At 10/28/09 03:40 PM, Matija27 wrote: One question. When will we know the results of Treasure Hunting?

I have to finish going through, then the HARD part will be condensing my notes, which are loooong. I want to wrap it up within a week though.

At 10/28/09 03:39 PM, HighWayStar365 wrote: Will there be CANDY CORN?!?!

We're still working on a feature for that.

At 10/28/09 03:32 PM, RobHalford wrote: It's just been tough for a lot of us that haven't made complete games before.

Agreed... The important thing is that everyone is gaining EXPERIENCE. And I know that sounds hokey, but you don't get anywhere if you don't start somewhere.

I have been beating myself up a lot this fall over things we could have done better to get a better outcome with Po3, but I don't want to cry all over the BBS. We will keep improving and refining the concept and we'll have more success in the future.

I'm in the final stretch of the Treasure Hunt entries. The deadline for suggestions is today and I'm not encouraging any more submissions after browsing literally thousands (?!) of movies and games this month. Found lots of goodies, though! Thank you to everyone who helped!

To celebrate Halloween we're giving the Game of the Week space to Halloween Flash-Off entries!

Next week will return to the Game of the Week, which brings me to the elephant in the room; YES, there are still amazing Power of Three games in the works! For those just joining us, Power of Three was a summer event where artists, programmers and musicians joined forces to make the most epic line-up of Flash games EVER. A lot of Po3 teams never got their ideas off the ground, while others are still trudging forward.

I regret we have yet to relaunch Alphas as a promotional tool for Po3 projects but Alphas are still on the way and games in progress should have a chance to use them this year.

I'll admit I hoped for Po3 to turn out a lot better than it has, but there are still great success stories. Toss the Turtle resulted from a Po3 partnership, albeit they got sidetracked and made Toss the Turtle as a side project. Cave of Wonders brought us another great Luis / BoMToons partnership and Edmund's Time Fcuk gave our sharing API a long-awaited test run, after we missed the deadlines for Meatboy and Spewer.

It's been a rocky start but it's a positive move towards more artist / programmer / musician partnerships. We've tried to keep that momentum going with our weekly game sponsorships, although we can't nail the trifecta every time. At the least I hope it's encouraging more people to give it a shot and the bar for Flash games will continue to rise.

Leaving no stone unturned, we're planning an even crazier event around the production of movies. It will combine writers, artists, animators, musicians and voice actors in a structured competition that spans several phases. It's something I've been keeping tucked away in anticipation of a Writing Portal, but for now we might just have to settle for opening a Writing Forum, much like how the Art Forum prepared for the Art Portal. More on that in the coming weeks, we still have our massive summer/fall project to complete.

But enough about all that...

Time is running out to snag Nathan's Dad 'n Me Plush and Mask! There are only 100 in existence and they are running out.

Now is a better time than ever to order, because each order comes with a free Meatboy sticker! You can see it at the store. It's die-cut and UV coated to survive in the sun, unlike meat!

You might actually be seeing Asian Lady Beetles.

http://www.ca.uky.edu/ENTOMOLOGY/entfact s/ef416.asp

I like to think Ben would have found this amusing...

As some of you may have seen on the Stick Slayer page and MindChamber's post, NG has lost a beloved artist.

Ben Spurgin (ben-spurgin and benspurgin) made his Flash debut in 2000 and became an NG celeb with his Stick Slayer series. Ben's joy of animating was infectious and inspired many artists to follow in the same path.

Ben was back at it almost a decade later, with Stick Slayer IX on the way. He was only 31.

Our thoughts are with Ben's Mom and family. Losing a loved one is never easy.

We may never get to see Stick Slayer IX, but we can still have one last celebration of Ben's awesomeness. A small group of artists who were around in the Ben days are coming together to create a tribute to his work. There isn't a lot of room in this collab but if you are an old-time accomplished NG contributor and want to help out, shoot me a PM and we'll see what we can do! Include your email address in the PM, so I can put together a contact list to move forward with.

If you have any memories to share about Ben, post them here! JakBaronKing has suggested setting up an NG Memorial page for the artists we've lost over the years, so that is under consideration. I intend for NG to last the next 100 years, so this sort of page will unfortunately become more and more necessary.

At 10/23/09 03:47 AM, cast wrote: I could see him doing birthdays for Chippendales.

I would have thought this was a real pic someone took of me but then I remembered I'm much more muscular.

At 10/21/09 02:16 PM, Kinsei01 wrote: Why was the site down this morning

Some server stuff got updated!

Check out the 2009 Pumpkin Carving Competition!

Jonas is hosting a survey about what people like about NG and what they would change. He's gonna pick one winner and give them nearly a year's supply of chicken.

Somebody needs to create a theme song for MMA Fighter and NG enthusiast Chad-T.

I have been asking people to Digg stuff a lot lately and I know it ruffles some feathers. If you don't like Digg, that is fine you don't have to do it. No one is putting a gun to your head, so save the "You can't tell me what to do!" comments for mommy and daddy.

If you want to help out and show support for a great game, please Digg Gretel and Hansel!

Have a GREAT game in the works? Contact me to discuss potential sponsorship!

In the meantime, I'll be buried in Treasure Hunt suggestions. I've been checking out every single one of them and it takes a while.

It's time for the annual pumpkin carving competition!

1. Get a pumpkin.
2. Carve it with a Newgrounds theme.
3. Castle Crashers and Alien Hominid pumpkins should also enter the Behemoth Pumpkin Contest!
4. Post your pictures in response to THIS THREAD.

You are welcome to post your pumpkin in the Art Portal but please tag it with pumpkin2009, so people can view a gallery of entries!

You can check out the 2008 and 2007 winners but don't copy them.

For tips, read about how Wade carved his own face five years ago.

Prizes:

1st - $50 Store Credit
2nd - $40 Store Credit
3rd - $30 Store Credit

UPDATE: Sorry for all the posts I deleted in this thread but I felt like it should get straight to the pumpkins. Now I feel kinda bad because people should be able to compliment the pumpkins, so maybe that will be ok as more actual submissions come in... But we had kicked off with two pages of jibber jabber and non-NG pumpkins and it just felt messy. I dunno... shrug.

Multiple entries are allowed! Deadline is October 31st.
To kick things off, here is ReNaeNae's winning preloader pumpkin from 2007:

Latest thoughts and recommendations:

I was too quick to whip out the 24-bit PNGs.. The graphics guidelines could look more like this:

1) Distant, solid background pieces should be JPG for file size, but GIF is alright.
2) Parallax layers of background should be transparent GIF, unless they absolutely need to be 24-bit PNG, ie clouds and objects with alpha elements.
3) Player and enemies could be transparent gif or 24 bit PNG. PNGs will increase the file size a lot and may perform slightly below transparent gifs, but they can also look a lot nicer with smooth edges.
4) Bullets and explosions will likely be 24 bit PNGs, with fun glow effects built into the art.

The in-Flash filters for glows and blurs should never be used because they hurt performance... Glows should be integrated into the art whenever possible, and blurs could be done with actionscripted filter effects if necessary.

I agree that my idea about a different programmer for each level would be stupid. In reality this probably is a job for one programmer, where other programmers could help with solutions for specific tasks, such as funcitons that perform fancy mathematical patterns if necessary... But they would really be more of a "special thanks" role in the project.

ALSO... I would like for NG to sponsor this game! If you guys are up for that, we should get a rough outline for how the sponsorship money would get split, as well as ongoing Flash-Ads and revshare revenue. The parties involved would most likely be one core programmer, one to several musicians, potentially a SFX guy if you go that route, and a bunch of artists, some (many?) who might not make the cut for long-term revenue sharing (trying to be realistic), while the main contributors would be the beneficiaries.

Involving a sponsorship could ensure getting a top-talent programmer involved. Otherwise I think it would be hard to find someone willing to put in serious hours, when they could be getting sponsored for doing something else. Whoever it ends up being, it would be preferred if they have already made some cool shooters here on NG, so this would be an evolution of their talent and not a first time outing.

Again, these are all just suggestions. :)

Should we consider a contest for aspiring game designers... All the "idea guys" who don't draw or program... Let them come up with inventive boss routines, at which point the artists try to visualize what those bosses would look like and the programmer interprets the routines into code?

I wonder if it would be a total disaster if a unique programmer took on each level, with a core engine the drives the game. I've been wanting to do a programming contest for years now where people can create the boss routines to challenge a common player... The only tricky thing here is that most programmers would rather make their own engine from scratch, and if I made the engine a lot of programmer would probably laugh at it, although I think I could make something that would be flexible for people to have fun with... Or maybe I could just try programming it but I'm not totally reliable. I do wanna program a new shooter though... 60fps with all raster art and 24 bit pngs... with crazy explosions and fancy glowing bullets. Madness Accelerant was slowed down by all the vector art, but 100% raster would be blazing fast.

Quitting is for quitters so I'm not gonna stop. Go Digg 3rd Grade Transformers!

http://digg.com/comedy/3rd_Grade_Transfo rmers_a_cartoon

I'll be posting again on Wednesday when the game of the week launches!

3rd Grade Transformers... Digg Team GOOOOOOO!

http://digg.com/comedy/3rd_Grade_Transfo rmers_a_cartoon

At 10/16/09 05:33 PM, wwwyzzerdd wrote: Tom; may I suggest that you make a side-ad incorporating this image?

I need to be popping out of a Ferrari or something.

At 10/16/09 04:55 PM, Archon68 wrote:
hi tom

Hello!

That ad isn't putting one dollar in my pocket, it's paying for this site you fuckers can't stop bitching about so SUCK IT UP AND GET OVER IT. If I want more money I'll ditch NG and make another console game. THAT'S RIGHT FUCK ALL OF YOU!

enjoy

It's that time of the year again... The annual NG treasure hunt!

There are almost 200,000 games and movies on Newgrounds and a lot of good ones have flown under the radar. Can you find them?

A submission is considered undiscovered if:

1) It isn't part of a collection.
2) It has never been front paged, in which case it likely has less than 20,000 views.

One way to find them is to search for random words and browse the results. The best submissions don't always have a high score or many views. While combing the site, add submissions to your FAVORITES list to keep track!

Respond to this post with the best of your findings. Simply paste the URL in a line by itself, or paste a list of URLs if you consider them contenders.

Submissions will compete in two categories: BEST MOVIE and BEST GAME. The winner in each category wins $200 for the person who discovered it!

Depending on what turns up, we may create additional categories, such as BEST UNDISCOVERED SERIES. Only time will tell.

You have TWO WEEKS to respond to this thread with your gem! Deadline is Wednesday, October 28th.

Also please Digg Glass Fish Rhythm Adventure ok thanks!

HAPPY TREASURE HUNTING!

At 10/12/09 08:03 PM, Goldfire64 wrote: let me clarify i think there could be better organization the one page with a load of icons maybe a few more pages and better descriptions to preview the game. Some thing since over the years the game have piled up but its ultimately your decision tom!

The games and movies pages were outdated and in need of overhaul before we even started the last redesign in 2005, but they were kept on the back-burner while other stuff was prioritized. When the pages finally get upgraded, they will be paginated and sortable.

At 10/12/09 03:14 PM, UnreaK745 wrote: Woot, I like aliens. And, yeah, you won't read this anyway, so BALLS.

For shame.

At 10/10/09 03:40 AM, 066pop wrote: Hey I have NEVER seen so many Tom posts lol.

Actually I made a post EVERY day for 34 days at the end of last year, when we gave out 36 Wacom tablets:

http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1009 172

At 10/9/09 10:03 PM, HarraH wrote: Hey Tom, are you still working on a buddy/friends system or something for the userpages?

All the html was done two years ago for the current site design but the back-end was never put together. It's still gonna happen but most likely in 2010.

At 10/9/09 08:02 PM, maxvm wrote:

Tom of the Super Flash Bros has made a totally tubular Sound FX Generator

A totally what? If you want to be down with the kids, you're doing it wrong!

Kids know what totally tubular is?

At 10/9/09 07:57 PM, Jinx-Studios wrote: All the art contest show up right when my tablet breaks.

juuuuuuussst greeeeaaaat.

You truly are jinxed!

At 10/9/09 07:36 PM, 14hourlunchbreak wrote: If you're taking requests, adventure games section plox. :D
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/49 3559

I did that this afternoon too!

At 10/9/09 07:10 PM, cast wrote: i bet hes going to bleach his hair move to Florida and take up surfing next

wanna bet? bets?

Cowabunga!

At 10/9/09 07:04 PM, Luis wrote: Tom dont ever use the term tubular. Thats so not you.

You're totally tubular, Luis. Totally toilet paper tubular.

At 10/9/09 07:01 PM, Pokemonpoeguygcn wrote:

At 10/9/09 06:17 PM, TomFulp wrote: Vice is having a Where the Wild Things Are Art Contest and is featuring our 2010 calendar amongst the grand prize items!

That link isn't working

Weird it worked before... I grabbed a link off the site that seems to work.