My second year on Newgrounds is at an end, and what a time it was.
There was a lot of good stuff that happened this year, so I'm gonna limit myself to the highlights I can remember:
Elite Guard Barracks Membership
The start of my year was a pretty ceremonious one - after putting in a request some time ago (can't remember when), I ended up becoming an official Elite Guard Barracks member, alongside @antmaster208 and @Dreggsu, on January 13th.
I'll be kinda honest, I was expecting to get rejected (mainly for my review quality, which I've since worked on), so I'd like to thank everyone at the Barracks for welcoming me.
Clocks of the BBS 2024
This one was a bit of a "fuck it, why not" situation - after seeing the official thread for Clocks of the BBS 2024 in the "Community" tab, then seeing the official newspost, I decided to send Little-Rena a quick little mousepad doodle (https://www.newgrounds.com/art/view/bluemonday1984/kinitoclock) based off an idle observation and move on.
Cue my surprise when I ended up not only managing to get in, but ended up earning my first frontpage and my first trophy as well when Clocks won Daily 5th! (https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1537377)
I'd like to thank @Little-Rena for accepting my little doodle - I know its not much, but it means a lot to me to see it appear in such a major collab.
This was a blast from start to finish - not only due to the general chaos of the event and the beautiful art involved, but from my creative juices suddenly kicking into high gear, leading me to participate directly by narrating the entire finale.
I met up with @Billy-SuperSkullz there, and went on to become a pretty close friend and occasional muse. He does pretty good buns (in more ways than one).
I also started finding it a lot more fun to write after this, whether it be writing reviews, haikus, or posts like this.
I'd like to thank @TheShokBlok for hosting the event - you're a damn good artist with plenty of improv talent, and I'd love to see you host another GOTM.
The Hexalist
March 30th didn't seem like much of a major day at first - I introduced myself to the Wi/Ht? Level up! Lounge with a post about my stats (quaint as they are in retrospect), and didn't expect it'd amount to much.
Who knew that just a couple months later, I'd hit the 10k save mark and the 10k medal mark in quick succession, thus getting me into the Hexalist in what was probably record time? (That announcement post was a treat to read.)
If you're looking to repeat my feat, I made some pretty detailed lists of the games I was medal-hunting in, starting around mid-April. They should prove pretty helpful.
I'd like to thank @Cyberdevil for keeping the thread running, and for his tireless work on running the Hexalist.
Helping Magnus
Whilst on my way to 10k medals, I also stumbled across @Magnus727 and his medal guides. Beyond simply being helpful for grabbing medals quickly, I also noticed one of his news posts, which had a scant few guides for random medals, but more importantly, an incomplete guide to the Golden Astronauts, a set of 55 secret medals from the work of Jack Astral.
Ten days later, the Golden Astronauts guide was complete, my 10k medal run was that much closer to finishing, and I had found a brand new love.
I'd like to thank Magnus for making some solid medal guides, and I'd like to thank @JackAstral for making some truly excellent VNs and games. You're a national fucking treasure, man.
Hitting Supreme Commander
Despite the general chaos that kicked in around November, I did manage to cap off the year by hitting Supreme Commander on December 7th. I'd like to thank @Gekkotsuki for congratulating me once I hit that major milestone - it made that moment all the more special.
Piconjomas/Creepypasta Jam
This was a set of two collabs I sent entries to on a whim, which I didn't expect to make it into.
For Piconjomas, I sent in a quick-and-dirty two-point rendering experiment after seeing HztaOra's collab thread, and for the Creepypasta Jam, I cranked out a short poem and VA'd it in a few hours.
To my surprise, both my subs made it in. I was especially surprised to see I did so well in the Creepypasta Jam (source) - seems I've got some VA talent I never noticed until now...
You can see my piece in the Piconjomas Art Collab right here - the Creepypasta Collab's gonna come sometime later:
I'd like to thank @HztaOra and @emizip for running their respective collabs/jams - it was real fun to participate in both of them.
CONCLUSION
In summary, 2024 was pretty damn good - I thought last year was a fun ride as well, but that was clearly just a warm-up.
Thanks to all for following me, and happy new year!
ADDENDUM: NG LOG/HEXALIST PROGRESS
DECEMBER 31st, 2023:
DECEMBER 31st, 2024:
