What a fuckin time man. God damn.

Normally I'm not much of one for these yearly recaps, but I feel like it might be fun to chronicle shit once n a while. If I remember right, at some point Egoraptor would do this kinda thing every now n again, and at the time while waiting between cartoons of his, those posts kept my ass fed. Plus really humanize someone who seemed like a living cartoon character which made dream feel possible. But anyway, you get the deal. Let's think over the year together... ahhh, what a whistful time....

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START OF NEW YEAR, 2022

In January, Ninjamuffin and myself had just finished setting up the The Funkin' Crew Inc after procrastinating on it for a year, lmao. So It was kinda a nice relief month where we had finally achieved some important shit, as well as got our first taste ever of working together in-person. Given Cam's someone I've known for years, it was bizarre to put a face to the voice! Or well, spunkey text mostly, but you get me. And just recently Demon Slayer season 2 had wrapped up with it's cool finale. So really January was feeling just like a cozy nice month.

Tangential to setting up a company was game development, but with company stuff having calmed down, now we really wanted to challenge ourselves to wrapping up our work and getting it out into people's hands. Though it's funny how loose ends can really get ya! From taxes, to contracts, to even finalizing album art... lotta stuff crept up! Though around each turn, slowly but carefully we got helping hands on board to solve issues. In terms of the album art which had finally eaten up WAY too much time, @brekkist was brought on board to help out as a general art / animation assistant.

You know I didn't really sit down to write a Funkin recap, but more a year recap. But hey, directing a video game kinda takes up your brain, so my thoughts really are just 90% Funkin. And every gap inbetween those thoughts, is video games! So really the next big landmark of the year, you guessed it, Elden Ring!

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MARCH- CRUNCH & DELAY

Once Elden Ring came out, it pretty much took over the entire Newgrounds office. Try as we might, we had all been cursed to the Lands Between, and only the guidance of grace could save us. Hell, even Tom took like a week off if I remember right, to just comb all of Limgrave and it's unholy secrets.

After an initial honeymoon phase with the game, unlike Cory who beat it in a week or something fuckin deranged like that, Elden Ring was on the back burner (took like til damn August to finish) and the Funkin crunch began. And life is just damn funny man, aside from about 50 billion boring real-life issues cropping up constantly, on the work side of things, the Erect Mixes I asked KawaiSprite to make while we slaved away.... they wrapped up! So now as we tried to tie down the reins on the current content, an order I put in came through. Trying to fit it all in lead the crunch to be enough to post-pone the update to an unannounced date...

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MID YEAR- ANIME EXPO + BEAST GOHAN

As work continued with a fresh mindset and new approaches to development, July came sooner than expected, and I decided on a whim to take up Brekkist's offer of sharing his Anime Expo table with him. It was great meeting our very scary and psychotic fans! That was a damn good refreshing time, I even stopped by Chris' place to chill out and record some Oney Plays for the hell of it.

Big thanks to both Alex (Brekkit's buddy!) who let me stay at his place during the event. Seriously, this dude was getting up after 3 hours of sleep at like 6am to make me and Brek iced coffee for breakfast before table running. What a champ!

And of course thanks to Chris, for letting me stay at your place! Watching anime n browsing classic Newgrounds vids, what better summer can there be?

Hey, it's me! At Brekkit's Anime Expo table!

Returning home, work continued as usual. Having worked for a while on Nightmare Cops, and still helping on it to this day, I definitely got a sense of how daunting and large game development can be. Though really it's just insane how you can work every single day, and just end up with months literally feeling like they're disappearing. The quality of the work is way higher working like that, but god damn! Time just melts. Sometimes when I wonder if all this is normal, or maybe better said, want someone to relate to on this issue, I always go back to this NG newspost.... heheheh. Anyway!

I'd say the light in the dark around then was that FINALLY, Dragonball Super Super Hero came to US theaters! Since the beginning of the year, Akira Toriyama's work has fuckin carried my body around like a corpse in an angel's arms, giving me strength every day. So getting to see a movie, especially one that has the most involvement from the creator of ANY of the movies... fuck... FUCK it was so good. Words can't even describe it man. Saw that shit like 3 times, one of which was with every single person at the NG office. Those moments really make the year honestly.

To catalogue this with more concrete stuff, in August I did a piece for @panpikidaan (kiku)'s friend's Tankman zine art thing! Sorta as an homage to Toriyama's Dr. Slump illustration.

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SEPTEMBER- NINJAMUFFIN AND WANDA ARRIVE!

It had been in the cards for a while, but finally the September trip of @ninjamuffin99 and @wandaboy to Pennsylvania had come to be so. Having fresh faces in town made for a lot of fun, and a lot of nice work getting done. Working in person is nice, since communicating ideas is just way easier to do irl. Plus it's sorta good to breathe down each other's necks and not let the other sleep, you feel motivated seeing the game get updated in real time! Plus, telling Cam what I want, giving him the art to make it real, SEEING him add it in, and then him adding his own twists on top of it... really can't even explain just how magical it is.

Cam passed out on the Newgrounds couch after a long day of work... and Mario64 speedrun watching while eating dinner

Though, light casts shadows, as they say... it's even harder to resist playing video games and eating McDonalds when you've got guests, haha. But hey, life's meant to be damn lived. After Cam headed home, Wanda chilled w me n grinded on his latest cartoon that I lent a small hand with. Around this time, it was a fun routine of grinding in flash from like 4pm to midnight, then going home and playing Resident Evil Mercenaries 3DS while watching near death compilations til like 7am every day.

After Wanda headed off, I was due out to Canada for more IRL FNF development as per planned a ways back... too bad everyone in Canada got covid... d'oh. But, with Chainsaw Man airing (caught up on the manga this year!) and Callisto Protocol coming out, continuing a non-crunch work life ain't so bad. Though a year's worth of working like a goon lead once again to a VItamin D deficiency... As good ol Ivan Alighty would put it... "aw man..."

If you're feeling constantly drained, light headed like you're gonna pass out, everything feels foggy, and your memory is bad.... you've been staying up too late and getting no sunlight probably. Don't be a dope like me, make sure to watch out for that stuff. Praying I don't even up with Togashi body, so best to not ignore shit. ANYWAY

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DECEMBER- SITE SKIN AND AAHHH... NOSTALGIC MEMORIES

Reaching the end of the year here, JohnnyUtah was contemplating how he'd do the NG 2022 Christmas site skin even with all his current Nighmare Cops work... yoink! Ya boy snatched that one, and hey, I had damn fun doin it! Hell, I limped my ass inside after, no joke, getting hit by a fucking car, and finished the skin. And I'd still say it was a highlight of the year for me, even with a busted back!

As the year comes to a close, it's kinda tough to really recall the year in depth. (That's probably the vitamin deficiency) It's been kind of a struggle honestly, even though me and everyone at the NG office + the Funkin crew continue to soldier on. I guess I'm pretty lucky to have all these friends, as well as the support of all the people excited for what we're making. Both Funkin, Nightmare Cops, and even just everyone who enjoys Newgrounds + all the random bits of art we post along the way. It was a fun year of being 27, and I'm just really excited to finally have the mountain of shit we've been working on come out.

Maybe before I talk about any more work or art, probably the part I'll enjoy looking back on if I read this in like 10 years is this. I fucking LOVE working at Newgrounds! I fucking love seeing Tom Fulp everyday! I fucking love getting to make video games and art in Flash everyday! I love getting to help work on the greatest Tom Fulp game ever made! I love that I get to make my own game and tell my own story as well! Even small things like working until 6am, and seeing Cory's groggy face as he wakes up and puts on IrateGamer opening toys and falls asleep again. I love when Jeff wanders over to my desk and peeks at my drawings and we laugh sharing ideas. I love interrupting Tom while he's coding and telling him a 5 minute story that slowly ramps up to be about Starbucks employees beating me up and jerking off and wait to see the look on his face when he realizes it's fake, and hearing Jeff laugh on the other side of the cubicle! I love seeing Ivan's immaculate drawings as we wistfully talk about the future! I love hearing Nightmare Cops music blaring throughout the building as they test the levels, the map theme by Chris is burned into my mind. I love the way Jeff pulls his headphones down to listen in on when Tom n Cory are shooting the shit while game testing. I love playing Nightmare Cops, and I love showing everyone what I'm working on and them offering ideas. Even stuff like Jeff's adlibing during Week 7... God. All the collabs, every cartoon, every drawing, every conversation, every day every moment. Every smile I see them crack, even the hard times and their sighs. Even the worst days are enjoyable being surrounded by these guys.

I could be reborn a thousand times and never live a better life than this. Even before Funkin, even on days where I didn't have a dime to my name. Every day was the best day on earth, and all my friends makes it that way.

Thank you to everyone who supports Newgrounds and lets these days continue.

You're all gay. Lol. Happy 2023!

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PS. Well, there's so much I honestly CAN'T talk about due to keeping things secret! Funkin fans are the most passionate fans of like... anything, ever! So for that reason, we have to keep ALL work close to our chest, it's a good problem to have! But rest assured that throughout everyday of the year, we grinded on the game and are putting in our all. In particular, I've had a grand vision that with Ninjamuffin by my side co-directing, we've worked very very hard to achieve. Maybe after this long a wait, it's hard to hold your breath, but I'M personally excited for people to see all the stuff I've dreamed up and made possible with my friends and all the thousands of hours we've poured into making it. Thank you all!

Selfie time, bling!