Hi all!
I hope everyone is winding down as the year comes to a close and recharging their batteries to start 2025 with great energy! As for myself, I've been taking a break from work and getting addicted to Balatro. It's been a while since a game has hooked me like this, so if you haven't checked it out yet, you definitely should!
Anyway, I wanted to write a little post to reflect on this year.
Art
After being a longtime lurker, I joined Newgrounds this June. Initially, I wasn't sure how my 3D art would be received, but I was pleasantly surprised by the positive reception! It motivated me to keep working harder and improving myself.
It's been great to see so many talented people here with different art styles!
Collabs
Another thing that I feel sets NG apart is the many collabs ongoing. I joined my first collab in the Newgrounds Wii Collab!
It was really fun to see art, music, programming, and many people come together to make things like this possible! I'm looking forward to joining more collabs in the future!
Music
One of the things I wanted to challenge myself with this year was learning video game-style music composition. This is something I'm still not very confident about, as I never took any classes during my teens nor have any formal training. However, I started self-practicing piano and transferring melodies I liked into FL Studio. It's taken a lot of trial and error and a lot of practice, but I feel like I've hopefully improved.
This Halloween, I had my first track front-paged and received good reception. This made me really happy since I was starting to lose motivation, but having people listen to and enjoy your music is really exciting!
Of course, my music still has a long way to go, so I am looking forward to making more music in 2025! My goal is to eventually make music for collabs!
Gamedev
Finally, my biggest ongoing project this year is Pingbert's Snow Ride. While it's still not close to release, I am happy with the progress made this year! Additionally, as I mentioned before, Newgrounds has a lot of talent and people willing to work together. Meeting people here and working together on the game's art and music has been great! I'm looking forward to working together with more people in the future!
Unfortunately, developing this project plus my full-time job has made it difficult to find time to post more art and music. I'm hoping to balance it more next year so I can post more content and join more collabs!
While I joined mid-2024, I feel like it's been an eventful year so far! I'm excited to be more active in 2025 and connect with others! Thanks to everyone I've collaborated with, and thanks to the Newgrounds crew for making all of this possible!
That's it for me now. I wish you all a great 2025!!