After endless months of nothing but programming Castle Crashers, I am more excited than I've ever been to be GOING ON VACATION. April and I are flying to Jamaica for a wedding and I'll be gone for the next week.

I wanted to let people know that if they email or PM me in the next week, I won't be checking in too frequently. Here is your "emergency contact list!"

For general site issues, PM Wade and he can handle it or pass it along.

If you need help implementing Flash Ads, PM PsychoGoldfish.

This vacation has been the carrot that has kept me going for so long now... I am excited to report that Castle Crashers is pretty much DONE, although the bug testing / fixing phase will be going on for a while and is followed by a lengthy final certification process. To repeat what Dan said on the devblog, this game is pretty MASSIVE and tons of fun to play... I'm amazed at how much fun we still have playing it after all these years of development. I don't feel like I'm out of the woods just yet, but I feel like I'm about to be REBORN into a new world where I can work on SOMETHING ELSE. I already have a list and it's all games for NG! I can't wait!!!!!!

I'm gonna go celebrate with P-Bot.

At 5/8/08 05:50 AM, Sirschmoopy wrote: I thought this post was going to be hot pics of Mrs. Fulp.

I was very disappointed.

Ha! That requires 100000 Grounds Gold.

Be sure to read Stamper's plea for better Metal Gear Collab entries. We've received well over 100 submissions and some of them ARE better than Stamper implied, but there is also a ton of crap and it's hurting morale.

Also, Luis announced the Pico Day Art Contest winners!

The monthly voting for games and movies is complete! Mastermind 3 and Pico Blast will now be in the running for next year's Tank Awards.

TOP 5 MOVIES

1. Mastermind 3
2. Charlie the Unicorn 2
3. Tankmen Infinity
4. N.G. Showdown
5. Burnt Face Man 8

Swain has decided to pass his prize down to Night in Hotlanta, so $250 is going to the SS and I personally nominate f0d for the t-shirt.

TOP 5 GAMES

1. Pico Blast
2. Thing-Thing 4
3. You Have To Burn The Rope - Be sure to play this if you haven't.
4. IndestructoTank A.E.
5. SC Guitar Maniac Dx 3

RUNNER-UP MOVIES:

6. House of 1000 Cats
7. Not-The-Final Fantasy XII
8. GhostFight-BOS-Part1
9. Night in Hotlanta
10. Sonic Shorts Volume 2
11. Ng Voicemail #973
12. The Press & Punch Collab
13. I hate MAC ads
14. Another Day Eight
15. ~SnowSnowForLucyTrailer~
16. Operation: Warehouse
17. Link's Prize
18. Nameless 6 Vol.2 Part 1/2
19. You Don't Wanna Leave
20. The Fat Anime Collab 2 - LOL

RUNNER-UP GAMES:

6. Doeo!
7. Billy Suicide
8. Magic Pen
9. The Tutorial Collab '08
10. Mouse Under Siege
11. Warlords: Call to Arms
12. The Legend of Newgrounds
13. Midna Hentai Game Demo
14. Tainted Kingdom
15. Spectrum Genesis
16. Matrix Pandemonium
17. Portal Defense
18. Compulse
19. Stochastic
20. DeadBaby VG Dressup

The voter of the month and winner of $100 and a t-shirt is Sunglasses!

Winners (top 5 games, top 5 movies) should PM Bob with the following info:

1. Whether you are splitting the award with co-authors, and how that split works.
2. Your name, for the check.
3. Your name, as you want it to appear on the certificate.
4. Your mailing address (be sure to include zip code, country, etc.)
5. Your t-shirt size (S, M, L, XL, 2XL)
6. Your t-shirt preference. Pick anything from the store and make sure we have your size in stock!

MaestroRage posted the winners of the Pico Punchout Monthly Audio Contest, but here are they again:

1. DJ-immune - Pico's Death [Mac8] 1st
2. trogdar - harlequin pulse (Vs. quarl)
3. DaGrahamCracka - Compunction
4. thatcomposerguy - Among the Ashes (MAC 8-PICO)
5. HotActionYiffFur - Coil

Thanks again to everyone who has been participating in the Flash, Art and Audio contests!

At 5/2/08 08:55 PM, shadowchaotailsevil3 wrote: We all know Im ugly

No way dude! You just need to bring out your colors and stand with confidence! This could be you in six months.

At 5/2/08 07:39 PM, johnathan-wrathborne wrote: *sighs* didnt manage to place at all. Well While I thought my submission was better than others, I tried by best , considaring that I didnt know about the contest until 2 weeks before the deadline I didnt do too bad. Will have to try harder next time.

Your movie was a fun surprise, since it was your first submission to NG and you came out of nowhere! We'll be keeping an eye out for your future stuff. :)

At 5/2/08 07:15 PM, Clock-Ninja wrote: just you wait till the KK submits the sequal to that flash. It will be 10 times more epic.

That would be awesome, if they really make it great.

The third annual Pico Day has come to a close and we received some amazing submissions this year! A big THANK YOU to everyone who participated, you can't even imagine how much Pico Day means to us here at NG... It's like the best day of the year.

Ranking the winners is always difficult, but I knew what my favorite was the moment I saw it.

1st - $3000 and TROPHY - House of 1000 Cats
It's a perfect homage to NG's past and present. The reference to last year's funniest Pico Day preloader was also a plus. Zombie-Pimp narrowly missed first place the previous two years, but he came back stronger than ever to take the prize.

2nd - $2000 and TROPHY - Tankmen Infinite
I was dying to see John and Richie's take on Tankmen ever since their amazing "best tweens ever" in NiN10Doh! (the part where Pikachu steals Ash's hat). The result is simply awesome.

3rd - $1000 and TROPHY - N.G. Showdown
Every Pico Day needs a good fight between the characters, and Granfaloon of Valhalla Knights fame delivered a great one!

4th - $1000 - Pico: The Shitty Power
I loved last years Herpes Escape and this one had even more insane goodness. It also scores points for referencing Pico's original power of flight. I hope Nogfish makes something every year because his get the most lols.

5th - $1000 - Pico Blast
Luis and BoMToons made an epic game with some insane boss action for everyone who loves boss fights. YOU BETTER GO PLAY IT!

6th - $500: - Purple Sawdust
The best Dad 'n Me tribute ever was a blast to watch from beginning to end!

7th - $500: - The Press & Punch Collab
We've talked around the office about doing a feature length Pico movie this way, but Hans actually delivered by pulling together this epic Pico collab! I love the varying art styles, and choose-your-adventure interactivity!

8th - $500: - Picofun.FLA
This has to be the weirdest of the year... I just love the Milburn brothers. Also be sure to check out Pico & Pals!

9th - $500: - Operation: Warehouse
Pico has to fend off lots of baddies to save Nene. Lots of great animation and action in this one!

10th - $500: - Tank Epic
This movie truly was epic... Everyone has to see it, for a taste of what Tankmen could be like in 3D. The characters, locales and explosions were stunning! Jazza also made a cool 3D Tankmen movie that narrowly missed the top ten.

Winners should PM Bob with the following info:

1. Whether you are splitting the award with co-authors, and how that split works.
2. Your name, for the check.
3. Your mailing address (be sure to include zip code, country, etc.)
4. Your t-shirt size (S, M, L, XL, 2XL)
5. Your t-shirt preference. Pick anything from the store and make sure we have your size in stock!

Thanks again to everyone who participated this year, and congrats to the winners!

Also THANK YOU to everyone who participated in the Pillars of Pico and Pico Punchout audio contests!

Luis will be announcing the winners of the Pico Day Art Contest this Sunday (I think)! You should also check out his post about all the appearances he made in this year's Pico Day entries. He has another amazing post about all the NG-related events going on in the coming months.

We are also proud to announce the nominees for the FIRST ANNUAL TANK AWARDS! You've probably noticed the flashy banners hanging down the left and right side of the front page. Go check out the nominees for BEST GAME and BEST MOVIE! We will also announce a USER OF THE YEAR and a SONG OF THE YEAR when we announce the winners on FRIDAY, MAY 30th.

Nominees are based on a combination of monthly awards, contest winners and some staff selections. House of 1000 Cats is now an official nominee for Best of 2008! At the end of this year, it will compete against A Walk in the Woods, Metal Gear Awesome 2, Mastermind 2 and whatever other amazing movies come along in the next eight months.

Speaking of monthly winners, it's time to vote for the Best of April! If you are one of the top 2000 most active users from last month, you can log in to your account options page to access the list of nominees.

I'll wrap this up with a picture from the Pico Day Art Contest. This one is by frogcommando:

Yes, he's whacking off. Why not, right?

HAPPY PICO DAY EVERYBODY!

Sit back, grab a bowl of cereal (I know MC is) and enjoy the show.

To celebrate Pico Day, we are having a sale on Pico shirts in the store; they are $15.95 for one day only!

We are also introducing the winning shirt from our NG t-shirt design contest! The shirt by JohanL features Dad 'n Me, but the printer didn't quite match the colors from their proof, so we got a big discount and are passing the savings along to you guys! We've provided a link in the store to see a close-up of the shirt. The medium shade of purple isn't quite purply enough, but you wouldn't notice unless you compared it to the proof. We are selling this batch for $9.95 WHILE SUPPLIES LAST! Future orders will be full price.

On top of that, we now have female tank logo t-shirts in two styles and two different colors! You can see Bob's sister modeling them in the store.

Not enough merchandise for ya? We've also added a Retarded Animal Babies t-shirt! Buying this shirt helps support Dave and all the crazy cartoons he makes simply for the love of animating. Well it helps him buy beer, anyway.

Some quick community news: Randy Solem has made a nifty blog post about The Animator 2000, the tool that introduced him to animation back in 1987 (hence the name, right?!). I was a Deluxe Paint IV man, myself.

BTW, all the Pico Day submissions will be featured in the Pico Day 2008 collection!

We have been working on an embedable player for a while now, but the problem has been the actionscript used in many Flash submissions, such as actionscript cameras. While Flash is SUPPOSED to allow you to embed a movie and handle it independent of the container, stuff such as the actionscript camera makes calls that manage to break the container clip. We have been able to overcome just about every obstacle except for that one.

We did have an embedded player as well as other "widgets" back in 2000, but we were "ahead of our time" before the whole Myspace / YouTube generation and no one seemed to care about embeds. Now we WANT to give it another go, but we still have to overcome the new obstacles. If anyone solves it, I'm all ears. :)

Many of you noticed the site was down for a while today. We expected it to be down for less than an hour, but the transition took a little longer than expected. The result? The entire site has been upgraded to MySQL 5! What does this mean for you? Faster database access... And the addition of a new, much faster database server into the cluster.

Unfortunately, the Flash Ads were down during this transition. This sort of upgrade only happens once every few years, and I'll chalk it up to the Flash Ads still being in beta, but I'm extremely sorry that performance was impacted during the prolonged upgrade today. THANK YOU to everyone who has been supporting the ad system, I'm sure you'll all be pleased with the results!

Pico Day is this Wednesday and you can make money by running ads in your submission. More information and special Pico Day pre-loaders (with and without ads) are available in this thread!

At 4/22/08 08:37 PM, MindChamber wrote:

At 4/22/08 05:52 PM, Coaly wrote: Use more structure in your post timmmmmm, the enter isn't meant to be randomly hit.

man stfu.

Coaly can say whatever he wants, he animated my beard.

You tell 'em, Coaly!!!!!!

At 4/18/08 06:08 PM, thedo12 wrote: if i live in canada can you still send ad payments via check?

......god i hate paypal

YES, we can send checks anywhere!

At 4/18/08 05:44 PM, Matt-Porter wrote: Can this new API system be implemented in a submission that also includes sponsorship?

Yupper!

If you are participating in Pico Day 2008, the new Pico Day pre-loader is now available! All entries should include this pre-loader!

We have the basic pre-loader available in three formats, depending on if you are exporting with Actionscript 1.0, 2.0 or 3.0:

Pico Day 2008 Preloader - AS1 (Flash 5 - Flash MX)
Pico Day 2008 Preloader - AS2 (Flash MX 2004 - Flash 8)
Pico Day 2008 Preloader - AS3 (Flash CS3)

Additionally, anyone who is interested in using our new NG Flash API (courtesy of PsychoGoldfish) can download the appropriate Pico Day pre-loader from the page where you download the traditional API pre-loader.

The NG Flash API will allow you to run ads and generate revenue from your submission, no matter where it spreads on the web! Please use it if you are interested in running ads in your Pico Day submission.

If you aren't familiar, our API system is still in beta, but it's fully functional and you'll get paid 30 days after the end of the month when the ads ran, as long as your balance is above $50. We will pay via Paypal if you live outside the US... The form for payment info is in the works but it will be available before your payment is due. We've been running the system on a slowly expanding scale for almost a year now and the results have been great!

PM PsychoGoldfish if you need help getting the API implemented in your Flash!

The NG Flash API isn't just for Pico Day - if you want to try it in your games and movies, you can get set up at any time. You can set the ads to "disabled" while you are getting set up and if the system is working, you'll see an image of Pico with a bunch of cash in place of the ad. Once you "enable" the ads, they won't run until you have been approved by us to run them - which should happen within 24 hours of setting up your API entry. Be sure to get set up in advance, so we can approve you before the launch of your submission! In the future, trusted users will be auto-approved on all their submissions. You can't run ads in adult rated content, though. Once your ads are running, your stats will be updated hourly and you can see how much $$$ you're making!

We're still working on making the system easier, as well as better integrated with other aspects of NG. It's EXCITING STUFF, so check it out!

Yes, you want the .as file to be in the same folder as your .FLA file - it will auto-include the code from the .as file when you export.

Something everyone needs to be aware of is that your total views on NG are hardly indicative of how many views your game will get across the web. There are hundreds, if not THOUSANDS of gaming sites out there nowadays, and they all manage to get traffic. Looking over our stats, the total views can be well over 20x the views on NG; some are more than 30x. A game with 200,000 views on NG can EASILY have 4,000,000 views total, if not a lot more. It starts to add up, and it never stops. We have games that have continued to grow in traffic long after being removed from the front page.

At 4/9/08 07:46 AM, Powergames wrote: hey it says in big letters on the mochi website that since they don't use a contract we're allowed to use other sites as well. i was just wondering what tomFulp would have to say about it ... but i guess mochi wouldn't be too happpy about me using another direct competitor so ...

You are welcome to try both, as long as no one else has an issue with it. Just don't run them both at the exact same time - you'll get better results if you provide value and good presentation for the advertisers.

As for stats, so far games tend to generate $0.50-1.60 per 1000 views (no promises though!). Some of the better games have consistently performed above $1.50 per 1000 views. The revenue comes from a mix of click (CPC), view (CPM) and action (CPA) ads.

I've seen a small number of games perform in the 0.30 range, but that is likely due to the ad placement and the type of game.

Movies tend to perform much lower than games, generally in the $0.20-0.30 range. Movies also earn a lot less because they don't spread the way games do. They generally just spread to YouTube, where the ads get ripped out by video rippers. Games spread to thousands of gaming sites, where they get a lot more total traffic.

Overall I would hate to see EVERY piece of content on NG run an ad just because they can. If you don't think your Flash will ever get over 50,000 views, you might as well just give it to people without the annoyance of an ad (although we've tried to keep them very low-impact). If you've worked hard on something and expect it to be popular, though, the ad is a great way to get paid back for your hard work!

And yes, the ads also help NG, but anything that helps NG ultimately helps the people who submit to NG. We have a lot of plans that will come to fruition with the success of this system!

At 4/9/08 04:57 AM, Omenator wrote: Can we apply these ads to already submitted flash works? i.e. recently submitted animation which we might want to earn money from without resubmitting...

Yes, you can update existing submissions!

At 4/8/08 08:33 PM, Goat-Man wrote: I've been looking for them.
Are they like the ads in Madness Inudation and Tainted Kingdom that advertise Dragon Quest (or Adventure Quest, they are the same to me)?

They've been in the past two Madness submissions. You can see one in the Paladin game.

At 4/8/08 07:08 PM, RedHotPoker wrote: Do you have to keep yor flash faithful to newgrounds, or can you hoar it out like the bitch it is?

You can submit it everywhere, get it sponsored, put it in a dress and leave it on the curb.

FIRST THINGS FIRST: Don't miss out on the epic Metal Gear Collab!

And don't forget that Pico Day is just 22 days away!

Exciting news from SpikeVallentine! His new movie, "Snow Snow For Lucy", will be premiering at the Regal Riverside Plaza in California! You can see a preview here on NG. If you want to go, here's the info:

WHERE: The Regal Theaters at the Riverside Plaza. Riverside, CA.
They're about mid-way between Los Angeles and Palm Springs.
WHEN: April, 17th, 2008, 7:30-8:45 p.m.

In other news... Luis interviewed AloneInTheDark!

The top games and movies from March have been determined by the voting panel! Winners will each receive an award certificate, a t-shirt and $250 cash! Congrats!

TOP FIVE MOVIES

1. Walk in the Woods
2. NiN10Doh!
3. Retarded Animal Babies 20
4. Pass-my-Flash 2
5. Radiohead - Creep

TOP FIVE GAMES

1. Castle Crashing the Beard
2. SHIFT 2
3. Boxhead The Zombie Wars
4. The Mastermind Game
5. Pillage the Village

Luis, BoM and Coaly decided to pass down their prize to the first runner-up, so one more prize pack goes to:

6. Drunken Masters

RUNNER-UP MOVIES

6. Badly Drawn Dawg Series 3
7. Tom's Easter orgy
8. The Pen is Mightier...
9. Alex Seryoua: Episode I
10. SSBB Theme Decoded
11. Brawl is here!
12. GT - Fighter Gamer
13. life in the bathroom
14. Elevator Action++
15. Melons
16. Smash Kingdom Melee
17. Hand Job
18. Shorts To Wear Pants To
19. The Plumber
20. School 13 - I.A.C.W.

RUNNER-UP GAMES

7. Death Row
8. The Newgrounds Card Game
9. Damn Birds
10. The World's Hardest Game
11. Contour
12. CannonCrotch
13. The Rise of a Knight
14. Family Restaurant
15. The Fur Fighters
16. Prehistoric 2
17. Canyon Defense
18. Insurgo
19. Riddle School 3
20. Climate Revenge

The voter of the month and winner of $100 and a t-shirt is FodeyOz!

Winners (top 5 games, top 5 movies, FodeyOz) should PM Bob with the following info:

1. Whether you are splitting the award with co-authors, and how that split works.
2. Your name, for the check.
3. Your name, as you want it to appear on the certificate.
4. Your mailing address (be sure to include zip code, country, etc.)
5. Your t-shirt size (S, M, L, XL, 2XL)
6. Your t-shirt preference. Pick anything from the store and make sure we have your size in stock!

At 4/8/08 03:50 PM, Rustygames wrote: I saw these ads and found out they were just being served by CPMStar.
Is your ad system just using theirs and taking a cut?

We worked out a deal with CPMStar where we get a commission from their share, so for artists it's the same as working direct with CPMStar, only more accessible since CPMStar traditionally works with high traffic sites.

At 4/8/08 03:22 PM, Luis wrote: This is great! So would we be allowed to use this for pico day based submissions or no?

YES, INDEED YOU CAN! We're gonna have an alternative pre-loader to faciliate ads. :)

At 4/8/08 02:39 PM, Coaly wrote:

At 4/8/08 02:36 PM, PsychoGoldfish wrote: Version control is in there now.

How about plans for an ng wrapper, so you can update the file and the wrapper will automatically be using the update?

Wrappers can get mixed results depending on stuff like actionscript cameras and whatnot, but we'll see if we ever get anywhere with that. :)

Some of you have noticed that we've been running ads in occasional Flash submissions for the past year. We're finally ready to roll this service out to the public!

The system is still considered "beta" and we aren't promoting it heavily, but everyone is welcome to try it out and you will get paid 30 days after the end of the month the ads run in (for example, checks for February were sent in the first week of April).

Use this page to get set up:
http://www.newgrounds.com/account/flasha pi

See if you can figure out how to get going based on the information provided. You can set the ads to "disabled" while you are getting set up and if the system is working, you'll see an image of Pico with a bunch of cash in place of an ad. Once you "enable" the ads, they won't run until you have been approved to run them - which should happen within a 24 hour period. Once the ads are running, your stats will be updated hourly and you can see how much $$$ you're making!

We are still streamlining the process and setting up tutorials. If you have any questions about getting set up, PM PsychoGoldfish! This project has been his baby.

We'll be launching the payment info (address) submission form before the next payment cycle, otherwise I'll hunt down anyone who has earned more than $50 within the period. If you earn less than $50, your money will roll over to the following month and you will get a check once you hit the $50 mark.

Eventually we want to let people use the money as store credit if they're too impatient to hit the $50 mark, but we're taking things one step at a time. :)

At 4/4/08 05:56 PM, MRat wrote: danomano65 did it! IM SURE! why? because he just posted!

And MRat wins the prize pack!!!!!!!!!

COMPETITION OVER.

No one has said the name, not even the people with multiple guesses... Although that will disqualify you. :)

So far NO ONE has guessed who the vandal is. So the prize pack will now include an AngryFaic keychain.

The Flash Portal front page has been bearded by someone here on NG!

To make things fun, everyone gets ONE GUESS each at who the vandal is. The first to post the right name (without having posted previously) will receive a t-shirt of their choice and some stickers from the store. GO!