Last month was our Halloween Spooktacular, with prizes for the best animation, games, art and music. We enjoyed all your spooky entries and now it’s time to announce the winners!
🏆 Top Six Animation ($300, $200, $100, $50, $50, $50)
“There isn’t a lot that looks like A Den for Sick Moths on Newgrounds, it is informed from so many places artistically, and even in its tone, it feels very distinct. It’s dramatic, tense, and incredibly fun to look at. The traditional animation and full on embrace of that aesthetic throughout gives this movie its own incredible mood; it’s very unique and different from a lot of the other Halloween works on this site. But, it’s also bursting with a DIY rawness and specificity that makes it so damn cool and exciting to watch.” -thecooldrawingguy
“I fucking love everything by Gatekid3 so much, there is so much creativity in every short, and the color choices, palettes, and genuine heart and honesty in every project they put out are so inspiring to me. Bubblin’ was incredibly cute, perfectly dark and weird, and made with a level of professionalism and artistry only gatekid could pull off. The work that goes into every motion, action, and design is felt in every frame but it feels so earnest all the same, I love the colors too.” -thecooldrawingguy
“Incredibly well animated. I liked that they improved many of the original shots and added new ones as well.” -JohnnyUtah
“The music, animation, voice acting and pacing in Sirenhead all combined to make something really specific and really funny. It’s a great Halloween short with a great energy to it, short and to the point but not too fast and busy, it’s got everything it needs to be silly as fuck and very fun to rewatch. The music is awesome too, and every piece works together to make something really unique and fun!” -thecooldrawingguy
“The 5th Birthday is fucking great! The animation is shockingly expressive, and the lighting and mood are so funny and yet so eerie, it nails its Halloween vibe, stop motion and the spooky season just mix together perfectly. The humor of this short is so unique, and its pacing is secretly really solid. The changing of the letter has so much suspense as you anxiously watch to see what happens next. Plus, any Newgrounds film that can remind me of Jan Lenica earns a huge amount of respect from me, absolutely one of my favorites and endlessly fun to rewatch.” -thecooldrawingguy
“Sweet Tooth is super cool. This is definitely an artist I want to see more of, they take from every medium but their work never feels overstimulating. That kind of style lends itself great to striking Halloween imagery, and this artist pushed that all the way. I love the tone, the mediums used, the great music, the warm colors, we need more art that goes to this many places! The music is so great, and combined with the imagery and really cool and exciting mixed media, this is absolutely one of the most Halloween-y things uploaded this year.” -thecooldrawingguy
Thank you @thecooldrawingguy, @IvanAlmighty and @JohnnyUtah for animation judging assistance.
Shout out to @DannyGoodShirt and @BadTwinZ for organizing the Dr. Good's Operating Theatre and Resident Evil 2 Reanimated collabs, respectively!
🏆 Top Six Games ($300, $200, $100, $60, $50, $50)
“I loved the "bait and switch" premise which had me "hooked" almost immediately. So subversive (submersive?)! It's hard to make an action game easy to pick up and play while still having enough variety to keep things interesting and this game really delivered! Don't throw this one back, it's a keeper!” -BoMToons
“It's amazing how this game just kept delivering and delivering. I anticipated a fishing game with a jumpscare at the end and instead I got way, WAY more than I bargained for. Overwhelmingly fun and engaging.” -Jack
“Shockingly addicting and mechanically reminiscent of a Game & Watch game. It gets hectic fast but never feels unmanageable. Really fun!” -Jack
“I'll admit that maybe I'm rating this one so highly to make up for the fact that I foolishly rated it so lowly in my initial rankings for the month, but it really did get so much better for me once I played the game on its own terms instead of getting stuck to playing it to the music. This game is just a bloody good arcade game: great graphics, charming horror aesthetic, addictively simple yet fun and juicy gameplay, music is such a bop, tons of enemies which sport a multitude of patterns that deepen the strategy as you progress, and some wonderful bosses that are challenging in both their versions and feel great to knock out of the park! Despite its Tiger Games-esque gameplay, this is head-and-shoulders above those bygone clunkers!” -FuturecopLGF
“I loved the design/story of the main character. The concept was also great and fun for Halloween. Gameplay was engaging, but I wish the attacking enemies had been timed to the spooky music! The difficulty ramped up a bit fast for me, but I enjoyed the ride!” -BoMToons
“Quite the spooky trip through the woods in this point and click adventure that feels like it came right out of some spooky Eastern European folklore! I felt like it could've done a bit more to vary up the experience: what little puzzles it did have were very simple, and the rest of the game was a rather straight-forward game of straw millionaire, making obvious trades over and over. But still, I found myself enjoying the process despite its simplicity due to its great spooky atmosphere and well-paced sense of progression, and I was rewarded with the story coming together in the end with one heck of a horrific twist ending!” -FuturecopLGF
“Super consistent style and compelling story with a twist, spooky, ending!” -BoMToons
“Everything about this game is delightful and it's super easy to get hooked on the loop. It's frantic and feels like you're trying to juggle a million things at once, which is absolutely great for this type of game.” -Jack
“Immersive graphics, world, and gameplay. Nice creepy tone and surprising / confusing / philosophical(?) ending.” -BoMToons
“I gotta give it up to this game for being a really fun and well-constructed point-n-click adventure that I could see side-by-side with plenty of other greats. Had all the things I look for: tons of puzzles, items, flavor text, secrets, it's crazy how much was packed in here!” -FuturecopLGF
“Reminds me a bit of Undertale with its unique turn-based RPG action games. Good spooky tone with the crow theme being so prominent.” -BoMToons
“Incredibly faithful to the Gameboy style with a really cool Undertale-like combat system.” -Jack
Honorable Mentions
There were several Steam demos this year that were brilliant and fun. Judging leaned towards games that were more on-theme for Halloween but you should play all of these:
Thank you @BoMToons, @Stepford, @FuturecopLGF and @Jack for game judging assistance!
Art and Music winners are in the next post below:
