) and Audio Portal Cleanup (Needs Int and Wits) are done. Most of the world map is properly mapped out, and the base NPC dialog generators are working properly. Special thanks to @Jackho , @Exedor , @NekoMika and everyone at the newgrounds QC crew at the Elite Guard Barracks and the Audio Portal Cleanup for inspiring these gameplay elements!

Up next is to populate the shopping district with shops, gear and consumables followed by places to train the four stats. HINT: A PENICORN PLUSH DOLL MAKES FOR A GREAT GIFT.

Negima Sim Date progress, currently at 0.291.512b - most of the systems are in place and two routes done, and it's just raw text entry into the databases now. I'm currently working on adding Bells-neesan's date text. HINT: She'll outright refuse to go to the Library with the player character. So far, her fourth storyline mission's done. After I finish keying in the date data, I'll start writing her final mission.

It's summer, so I have a little extra time in the mondays and tuesdays too - which translates to some more done, especially when there's nothing to do at work, bwahahahaha!.

"I call it market research." 

Thanks to everyone for having been part of the best 11 years of my life so far. Here's to another 333333333333 years of non-stop fun and good times!

And that's all for this update. Here's a Genome Soldier mariachi band to get the party really going. 

Remember that one time when some greedy corporate scalpers did some regulatory capture and tried to ban Net Neutrality so they could double-tap charge you for anything they damn well felt like it?

The mainstream media might be silent about it, but the public outcry has been enough to get the US senate to take a vote. While it's sad that basic rights are being voted, that's what's happening . It's up to the people to put pressure on senators on both sides of the x-party system.

Telecommunications companies like Comcast and AT&T had viciously fought against the rules; claiming among other things, that the Net Neutrality rules prevented them from developing innovative new business models. Laughable, since they took government grants meant for developing internet infrastructure and instead (probably) blew it on thai midget porn and meth.

And of course, they have even attempted to throttle traffic; getting burned hard because of net neutrality protections afforded to customers. Between their litiginous nature against competitors and their eagerness to bilk customers out of their money, many 'industry groups' that make these 'majority' ISPs have no qualms about further degenerating internet service for even more cash.

The end of net neutrality means that ISPs can even declare newgrounds.com to be 'problematic content' and throttle bandwidth - effectively allowing themselves to police what you can and cannot see with full legal backing. They've tried this sort of dirty trick before; but without the customer protections afforded by net neutrality, this effectively legalized 'highway robbery' from ISPs who have a vested interest in keeping a few, somewhat maintained 'fast lanes' and no 'slow lanes'.

Remember compuserve? There's a reason it didn't survive and you don't remember - and a reason why you don't pay 2.5$~5$ per hour to use the internet anymore. And an internet under the control of ISPs who want to charge cutthroat fees for abmyssal service is just gonna be just like that.

Or even worse.

The senate vote deadline on this matter is on the 12th of June.

Get a load of this, then.

https://archive.is/CSyhD

"FOSTA would undermine Section 230, the law protecting online platforms from some types of liability for their users’ speech. Section 230 is the most important law protecting free speech online. Without it, most of the online platforms we use would never have been formed—the risk of liability for their users’ actions would have simply been too high.

Section 230 strikes an important balance for when online platforms can be held liable for their users’ speech. Contrary to FOSTA supporters’ claims, Section 230 does nothing to protect platforms that break federal criminal law. If an Internet company knowingly engages in the advertising of sex trafficking, the U.S. Department of Justice can and should prosecute it.

The new version of FOSTA would destroy that careful balance, opening platforms to increased criminal and civil liability at both the federal and state levels. It includes a new federal sex trafficking crime targeted at web platforms—but which would not require a platform to have knowledge that people are using it for sex trafficking purposes. It also includes exceptions to Section 230 for state law criminal prosecutions against online platforms, as well as civil claims under federal law and civil enforcement of federal law by state attorneys general.

In complying with FOSTA, online platforms would have little choice but to censor their users, likely silencing many marginalized voices and even sex trafficking victims themselves."

Complete silence on the MSM as well. Good thing custom RSS feeds are a thing or this would have been a complete surprise attack.

Newgrounds being a yank-hosted site might catch some flak from these pearl-clutching moral police, too.

Here's the 'amendment', in pdf form.

Christmas comes early this year.

The story is incongruous, the settings make no sense, the gameplay is nuttier than ever - but that's why you like it, don'tcha? Welcome one and all to the latest release by the forkheads crew!

https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/703256

In this insane episode of YOUR FUCKED UP LIFE, after getting a fuckload of money and blowing it on some sweet loot, you find yourself intellectually challenged to the point you are unable to even use the fancy TV and the media center you splurged on!

Your girlfriend, Slutty McSlut, in a disturbingly genre-savvy moment, forcibly enrolls you in a local school in order to get your IQ back to normal levels. Do you have what it takes to survive in an all-girls high school full of bloodthirsty hentai hotties and return home before that marathon of Hentai Heaven starts on Channel XXX?​

Warning: No cheating. She'll know.

I hope y'all enjoy this game, and stay tuned for Sex Kitten 9, coming soon in 2018 or something!

... in no specific order.

Before I start, I'd like to say this is all Vixu " @TheOverGhoul " zar's fault. Thanks, dude!

And here we are - 666 fans. I'm supposed to go to hell now, but that won't work - specifically because I've already died once, got sent to hell, romanced the Demon Queen which resulted in Satan begging me to leave - turns out the loony fuck had a real soft spot for the Queen of hel. So, back again... for now.

I know I'm supposed to do something when I reached this milestone. I'm just not sure what. Tell you what, just as a special treat, I'll look through my posts and see what I have to do...

Oh, right! Art!

-

Moving on, it's only now that I realized that I've basically spent 10 years on newgrounds. What a fucked up ride it was. Regardless, let's admit it - it's been one hell of an educational experience. Watching the ages turn on this place wasn't a pretty sight. Props to Tom and the NG crew for keeping this place running despite the fact that an entire army of lawyer-type cretins backed by their retarded trash groupies want this sort of creativity permanently gone from the internet. I don't even remember why I joined, despite the fact that I had zero talent in flash...

For the record, this future sucks, and I did not get this problem way back when NG's slogan was 'the problems of the future, today!'.

Oh well. Moving on... what next? Hmm...

Oh right! I've started working on a zine! I'm the [alleged] editor, and I write stuff for it. Interested in contributing? Send in your ramblings, reviews blurbs, short/long stories, observations even creative stuff like art, photography and such to 

holyshitzine[at]airmail[dot]cc! 

Just remember: It's 100% awesome content not censored by anyone!

Should you want to read the previous releases, it's all available here. Maybe you'll get some inspiration on what to send in...

Next up, more NSD updates!

What started as an irredeemable v0.0.0.01 way back in 2012 as a badly programmed variable distribution system that would glitch out if you clicked too fast is now running at v0.2.0 - and is actually playable. See those two 2d qts there? They're fully integrated into the game. Still, I'm not one of those types who'll flood the portal with proto-incomplete versions of my stuff, so y'all will have to wait until this lifetime's work is complete.

... at least it feels like a lifetime of work. This project was originally started in late 2008, if the chatlogs that came with the former dev team's project folders are to be believed. Also, I crudely 'ported' an entire MS-DOS game in the loading screen with a total size of 20kb for people to play. Are you HARDCORE ENOUGH to find the kitten?

Aside from that, most of my time's taken up with irl normie job, complete with tie-wearing and boring office meetings in which I swear my IQ points actually decrease. I'm not really into cruel and unusual punishments for my fans, so lets gloss over this part with a cute 2hu.

Also, I'm learning Japanese to evolve from generic weeb to ULTIMATE GAIJIN. Have been doing this for a few months, and already I can tell when subtitles fuck up on my anime. OHSHI-

Expect random Japanese questions to pop up on the next batch of sex kitten games I work on. Fufufu~

That's enough from me, I guess. But there's something y'all should know.

Like an idiot not learning that there's stuff that'll sting them when touched, some sleazy ISPs are at it again, despite the fact they got rebuffed in their dirtbag campaign to end net neutrality just 3 months ago. It's as if they don't care what the public thinks- oh.

And this time, they're lobbying the SCOTUS (that's Supreme Court Of The United States) to make it so that it'll become impossible to undo any damage they do to the flow of data on the internet. Sneaky fuckers, aren't they? They're really desperate to reduce the internet to nothing more than some generic social media shit, and they're not even hiding that fact anymore. This time, they want immunity from regulation - meaning they can disregard American law, charge you thousands of dollars for dialup speeds, sell your browsing habits / passwords / credit card data for $$$, censor you from visiting sites like newgrounds because it's 'problematic content', and even sue you if you dare use your intelligence to bypass their blocks.

Maybe I should annex America...

In closing, once again I'd like to thank all the followers, all 666 of them! I look forward to doing more random stuff here, so stay tuned!

Yes, again.

As if the opposition to SOPA, PIPA and everything else they've cooked up so far wasn't enough of a big 'no, fuck off and die in a fire' to them, some unelected bureaucrats with big cable company money fresh in their pockets are now pressuring the US into completely ending net neutrality. The previous victories of the netizens must've bothered them good enough that they're not even bothering with the usual doublespeak of 'combating piracy' and 'copyright violations' - instead, they're being rather frank with their demands because the creation of 'fast lanes' will profit them on the short term... while heavily taxing every sector of American private and public sectors.

What is net neutrality?

Net neutrality is the principle that Internet providers like Comcast & Verizon should not control what we see and do online. In 2015, startups, Internet freedom groups, and 3.7 million commenters won strong net neutrality rules from the US Federal Communication Commission (FCC). The rules prohibit Internet providers from blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization—"fast lanes" for sites that pay, and slow lanes for everyone else.

Nearly everyone who understands and depends on the Internet supports net neutrality, whether they're startup founders, activists, gamers, politicians, investors, comedians, YouTube stars, or typical Internet users who just want their Internet to work as advertised.

So, what's going on?

Cable companies in America are famous for high prices and poor service. Several rank as the most hated companies in America. Now, they're lobbying the FCC and Congress to end net neutrality. Why? It's simple: if they win the power to slow sites down, they can bully any site into paying millions to escape the "slow lane." This would amount to a tax on every sector of the American economy. Every site would cost more, since they'd all have to pay big cable. Worse, it would extinguish the startups and independent voices who can't afford to pay. If we lose net neutrality, the Internet will never be the same.

In fact, one particularly backpfeifengesicht-able bureaucrat was quoted as 'taking a weed whacker to the FCC regulations'. He must've really wanted that gold-plated shirt.

What can you do about it? Contacting your representatives, sending in letters and excercise your right to democratic representation. That isn't illegal. Yet.

You can start by visiting here: https://www.battleforthenet.com
EDIT: Non-US citizens can use this to explain to the FCC why NN is so important. https://dearfcc.org

WHO'S THE PRESIDENT?!

DID I LEAVE MY STEAMCOOKER ON?!

Oh, it's still 2017. Eh, we good. 

Its been some time since my last update - so what have I been doing for the past three months? Basically, a good part time job, a new hobby and a shitton of progress on my projects.

In the world of part time work, I now get to stick around in a digital media shop. Sure, it's not really work, but it packs enough money to have pushed in a complete surplus for this quarter of the year. So, I say - 

But lets skip over the boring details of my boring life and get to the good stuff. What's this new hobby that's taken my schedule by storm? Why, I now tend to explore abandoned scientific communities for educational books. The first one I found was one about actionscript and I sat my butt down and went "WHOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAA I didn't know that!"

So, equipped with some mad new skills that come with reading skill books (JUST LIKE IN MY RPGS WHEEEE), I'm gonna keep on working on the good stuff. Which is what you are interested in the most, right?

First off is my magnum opus - Negima Sim Date!

No longer a clunky experiment in multiple maps - now has one storyline complete! This game looks to end up causing Michael Bay and Shao Khan to go bankrupt by the sheer amount of carnage and extreme violence packed into 4Mb (so far) of flashy goodness! It's gonna take some time loading so I ported a dos game to 25kb and threw it in for people to play while the game loads. YO DAWG, I HERD YOU LIKE GAMES, SO WE PUT A GAME IN YOUR GAME SO YOU CAN PLAY WHILE IT LOADS.

Secondly is this crazy-ass project that I started while drunk enough to challenge Zangief to a Lucha Libre Royale. Now that I've started, I really dont see a need to stop until it's complete.

This one's not a large-scale project like NSD, but it sure as hell is educational. I've basically been using this game as an ideas field for field-testing events and to add stuff that would look out of place in NSD. Like smartphones and guns an' stuff. Long story short, I was stuck in a dev-loop of "This will work great in NSD!" *CLICK* [update NSD] "This will work great in VSD!"*CLICK*[update VSD] "This will work great in NSD!" -rinse and repeat.

Since there's a new drive for audio from local talent, I'm gonna go out on a limb and ask some musicians to compose the scores for this game. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE.

Well, that's that from me - and usually this is the part where I sign off. But you know, it's 4/20, so...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ANEGASAKI NENE!

YOU WEREN'T EXPECTING THAT NOW, WERE YA?! HUH? HUH???!!!