Among Us Jam Update: Judging is still in progress for the Among Us Jam! We’ll try to have the winners announced within the next week - we’ve wanted to be sure everyone involved has a chance to watch the entries and think about their favorites. We watched all 200 entries on a @TheNewgroundsPodcast group chat the other week and it took over five hours!

@PhantomArcade assembled a jam compilation for the NG YouTube, which is bringing a lot of new eyeballs to the event. Thank you everyone involved who gave Phantom your blessing to be included and thank you again everyone who participated in the jam!

October 23rd Update - Still sorting out the winners!

SNES Music Contest

The SNES Music Contest winners will be announced at 1PM EST today, in 20 minutes!

Update: The winners have been announced!

Halloween Spooktacular

We’re hosting a Halloween Spooktacular this month, with over $1,500 in prizes for the best Animation, Games, Art, Music, Writing and Voice Acting! 

Site Updates

We’re deep in a trophy system overhaul that will allow us to assign trophies for events that didn’t traditionally log trophies to accounts. This will also allow us to sell event sponsor badges on our Supporter page, so sponsors can get badges for helping us increase various prize pools. Your contributions have increased prize payouts this year by over $14,000!

Reminder: The three best games this month will win $100 each and the best animation based on original material will win $250!

The API portion of game projects is getting updated to modernize the layout, bring cloud saves to our Newgrounds.io API and default to that instead of the old Flash API. 

Speaking of Flash!

Flash Preservation Update

Before I get into Flash preservation, I’d like to remind everyone that if you’ve been active on NG this past half-decade, the majority of what you’ve been doing here hasn’t required Flash. 

Our video player doesn’t require Flash, our audio player doesn’t require Flash and most of the games uploaded nowadays are HTML5. I need to repeat this a lot because a week doesn’t go by without me seeing people lament how Newgrounds will have to shut down at the end of the year because Adobe is ending support for the Flash player. Newgrounds will be fine!

We are, however, working to make sure Flash content continues to exist and function on the site. Newgrounds sponsors the development of Ruffle.rs, to run Flash content in the browser without Flash. 

Ruffle was created by @Mike as an open-source alternative to the Flash plug-in, free of all the legacy problems associated with Flash. Lots of smart people have gotten involved with the project and you can sponsor it with money or help as a developer if you’re smart, too!

Ruffle is a work in progress; it has come a long way with AS2 support and is in the early stages of support for AS3. If you aren’t familiar, AS2 is the scripting language used in early Flash content, while AS3 is what most of the later games use.

This week’s update to Ruffle brought it the point where it now supports our AS2 API for medals and high scores. This means you can earn medals in games like Castle Crashing the Beard or log a high score in Video Falconry.

There was a performance regression in this week’s update which is currently being addressed. Ruffle is also falling back to canvas mode on iOS rather than WebGL because Safari updated to WebGL2; an update is coming for that as well.

I recently read a quote by German poet Durs Grünbein; “The non-artists of the world are always terribly busy, and then one day they disappear without a trace.” We’ll be sure none of you disappear without a trace! Well maybe a few of you. But not most of you!

Other News

If you missed it, check out the Best of September!

I’ve been making a Spooky Animation Playlist if you want to get into the spirit of the season.

@TheInterviewer posted an Interview with littlbox and Karlestonchew!

Also a reminder regarding COVID: Even if you’ve been fortunate compared to many during this time, remember that none of this is normal and it’s ok if you’re going through some crazy emotions. I feel like even people who enjoy isolation still have limits that are being tested this year. Hope everyone is staying safe, wearing masks and making positive connections on-line!

Oh man, Castle Crashing the Beard... I played that on my old old old PC back in the day. I think I beat it, but only because that thing was so slow. I tried again when I got a new laptop and it didn't end well...

Glad to hear that stuff about Flash, I knew NG would be prepared! Thanks for the updates, Mr. Fulp!

Ain't that the fucking truth! Holy shit this year has really pushed me to my limits of sanity.

Thanks for addressing this side of the pandemic, I know I'm not alone here.

With my personal reservoir i do what i can to continue flash as a technology in todays time.

<3

It's awesome to see the great love that is put in Newgrounds, and how it comes back to all of us.

I'm always Excited to hear the progress that Ruffle is making. Flash is not the only platform I games for but I feel it would be ashame never be able to publish a game for it again. There are certain project that flash is just perfect for. If I made more action games and less... let's just call them adult romance games, flash going away as a platform would be no skin off my nose, But since flash is so integrated with animation it's like peanut butter and jelly.

I've been using UE4 a lot lately, so if flash ever did just completely go away, I'd still have something to make games with but like I said flash just works better for what I do. And frankly I'm just glad there is a hope that I can just keep using the tool that works best for me in the future...

There’s been a lot of updates for the site, it all looks very nice

I don't know if the guys working on Ruffle have been thinking about this but the AS3/AS2 API is very robust, it's my go to API for tinkering. Ruffle could be ported to different platform such as consoles, just playing devils advocate here, but the idea of a flash game running on a console make me moist.

I was arguing with people a few months ago about Flash preservation, and how there is no reason some talented people couldn't patch whatever security problems may arise with flash after support had ended, or some alternative to keep flash content going in the browser like an addon or something. I'm incredibly pleased to see that such a project has already been ongoing. I knew you were always making sure NG was fine with the new player years ago.

Also, I'm glad all of the collaboration and contests lately have been turning out so well, seems like there's meaningful prize pools every time now, which is great motivation for artists who want to make a submission. I may not really like people making art their day job and ONLY doing it for money, I kinda think it sucks the creativity and fun out of people, but I do think these contest formats are a great way for someone who might not even have a job (like me back when I was a teenager) to win a meaningful chunk of money. Plus it feels good to be recognized by your peers for making them laugh. TLDR I'm happy to see it going well, and hope that trend continues.

Oooooooh spicy

This is so true. 

Thanks for the Castle Crashing the Beard shout-out! Hopefully something good along that front coming out this year...

Also, I think COVID has some silver linings. I think "The COVID Project" is becoming a thing where people are taking on tasks that they haven't had time for ever before in their life (or not since they were kids without any responsibilities). The human spirit rages on!

I don't affraid for future of Newgrounds coz this portal well known not only by flash games :3

thank you tom very cool

I've really enjoyed the Among Us cartoons!

Thank God there's being progress in Ruffle towards AS3 (not literally thank God, but you all know what i mean...). I can't see myself using any software other than flash/animate to make games with interactive animations all by myself.

Thanks for the thoughtful closer. Best Tom

The Among Us cartoons are a lot of fun, impressive how everyone got stuff done so quick. Looking forward to seeing what comes out of the spooky season. Hope everyone is holding on to their brains, nice to get a reminder that the individual isnt crazy for having a rough time right about now.

We honestly have to do something about COVID already. Everyday reading about new deaths and such is really making me angsty...

Tom do you want a donut. Also first post.

I DO want a donut!

They'll always be here regardless of what happens but ideally Ruffle will play all of them some day!

Love the supportive words regarding COVID. Some people have made it out to seem that only extroverts have been negatively affected by the lock downs. I don't think it's in our nature to be complete recluses, and I know I've seen some significant dips in my mood since March even as an introvert. Wishing all the best.

Will the Halloween spooktacular winners be announced on twitch as well?

hey Tom would you want to play a game of Among Us with newgrounders or am I late to this idea

but I call dark blue

I'm quarantining right now (until Friday) mandatory, they made me file workman's comp, because my coworker has Covid.

She's doing ok, but a DIFFERENT coworker also has it, as does her husband, who is in ICU. He got the plasma Friday but really hasn't improved.

If you haven't been affected by covid, you're lucky. I'm jealous.

If you HAVE had covid, please go donate plasma. The ICUs need it.

Several sites and many users aren't down with this "end flash" shit.

People out there will find general emulators and workarounds for this, and already have, beginning with the NG player.

I say get a standalone player off Adobe before it's too late, as it may not be affected. I got 8,9 and 32 myself.

Is that from Federal Donuts? 🍩 😍

A cash prize for Halloween entries sounds quite nice. Not sure whether I'll win, but I either way plan to submit a Halloween-related entry between October 25th and 31st. Hoping NG stays as safe as possible with COVID-19 still running rampant. I'm also intrigued by the updates on preserving old flash content.

— Crazymonkey154