I've been updating the NG History page and thought this would be a good time to share the 2019 recap!
Update: On January 31st, we released the new project system!
2019 Recap
In January we overhauled the Art upload form, making it mobile friendly with a new thumbnailer and better support for thumbnails from animated gifs. We added our new text editor, so artists can include WIPs and alt images in their commentary space. Tag entry got modernized with auto-suggestions.
We celebrated our fourth Pixel Day, with a lot of great entries and a beautiful site skin by @moawling!
Long-time fans were treated to new episodes of Salad Fingers, Starbarians and Madness all in one month. #blessed
In February we updated blogs with the new text editor and tagging, allowing users to blog via mobile for the first time ever and browse blog posts via tag.
Tag search was overhauled, allowing you to search for multiple tags with a more intuitive front-end. We replaced tiny thumbnails with full art pieces directly in the feed and updated the art hub to use our new, larger thumbnails.
We also hosted a Devil May Cry Art Contest and TheEnkian hosted a Tale of Enki Art Contest.
In March Peregrinus organized Voice Acting Contest 12!
April marked the launch of Newgrounds Player, a streamlined desktop player for Flash content that works when browsers don't. NG Player supports our API for medals, high scores and shared creations, ensuring that NG's existing Flash content will remain playable until in-browser emulation arrives!
Random-storykeeper organized the Art Inspired Music Contest this year, a great event that builds a bridge between art and music here on NG.
In May we celebrated Pico Day, complete with a party at PhilaMOCA in downtown Philly organized by @IvanAlmighty.
We introduced content filters for art browsing, so you can block specific users and tags while browsing the Art Portal. We also added "Custom" to the date range selector, so you can browse by specific date ranges.
@CoachFro kicked off the NG Original Character Writing Contest, which continued throughout the year with an art phase, voice phase, theme song phase and animation phase going into 2020! Shout to to CoachFro for also organizing monthly writing contests this year.
Between April and August we hosted a Wick Editor game jam, a Gato Roboto art contest, a My Friend Pedro art contest, an Epic Battle Fantasy Contest, a Knightin+ Art Contest, a Sprite Draw Art Contest.
In June @TaintedLogic organized the Underdog Audio Contest.
In July we added the ability to specify what tools you used to create your animation, game or audio and started to build a database of tools and hardware based on the results. This feature will be used for art as well when the art portal is integrated into our new project system and we have future plans for the database we're building.
@LoboF organized the Music Inspired Art contest this month as well and we migrated everything over to a new, larger storage system!
In August we introduced everyone to Ruffle, Mike's open-source project to emulate Flash in-browser. We also added support for receiving BAT tips in the Brave web browser, nice alternative to Chrome if you are looking to de-Google.
@FelixZophar and @8oltSh0cX organized the NG Remix Contest this year, @MindChamber organized another Robot Day and the Clock Crew once again celebrated Clock Day.
NEAR DEADline was also released and the team behind it (@BrandyBuizel, @NickConter and @Carmet) organized an art contest utilizing the drawing tool on the games' loading screen.
September brought us another great Madness Day and an update to the Classic Portal, making it mobile friendly and introducing ratings filters.
We updated the forums and blog posts so you wouldn't lose your work if you accidentally left the page or closed your window and made some overhauls to the Art Portal scouting system, so large groups of people wouldn't get de-scouted if someone deleted their account. We also updated search to exclude user you've blocked.
October was a Spooktacular month, with many brilliant entries.
We added a dedicated front page spot for Podcasts, thanks in particular to two wonderful community Podcasts: GroundsPatrol and ACoupleOfCrickets.
In December we unveiled an update to the Collabinator, introducing a mobile-friendly layout, new categories for paid work and expanded search and filtering options.
The 2019 Newgrounds Audio Deathmatch was a huge success, culminating in a finale on the Grounds Patrol podcast!
The holidays were extra cheerful, thanks to the community-driven Christmas ADVENTure game / art gallery, the Art Forum Secret Santa organized by @LegolaSS and several improvements to gifting for Supporters.
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That's what I have so far! What were your favorite things that happened on Newgrounds this year? Any events you would like to see added to the history? I think @ninjamuffin99 and @PhantomArcade need some love in there still, among others.
Saturday update: I've added the Music Inspired Art contest, Secret Santa, Classic Portal Overhaul and Voice Acting Contest to the history, in addition to a shout out to @CoachFro for organizing monthly writing contests, which maybe should get individual links?
The history page itself will be getting a mobile-friendly overhaul in early 2020, when the Wiki gets updated. The same will be happening with PMs and the remaining pages that have not yet made the leap.
We have a lot planned for 2020 and that includes starting the year with a lot less ads! This may only last for a month depending on how many new supporters we bring on board. If you like what Newgrounds is doing and appreciate that it's been doing this for over 20 years now, please consider becoming a Supporter!
