what a portfolio, huh?

hey everyone, it feels a little early to be doin' a year in review recap, but the thought of writing one of deez excited me, and since I don't have anything else planned until 2024, I thought I might as well just give it a go. I'm also gonna be including some 2022 stuff as well, since I never made any sort of recap nor was I very present here on ng until the very end of 22'.

QUICK 2022 RECAP

I only started doing stuff here on newgrounds near the beginning of 2022. I only uploaded a few pieces of art, and one shitty little game. From August - October, I worked on a long personal game, but after awhile I soon realized I was nowhere near prepared enough to make what I had scoped out for myself. I knew if I continued, I'd only waste my time making something utterly shit, so I shifted focus. I made Snack Slice instead, and threw it here on newgrounds. When Snack Slice got front paged, I suddenly had a lot more motivation to make smaller games for this lovely website. A month later, I made Cake Quake.

2023 PROJECTS

SQUADADDLE

At the beginning of the year, I started with a plan to create 1 little game each month of the year, to gather practice. I immediately failed when I spent too long making SQUADADDLE, released in February. Looking back, I wish I had delayed this game even further. While the game is juicy, with bangin' tunes and visuals, I failed to see just how difficult it was. Overall, I'm still pretty proud of it, just wish it had an extra week or two in the oven. It was also awesome to work with @iMustFeedit who made the bangin' tunes. This was also the first time I've won a monthly here on newgrounds! That was an exciting day.

LUNAR WORM

Lunar Worm, similar to squadaddle, kinda fucks in the juice department but is overall lacking. It was just made primarily to get a lil idea I had out of my brain though, so it accomplished its goal. Also, bangin' tunes as always.

HELIOX STATION

Heliox Station is the longest amount of time I've ever spent on a single project that I actually finished. I wrote devlogs here on newgrounds about this game, so you can read those if you really want to learn more, I won't bother repeating it. I started that game out of a desire to make something with a little more story to it. After a while though, I ended up just not having the energy to bring it up to par with what I truly wanted it to be. It's got a faint oooooh mystery lore shit to it, but it not what I ultimately wanted it to be. Overall though, compared to my previous puzzle type games, it fucks. And that's a win for me. It was also nice to work with my epic swag partner @Staggernight on something.

PNGTUBER PLUS

PNGTuber Plus is a weirder project of mine. It's not really related to anything I've done on newgrounds, but I should still talk about it since its taken up quite a big chunk of my active brain since I released it. A while while ago, I made a custom program that would give me a slightly more animated avatar on my rare twitch livestreams. It was all hard coded though, and at some point I got the idea to make a program that would allow anybody to import their images and make goody little avatars. I threw it together in just a week (rather sloppily in all honesty), and it ended up doing unbelievably well over on twitter dot com. That was, alarming, to say the least. Suddenly the amount of bug reports I was getting made me regret making it so fast lol. But it ended up alright, and I want to thank all the people who've used it and donated to it! Your generosity means I'm gonna be able to move out sometime in 2024, and god am I grateful. fuck

https://kaiakairos.itch.io/pngtuber-plus

SENTIENT CLEANING DEVICE

Tom Fulp announced the Halloween Spooktacular, and I wanted to try my luck at making something spooky. I thought of using "limited perception" as a scaaaaaaarry game mechanic, and eventually that turned into Sentient Cleaning Device. In my humble opinion, sentient cleaning device sucks a whole lotta ass, but I didn't care. Usually, something of mine sucking ass would get to me a bit. I can be a little hard on myself when it comes to this type of stuff. But something about this project helped me let that idea go. It sucks ass, but that's alright. So you can imagine my astonishment when SCD won 2nd place in the spooktacular!! I still don't really get it lol, but again, thanks so much to the judges and mister fulp of course.

PLUMER QUEST

The last game of 2023 is a special one to me. It sucks, it's stupid, and it rocks.

2023 ART

I've drawn for the longest time, my entire life, but I has sort of lost my passion for art. It really slogged away in my high school years, and it stuck like that afterwards too. Something about newgrounds though, it's really given me new life. I can officially say that in 2023, I'm starting to like drawing again, I only wish I could do both game dev and drawing at the same time lol. Anyways, I'd just like to display some of my personal favorites I've done this last year.

there's also quite a few nice sketches over on my twitter but bleh bleh whateva'

2023 LIFE

I don't wanna get too personal on da timeline, my private life is just not something I wanna make a habit of sharing. I can share a lil bit tho. Like I said, for the first time since I was a small little kid I feel pretty passionate about my silly little projects and art, and that's awesome. its a feeling i've missed. it's easy to feel a little,, behind,, given all the time i just spent doing fuck all nothing. But it's better late than never. I've been tryin to make games for more than a decade now, and getting to it again (especially with my adult brain) is just incredible.

Workin my real job's been goin well. Not gonna share too much about that, but I've never been one for bein' a wagie so the fact I've been able to stick with my current job and not hate it to high heaven is a huge win in my book.

I turned 21 this year,, I don't drink though so it doesn't mean a whole lot to me lol

Oh, and this year my long distance relationship is no longer long ! We still don't live together, but its nice actually being able to see your partner whenever. huge, HUGE win.

This November I went to Oregon with my partner, and it was lovely. It's the first time I've ever been out on my own trip as an adult, that's worth something I think. Thanksgiving food rocks as always.

2024 FUTURE

There's a lot I want to do still. Not everything will be done is 2024. Some of its certainly more of a 2025 type of adventure. But we'll work on it when we get there...

I'm lazy so imma just make a list :

• Finish Snack Slice 2, planning to be my first ever steam game!
• Practice by making some small story type games. I want to learn how to write!
• Continue to update PNGTuber Plus or possibly completely rewrite it
• Finally move out ! Been a long time coming.
• Maybe finally learn how to make music better. A skill I've wanted to acquire but its been hard finding the time.
• I want to participate in the newgrounds community more!! I've done a lot of solo work, but I'd like to try my hands at some more collaborative projects or even try my hand at some animation. (if there are any collabs comin up or u need me to program a game collab jus hmu im serious)
• Also want to meet more people, here on newgrounds and just in general.
• Draw more. Just a lot. Remember to use my stupid sketchbook. ive been SLACKING!!
• Probably more stuff that I can't think of rn. I'm sure I'll pick some new ones up during the year too.

CONCLUSION

It feels a bit stupid to say, but god damn. Newgrounds has done so much for me. Creativity and makin' stuff means everything to me. Newgrounds revitalized my desire to be creative, and pulled me along with it.

Every year I find myself becoming more and more of a fleshed out character, and who I was even just a year ago starts to feel more and more distant. I could have never guessed who I'd become back then, and I imagine I can't predict who I'll be when I'm writing my 2024 recap either. The battle with my stupid gay mental health is ongoing but I'm determined to see it through. I've been getting better every year, I've been acquiring more skills every year, and I've been learning new things every year. 2023 is not my peak though, not just yet. I've got some work to do.

thanks to tom for sending me this rockin' sticker

happy new year newgrounds !