Happy Friday everyone!
We've had a busy week in the Art Portal, read more about it in the Welcome New Artists post!
To celebrate and encourage everyone to vote on new art, we're hosting a TRIPLE XP Weekend.
On a normal day, you can log a max of 10XP by voting on five entries. This Saturday and Sunday, you can vote on 15 entries per day and log 30XP each time.
We've been absorbing all the suggestions for the Art Portal and have made a big list with a plan forward. Some existing projects need to be wrapped up before we get started but 2019 will be a big year all around for Art Portal and feed improvements.
Thank you to all our new Supporters! We hit 2,000 active supporters for the first time ever on Thanksgiving Day and the Wall of Honor is now climbing towards 2,100. Much to be thankful for!
MUSIC REMINDER
With lots of new artists coming to NG, I want to remind everyone that Newgrounds needs to be extremely vigilant about what music people use in their animation and games.
Specifically: No unlicensed commercial music is allowed.
This goes beyond risking takedown notices from record labels; licensing agencies seek minimum royalties for content containing music they represent, royalties that are much higher than our "brand-averse" ad rates. YouTube for example pays over $1 billion per year to the music industry and is still under pressure. NG can't afford the royalties and annual fees for the multitude of licensing agencies so we simply can't allow the music here.
Not to mention Article 13 in the EU would makes things even messier.
The silver lining is there are TONS of independent musicians who would LOVE to see people make use of their music.
We've created a Royalty Free Music guide that links to resources, from the Audio Portal to many sites beyond.
When you use music from the Audio Portal (check their creative commons info in the bottom left), you can credit the song in your project details and the two entries will cross-promote each other. You won't believe how happy I get when I see this; it's one of my favorite things, seriously.
TSIOQUE
Every entry in our TSIOQUE art contest received Supporter status and a Steam key. The top entry was Resolute, by @TheAstra!
If you haven't already, give TSIOQUE a look. It's the brainchild of @Sarkazm with support from @e-d, @BillPremo, @BryanV, @Emrox and other great people.
TSIOQUE is currently the #1 Hidden Gem on Steam and has won an award in the Best PC Game category at the Barcelona Game World Games Startup Competition!
Other News
@RatherRandomReality is looking to develop an iPhone version of Ultimate Chess, which was very successful on NG and especially on Yahoo Games where it had tens of millions of players in 2012-2013. He has already prepared the art and animation assets and is looking for a solid mobile dev who understands the industry and can take on the programming. If you think you're that person, drop RRR a PM.
Ludum Dare is this weekend! If you want to participate in a game jam, this is a great one. If you make a web-friendly game, share it on Newgrounds and we'll highlight it in our own collection. Players: Expect lots of games next week.
Last month we hosted a Super Crown / Bowsette Art Contest with over 560 gorgeous entries. @LukeValentineArt won a Nintendo Switch and some runner-ups are now receiving a special gift box we prepared. @RedMinus was the first to Tweet about it.
That Super Crown sticker was made by @IvanAlmighty and is super exclusive; less than 20 exist!