Happy 30th everyone!

I was hesitant to bump the recently announced Low Poly Day winners so I’m just making this as a blog post. I wanted to say thank you to everyone who made something to celebrate the occasion, it really means a lot to me.

I gotta plug these three massive projects in particular and there are others in the works so I’ll likely update this list:

I've loved seeing a new Picollage and the art, music and code is all on point, creating a great browsing experience.

The Locker Collab turned out to be so much more fun than I could have hoped and I’m thrilled to see a big turnout!

@larrynachos and team really knocked it out of the park with this one, bringing us Tankmas vibes in Summer but with a whole lotta games.

Many of the entries have been using the newgrounds-30th-anniversary tag, which I recommend for anyone who is posting something to celebrate!

It’s been nice to see people reminisce about their years on NG. It would be cool to see more people from years past turn up to share some memories, along with what they are up to now. I'm always curious about that.

If you’re wondering what NG has been doing for 30 years, read the history page!

Thank you everyone who makes NG a special place. I feel like I should have a lot more words to say today but at the moment I just want to say thank you.

Yesterday was the Game Gallery Meetup, organized by @DeuceLeGoose!

DeuceLeGoose is currently collecting photos and will be making a proper recap post. I just wanted to thank DLG for organizing and everyone who showed up! I got to play Mark of the Wolves, several shooting games and Pac Man Battle Royal with people, enjoyed a lot of pinball and had a good time just hanging out and having a chill day.

Thank you @Mantis for making an event poster!

I got a poster after rolling up, along with a print of this from @KingCrowned:

@SoftPeachBuns surprised me with a Castle Crashers keychain and meetup pin, thank you!!!

Expect a picture of the full crowd when @DeuceLeGoose makes his post but here's a quick pic I took out front:

My favorite pinball machine was The Big Lebowski, which is apparently kinda rare?

Happy Easter btw! I gotta run and do Easter stuff but might add more thoughts later.

In completely unrelated news, here's a Neo Geo demo:

This past Monday I saw this in my mentions:

I took TRMNL up on their offer and they were quick to send one to the office! Here it is:

I always wanted a screen like this at the office but it felt wasteful to have an always-on computer monitor for this sort of thing. TRMNL works great because it's wireless and is expected to run for months without charging (it's an e-ink display like a Kindle screen).

They didn't request or pay for a plug but I feel a plug is warranted since they gave us something cool, go check out TRMNL and see if it's something you might like around the house or office!

Shout out to g0m for making a Newgrounds plugin. The barcode next to each daily winner lets you load it up on your phone to check it out.

I saw this Sonic Blast Man art by @Karakato and it reminded me that SBM was a pretty cool game on SNES.

I like the visual feel of the fast jabs and how he does that spinning windup punch. He also has lots of fun throw moves where he flails enemies around in various ways. His jump animation is cool, likely inspired by Strider.

Overall it's a good SNES showcase with the feel of bringing the arcade home.

Ninja Warriors was another good example of this:

There's a Ninja Warriors remake that I've been meaning to check out, it looks cool:

If you haven't read the NG history, I was obsessed with the Neo Geo. My youth had been plagued by imperfect arcade ports, one of my big memories being the NES port of Double Dragon, which departed drastically from the arcade version and didn't even include two player co-op.

There were a lot of disappointments. The Sears Christmas catalog teased the upcoming Bionic Commando with a screenshot from the arcade version, which simply wasn't possible to reproduce on the NES.

Data East had a questionable habit of showing arcade screenshots on the back of the box, resulting games like Karnov and Kid Niki looking nothing like what you saw in the store.

Then along came the Neo Geo, a system where the games you played in the arcade were the same games you played at home. After dropping a bunch of quarters on Sengoku, it became my mission to have one and I eventually did get one used. As sad as it probably sounds, this was a defining accomplishment in my life.

One thing a lot of Neo Geo fans dreamed about was the potential for other arcade games to be ported to the Neo Geo, as it was powerful enough to run a lot of them. Rumors swirled on Prodigy of games like these existing, for example one friend told me that in Taiwan you could get a bootleg arcade-perfect Mortal Kombat for the Neo Geo. In retrospect that likely wasn't true, regardless the thought tantalized.

More than 30 years later, some of these dreams are actually becoming reality! A dude named Hoffman has recently ported the arcade version of Shinobi to the Neo Geo and is in the process of porting Golden Axe.

Even more wild, there's a remake of the original Double Dragon coming to the Neo Geo but with new "Neo Geo style" art.

People are still making entirely new games for the Neo Geo, too!

Ports go in other directions, too. Neo Geo classic Magician Lord is being ported to the SuperGrafx, another elusive console I always wanted but never obtained.

Meanwhile that Mortal Kombat port finally happened... On the 3DO!

The Neo Geo remains a magical console to me, full of wonder. I aspire for Newgrounds to fill people with this same sense of wonder!

My 2025 vibe so far has been this Philly band Kassie Krut.

Earbuds won't do Racing Man justice, you'll have to listen to it on a big sound system. If you have a car with decent bass that should do the trick.

They're opening for Spirit of the Beehive at Union Transfer in Philly on March 5th!

March 7th update: @IvanAlmighty and I saw Kassie Krut and Spirit of the Beehive in Philly the other night. They were both great!

@AlmightyHans and @InputUnknown visited the office this weekend to do a bunch of Madness-related interviews with @Krinkels, @The-Swain, @Luis, @MindChamber, myself and @BrandyBuizel, who worked with them on the Madness Cinematic Trailer.

I mentioned it in this post but then @BrandyBuizel shared a bunch of photos he took, so I thought a follow-up might be nice for people who like looking at pictures.

@AlmightyHans interviewing @Krinkels and @The-Swain.

@Krinkels deciding how he will kill @The-Swain and me.

@Luis being interviewed.

@Spazkid got a surprise interview too.

@MindChamber enjoying some art with his pizza.

@IvanAlmighty checking on the cattle.

@BrandyBuizel taking a selfie while @Pyragmus and @MindChamber stand around.

I guess that's it, hope you enjoyed!

Bonus Photo: @The-Swain face reveal.

Last night was Short Short Fest in Prospect Park, PA, organized by Lee Thompson and the @Barnhouse Collective. The event was at Marty Magee’s indoor/outdoor patio and the weather just happened to be perfect for a night of watching animation under the stars.

I arrived early to meet up with @Luis and @Krinkels, which worked out well because we snagged a good table complete with drawing paper tablecloth. @MechanicalMantis joined us to complete the set.

@MechanicalMantis, me, @Luis and @Krinkels

I was enjoying the pre-show music and asked Lee who put it together, at which point I was pointed to a guy who just happened to be @topcatyo! Topcatyo has been on NG forever but we’ve never met in-person before. I couldn’t remember if he took a selfie so I reached out for pictures, only to learn he did not in fact take a selfie but did take other great photos.

Topcatyo was also screening “Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse DELETED SCENE.”

I bumped into @Jaime-R! He was there to screen Bet it was Becca, from the Paloni Show Halloween Special on Adult Swim. I don’t think this one is officially available on the web but it’s a must-watch and got the biggest response of the night, as it should because Jaime-R is one of the greatest animators to ever live.

Justin Silverman from Retroware with me and @Jaime-R.

@Brewster was there with a lovely new movie that hasn't been released yet, I'll just say everyone is in for a treat. The last time I saw him at Short Short Fest, he was screening "The Gold Men."

I think @NickSenny was there and I managed to miss him. @PukeBomb was representing with "Seymour Smiles!"

Ben, Raziel and Marcus from @StudioYGKrow were in attendance and screening their film, “Ned and Fred Don't Lose Your Head.”

@RomeoJr wasn’t in attendance but got a lot of laughs with “Kevin’s Mom.”

I don’t know if @chewgumseries was there last night but the Chew Gum Short Film was!

Lee from @Barnhouse screened his film, “Piece of Mind.”

I saw @tristious at a distance but he vanished before I got to say hi. He was there to screen the Hot Razor video he directed and animated for $UICIDEBOY$.

@MeghanLuna, @brooskee, @Jawaddles, @GreenGungeGirl and @Evil-Sora were also there!

The final stop on my way out was the bathroom, where I bumped into @Knights!

I think there is at least one other movie that screened last night that is also on NG but it is escaping my brain at the moment. Let me know if you were there and I didn't include you in this wrap-up!

Bonus picture:

@Krinkels

Here are some tech news videos I've enjoyed over the past month:

"Scientists in Copenhagen have successfully demonstrated a chip that can send enough data every second to cope with the entire internet's traffic, all at a fraction of the energy demand."

"A New Way to Achieve Nuclear Fusion" - this isn't related to the fusion announcement by the government last month, it's a different company that came out of stealth mode afterwards.

"6K Energy has developed an innovative process to produce battery material that leapfrogs legacy battery material processing technology with proven 6,000-degree Kelvin microwave plasma technology, known as UniMelt®. 6K’s UniMelt process can produce multiple chemistries ultra-fast and at substantially lower cost with significantly less environmental impact than the current process. 6K’s UniMelt can produce battery material using 90% less water, generating zero solid and liquid waste and significantly less energy and CO2 emissions."

Latest Boston Dynamics demonstration:

"How Physicists Created a Holographic Wormhole in a Quantum Computer" - interesting developments on the topic of traversable wormholes and the idea that black holes and quantum entanglement are the same thing.

There has been lots of battery tech news over the past month but it's always hard to know what will actually come to market and what technologies will win. BMW announced their Gen 6 battery will offer 30% improved range, 50% reduced cost and 60% reduced carbon emissions to produce. They plan to debut the new batteries in their Neue Klasse models in 2025.

StoreDot's Extreme Fast Charging batteries tout faster charging and higher energy density, have already been confirmed by third parties and are expected to be in production next year.

There are numerous battery factories coming to the US and some good news for Australia, too:

This video about flywheels is an interesting look at how old technology can also meet modern demands:

I've posted before about how I like to keep up with battery tech, so here's some updates from this past month.

NASA is making progress with a solid state battery that weights 30-40% less than conventional lithium-ion batteries with 2-3x the energy density. As a solid state battery it doesn't contain liquid, which solves the flammability issues associated with traditional batteries. It also doesn't use cobalt, nickel, or manganese. These batteries make electric planes a lot more feasible, due to the combination of reduced weight and improved energy density.

We're still gonna need a lot of lithium but as demand grows, the processes to extract and refine lithium will continue to improve. Here's a video about EnergyX, a company that is doing that sort of stuff:

As we move away from fossil fuels as an energy source, the alternatives will keep getting better. Batteries keep getting better, solar panels keep getting better and we keep finding better ways to make both of these with more common resources. More and more money and research will be invested in these spaces as it becomes clear that people won't be buying internal combustion engine cars in the future. As long as we don't get cold feet and turn back, things will continue to get better.

US factory production is apparently the highest it's been in 14 years and it should continue to improve as the US on-shores more of its chip, battery and electric vehicle production. Things still feel like a mess right now but there are a lot of signs that better days are coming. I'm hopeful!