Best of December 2019

[TomFulp]

There’s a whole lot of scary stuff happening in the world so before we get to the Best of December I want to address a few things.

Australia has been getting brutalized by wildfires and it’s hard to even know where to start with providing help for something so massive. The NSW Rural Fire Services lets you donate to individual brigades (made largely of volunteers) but it’s hard for an outsider to know which brigades to donate to. The Bushfire Appeal website appears to be AU residents only. The best option may be this Google Donation Box.

More horrible news is that Puerto Rico was hit by a 6.4 earthquake this morning and some areas are still recovering from Hurricane Maria. I found some links in this Philly Inquirer article that I’ll quote here:

Hispanic Federation: Unidos program. After Hurricane Maria, the Hispanic federation launched the Unidos program for disaster relief, reaching 78 municipalities in PR by transporting first responders and providing food and water. The group is one of the biggest contributors to the ongoing relief efforts in Puerto Rico, and has a 4-star rating from Charity Navigator.

World Central Kitchen. Run by Chef José Andrés, WCF prepares meals for people affected by disasters, and is already gearing up to support people in PR after the earthquake.

American Red Cross. The Red Cross is currently assessing needs to help people affected by the earthquake. The group collects donations for disaster relief that goes into a central pool for all disasters. Besides blood, the group was active in PR recovery efforts after Maria by installing solar networks for power, access to clean water, and supporting local community health organizations.

It can feel overwhelming when so much bad stuff is happening and it can feel weird to keep carrying on with trying to entertain people but it’s important to keep a light shining even during dark times. With that, here is the Best of December!

Top Five Movies

The top ranked animation based on original material and winner of $250 is Merry Christmas 2019 by @diives.

Yes, December was a bit horny. Must be the cold weather, right?

Speaking of which, @MissMoonified is giving rewards to people who donate to Australia.

Top Five Games

Thank you everyone who turned up to make Christmas ADVENTure a success!

Runner-up Movies

6. A Totally Legit Pokemon Gold Speedrun

7. Ollie & Scoops Episode 5: Student of the Month

8. Beyond the Fog: Episode 3 - The Blue Yonder

9. Kick la Kick

10. The Gift

11. Oney Plays Animated: President Ding Dong

12. 64 Bits – Detective Pikachu (Pokemon & Max Payne Parody) - TRAILER

13. Punks & Thugs!

14. EASY DOWN BEN

15. HOW WILL COPPA EFFECT MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL???

16. CastlePAINia

17. Saiyan Saga in a Nutshell

18. Shadows Dine Twice

19. A ScoMo Christmas Message

20. TD-Manga-ka

21. Interface | Episode 17

27. Duncan & Jones 2

Runner-up Games

6. Demonblade

7. Merry Christmas Tom Fulp

8. Rum & Gun

9. OverWired

10. Factory Balls forever

11. Up Left Out

12. SHUTDOWN

13. Block Toggle

14. Heartburn Boulevard

15. every wall

16. is it that deep, bro?

17. Eight Rooms Escape

18. Adpocalypse (Prototype)

19. PICOMIN

20. Dumbocalypse

The voter of the month and winner of honorary Supporter status is @maddhatter85!

If you aren’t already a Supporter you will have noticed we’re running a Support drive this month, where all E-M ads have been removed and replaced with a single Supporter promo. Thank you everyone who has come aboard! If we maintain the current momentum, we’re on track to hitting our January goal of 3,000 active supporters - a new record. We’ll be setting new goals each month with the intent of not turning back to traditional advertising. It would be a great way to start the decade and it will happen if those with the means to do so continue to support NG!

Also thank you everyone who participated in December with your animation, art, audio, games, reviews and votes. A lot of new animators gave NG a try after YouTube’s COPPA scare and we hope to keep attracting more in the year to come! It shouldn’t take a scare to make people choose NG; we want NG to be the clear choice, always.

If you missed it, we updated our project and publishing system last week! If you’ve been sitting on some content you want to share, now would be a great time to share it.

With new artists coming aboard, it’s a good time to remind everyone that NG can’t host unlicensed commercial music. This means you can’t upload covers and remixes to the Audio Portal if the source material doesn’t provide a license for such - examples include any song you would hear on the radio, or any song represented by a record label or licensing agency.

This also means you can’t upload movies or games that contain unlicensed commercial audio. We maintain a Royalty Free Music resource here on NG and the Audio Portal is a great place to find music (each song has licensing terms in the lower left corner, many are free to use for web games and animation). Newgrounds is at its best when everyone is working together; it’s like an indie utopia.

2020 is off to a crazy start but we’re gonna do our best to make life a little more tolerable in our corner of the web!

[carbonlad]

first post \o/

[GeoKureli]

Woah, this is awesome! Thanks to everyone who voted for advent. This means a lot to us, especially since December was chock full of awesome games.

Edit: I love the new spotlight banner, too. It really makes NG feel more like a community. love all the picked users so far

[Snackers]

Well fuckin earned ADVENTure, what a stellar achivement.

also HORNYGROUNDS LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[ninjamuffin99]

DUNC AND JONES ROBBED ONCE AGAIN

AND ALSO MERRy CHRISTMAS TOM FULP ROBBED

but cognrats to winners anyways heheh shoutout to advent creewwww

[Fro]

Spotlighting users on the front page has been awesome. I look forward to finding new people to follow because of it!

[snailpirate]

People too horny, Duncan and Jones got robbed again 😒

But hey, Advent calendar got first for games so that’s pretty fucking sweet! 👍

[Diives]

Thanks so much for this recognition, I'm really glad that my animation is here ;A;!!

All the animations in the list are amazing, it makes me happy that I'm between these great artists too!

[MissMoonified]

You fully deserve every bit of love you get 😍

[MissMoonified]

Thank you so much for bringing attention to the audio giveaway! We have already raised over $1.2k!!!

[Cyberdevil]

At 1/7/20 12:17 PM, TomFulp wrote:Yes, December was a bit horny. Must be the cold weather, right?

Seems oddly relevant with the cold world theme above. XD I did not vote for many of these but... some of the (IMHO) good ones made it at least. Happy to see the grand ADVENTURE make it to the top of that list too. Congrats to the winners! And to @maddhatter85 on that rad supporter status!

Speaking of which, @MissMoonified is giving rewards to people who donate to Australia.

Ooh that's awesome! Unexpected adult VA spotlight too (possibly one of the most prolific here ever).

Also cool to see this Christmas spirit carrying over into the New Year, and spreading all over. I've been a bit down-to-date on occurrences around the rest of the world, there's also that iran thing a brewing... but NG's like a safe haven to all these worldly problems. It's all community and unity up in here. No better place to both partake in and maybe somewhat solve all these future problems too.

2020's off to an inspiring start.

[Cyberdevil]

At 1/7/20 12:27 PM, GeoKureli wrote:Edit: I love the new spotlight banner, too. It really makes NG feel more like a community. love all the picked users so far

Ditto here. Was fun last time we had those banners too, it feels almost a bit like the UOTD awards but on a much larger and more personal scale. So far some real talents I hadn't even heard of before too...

[Luis]

Congrats and all but when is liljim going to start on the food portal?

Also first post.

[TomFulp]

At 1/7/20 02:47 PM, Luis wrote:Congrats and all but when is liljim going to start on the food portal?

Also first post.

We're waiting for you to make at least 100 food animations before we can consider it.

[Luis]

At 1/7/20 03:23 PM, TomFulp wrote:

At 1/7/20 02:47 PM, Luis wrote:Congrats and all but when is liljim going to start on the food portal?

Also first post.

We're waiting for you to make at least 100 food animations before we can consider it.

have some shake shack.

[Little-Rena]

At 1/7/20 03:26 PM, Luis wrote:

At 1/7/20 03:23 PM, TomFulp wrote:

At 1/7/20 02:47 PM, Luis wrote:Congrats and all but when is liljim going to start on the food portal?

Also first post.

We're waiting for you to make at least 100 food animations before we can consider it.

have some shake shack.

Do you have any strawberries and cream?

[GeoKureli]

At 1/7/20 03:26 PM, Luis wrote:

At 1/7/20 03:23 PM, TomFulp wrote:
We're waiting for you to make at least 100 food animations before we can consider it.

have some shake shack.

Great, now I'm gonna need shake shack tonight

[EggysGames]

Yeah my country Australia is a huge shitstorm right now for first time in a long long time. People don't realise just how massive the fires are, they could cover almost a few entire states of America. 10k+ of wildlife animals killed, firefighters stretched thin, and entire rural towns have been wiped out. Some people were cut off by fires and had to escape into the water to save their family.

A Facebook donation has gone around thats amassed almost 45million dollars which is good.

On top of that our Prime Minister is under huge attack, probably to the same level of Trump in America. Every person is saying he's incompetent, our media is also only reporting on him and the fires. People seem to be in chaos and playing the blame game, some point out fire services budget were cut earlier in the year. Some are blaming Climate Change. Some are blaming not doing controlled burn offs. Our PM also went on holiday to Hawaii amongst the disasters so a lot of people got extremely angry at that.

On top of that it's Australias biggest heatwave in a long time, temperate reaching as hot as 53C (130F) in some areas which contributes to the fires ferocity.

The entire sky has turned red from the fires smoke in a lot of major cities.

[maddhatter85]

At 1/7/20 12:17 PM, TomFulp wrote:
The voter of the month and winner of honorary Supporter status is @maddhatter85!

Thanks for the giveway of supporter status.

[DoctorStrongbad]

Congrats to all of the winners. Lots of good stuff came out in December 2019.

[BrokenMOJO]

Damn, thanks everyone.

I promise not to be horny in future animations. Maybe every third or so.

[Belyaevs-Fox]

At 1/7/20 11:07 PM, Eggy wrote:Yeah my country Australia is a huge shitstorm right now for first time in a long long time. People don't realise just how massive the fires are, they could cover almost a few entire states of America. 10k+ of wildlife animals killed, firefighters stretched thin, and entire rural towns have been wiped out. Some people were cut off by fires and had to escape into the water to save their family.

A Facebook donation has gone around thats amassed almost 45million dollars which is good.

On top of that our Prime Minister is under huge attack, probably to the same level of Trump in America. Every person is saying he's incompetent, our media is also only reporting on him and the fires. People seem to be in chaos and playing the blame game, some point out fire services budget were cut earlier in the year. Some are blaming Climate Change. Some are blaming not doing controlled burn offs. Our PM also went on holiday to Hawaii amongst the disasters so a lot of people got extremely angry at that.

On top of that it's Australias biggest heatwave in a long time, temperate reaching as hot as 53C (130F) in some areas which contributes to the fires ferocity.

The entire sky has turned red from the fires smoke in a lot of major cities.

As someone who lives in California, this scares me on a personal level. In 2018, I saw the sky turn a dark grey from I lived, and was fortunate to not be near any fires. It's why I detest anyone who doesn't believe in climate change.

[Cyberdevil]

At 1/7/20 03:26 PM, Luis wrote:have some shake shack.

Just 99 to go!

I feel a hunger a brewing. Digging the affluent steam details in particular.

[Cyberdevil]

At 1/7/20 11:07 PM, Eggy wrote:The entire sky has turned red from the fires smoke in a lot of major cities.

Hooooly shit... when you see the entire island from above like that it feels like you get a little more understanding of just how massive this is. I don't know much about your prime minister but we haven't been getting very good impressions of him over here either, also arranging some form of festivities in the midst of this chaos?

Have you been personally affected by this? Any count on human casualties yet?

[FutureCopLGF]

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all! Thank you once again for giving me the present of great indie games to play and ramble over! I hope everyone is doing well and helping each other out in this new year.

Looking forward to Pixel Day!

[EggysGames]

At 1/8/20 09:07 AM, Cyberdevil wrote:

At 1/7/20 11:07 PM, Eggy wrote:The entire sky has turned red from the fires smoke in a lot of major cities.

Hooooly shit... when you see the entire island from above like that it feels like you get a little more understanding of just how massive this is. I don't know much about your prime minister but we haven't been getting very good impressions of him over here either, also arranging some form of festivities in the midst of this chaos?

Have you been personally affected by this? Any count on human casualties yet?

Yeah its huge. Nah I live in Perth, western australia. Very bottom left so we are fine here. It's mostly affected the east side. Not sure on causalities.

[EggysGames]

At 1/8/20 08:56 PM, Tyler wrote:

At 1/7/20 11:07 PM, Eggy wrote:Yeah my country Australia is a huge shitstorm right now for first time in a long long time. People don't realise just how massive the fires are, they could cover almost a few entire states of America. 10k+ of wildlife animals killed, firefighters stretched thin, and entire rural towns have been wiped out. Some people were cut off by fires and had to escape into the water to save their family.

A Facebook donation has gone around thats amassed almost 45million dollars which is good.

On top of that our Prime Minister is under huge attack, probably to the same level of Trump in America. Every person is saying he's incompetent, our media is also only reporting on him and the fires. People seem to be in chaos and playing the blame game, some point out fire services budget were cut earlier in the year. Some are blaming Climate Change. Some are blaming not doing controlled burn offs. Our PM also went on holiday to Hawaii amongst the disasters so a lot of people got extremely angry at that.

On top of that it's Australias biggest heatwave in a long time, temperate reaching as hot as 53C (130F) in some areas which contributes to the fires ferocity.

The entire sky has turned red from the fires smoke in a lot of major cities.

Its awfully suspicious nobody in power cares to put more money into saving the coastline, but are putting up 22 billion for a hyperloop.

"B-But at least we can travel comfortably through the charred wastelands"

Left (fire happenings) - - - Right (hyperloop proposition)

hmmmmmmmm

Its because what happens is each year that passes there wasnt a major fire like 5 or so years, they decide hey look at all this wasted tax money in fire services, lets divert that money to other areas. Then they do that, then boom major fire happens.

Its not related to the hyperloop though. Its just tax budget changes.

[DoctorStrongbad]

At 1/9/20 12:47 AM, Eggy wrote:Its because what happens is each year that passes there wasnt a major fire like 5 or so years, they decide hey look at all this wasted tax money in fire services, lets divert that money to other areas. Then they do that, then boom major fire happens.

. Its just tax budget changes.

That is really crazy that such a large area is on fire. Normally, fire would be contained to one city or state.

[Cyberdevil]

At 1/8/20 11:44 PM, Eggy wrote:Yeah its huge. Nah I live in Perth, western australia. Very bottom left so we are fine here. It's mostly affected the east side. Not sure on causalities.

Ah good, at least our most important game dev down under's out of harm's way. ;) Wonder how the Aboriginal people handle this, maybe they know how to deal with fire better, go against the wind, hide in the mud...

At 1/9/20 12:47 AM, Eggy wrote:Its because what happens is each year that passes there wasnt a major fire like 5 or so years, they decide hey look at all this wasted tax money in fire services, lets divert that money to other areas. Then they do that, then boom major fire happens.

Its not related to the hyperloop though. Its just tax budget changes.

Sounds similar to how the government sold off all waterbomber planes here a few years back, of course wildfires happened, they had to fly in planes from Italy; something they could've taken care of easily turned into a pretty big thing.

Seems similar to how most nuclear bunkers are now being used to storage, or server farms, or conference centers...

Taxes really aren't being used like they used to be.

[LoveGreenDay96]

At 1/7/20 03:26 PM, Luis wrote:

At 1/7/20 03:23 PM, TomFulp wrote:

At 1/7/20 02:47 PM, Luis wrote:Congrats and all but when is liljim going to start on the food portal?

Also first post.

We're waiting for you to make at least 100 food animations before we can consider it.

have some shake shack.

cool <3