Hey! With 2022 coming to a close, I figured it might be a good time to do a retrospective on my year on Newgrounds, think back on what went well, and where I want to take things next.

2022 Project Summary

NG Rumble Character Reveal Art

Late last year, Bill hosted an art contest where participants would create a piece based on a Newgrounds character being introduced to NG Rumble! The character I chose was Jouste's Maw-smerizer, and the backdrop was inspired by KeepWalking's titans.

Pixel Day

I've made an entry for every Pixel Day since it began, and this year was no different! This time around, I dabbled with animation and environmental storytelling.

Pico Day

Way back in 2012, I made a submission for each of the three major series-driven holidays on Newgrounds: Pico's Mission for Pico Day, A King's True Journey for Clock Day, and Madness Alteration for Madness Day. For their 10th anniversaries, I wanted to make some Newgrounds site add-ons that referenced them, as well as promo art for each add-on! It was a great chance to make some art and code that celebrated my love for those characters and series.

For Pico Day, I made an add-on to replace Steve in the voting bar with the cast of Pico, just like in the previous site designs! The old designs looked a little something like this, for those unfamiliar.

Clock Day

Much like during Pico Day, I made some promo art and an add-on for the voting bar that... mostly functions! Some CSS lessons were learned the hard way, but it was still good fun.

Madness Day

Seriously underestimated the amount of time this one would take to complete (a few months of on-and-off work!), but I'm happy with the result! Like with the other two Newgrounds holidays, I made some promo art and an add-on: this one was for the tombstone users see when they visit a blammed submission.

Mobile Game Jam - Roxy's Windows

Definitely the project that was the most exciting part of this year for me! I worked with @Bleak-Creep , @GetterRocka , @Madfatter, and @Taxmann to create a mobile game in 2 weeks for Stepford's Mobile Game Jam. Players get to explore Roxy's desktop, learning about her interests, issues, and relationships with her friends. We've continuously updated the game since launch, adding QoL fixes, new content, medals, bug fixes, and a few other treats!

Maestro Nav update

Maestro Nav was a Flash game I made for the first Flash Forward Jam way back in early 2021, and I always intended to make an update for it, but real life and other projects took priority. I found some time recently to finally get around to it, though! This included releasing the source code, adding some visual flourishes, a new medal, a new level, and some miscellaneous bug fixes.

Faces of 2022 Collab

I was lucky enough to get a chance to make some art for the Faces of 2022 Collab! Say hello to VonGrimworth's awesome little guy, Goloth!

Year In Review

Looking back, I'm proud of the projects I worked on. I just wish each of them could've launched in the state I intended - more often than not, I had to launch one of these submissions to hit a deadline, and then went back and added content after the fact. This post-launch focus also led to a smaller number of submissions, but with more content packed into each one.

Seeing it all laid out, I'm also realizing just how much I focused on fan art this year. A pretty significant part of the reason I chose to make anniversary pieces for the 2012 submissions was because I wanted to "go out with a bang" before shifting my focus towards more original works. I hit that goal - I just didn't think it would take most of the year, but it's all good now!

The only truly sore spot, I'd say, was a game for the 2022 Flash Forward Jam that I had to cancel after spending the better part of the first half of the year chipping away at. Long story short, it was going to be a strategy game where the user manipulated voronoi patterns (like so) to create pathways for units to traverse. I ended up running into insurmountable technical issues and had to drop it; I'm considering picking the core ideas up again some day, but definitely in a more modern engine.

2023!

For the year ahead, the theme I want to work with is "more content, more consistency". I'm aiming to get out a larger number of smaller-scale projects, focused on new ideas. Plus, I want to connect with the community more frequently - I think I was better about that this year than in years past, but I can do better.

I do have a tiny bit of wrapping up from this year, though - Roxy's Windows is going to get another tiny update or two, with the biggest part being the release of the source code. I'm almost done with a deep clean to get it into an acceptable state for release (with the disclaimer that I'm not a coding pro by any stretch - I ran into plenty of problems that required insanely-specific solutions when working on Roxy, though, so I figured I'd share what worked for me!).

After that, I'm gearing up for Pixel Day, the Flash Forward Jam, and then... the future's wide open!