Twenty years ago, I created my Newgrounds account. I had just turned 15, a kid who had already been lurking around the site for a year. I was a huge fan of VGDC (rest in peace, Randy Solem). When my cousin showed me the Rise of the Mushroom Kingdom series, I instantly knew I wanted to learn how to make Flash animations like that. Honestly, I became obsessed with sprite animations.
I downloaded Macromedia Flash MX Professional and, like many others, spent the first few months making a lot of garbage no one would watch. But eventually, I felt ready to share something. My first public animation was so simple:
It marked the beginning of something bigger. The few reviews I got on Newgrounds were positive, and honestly, they gave me life. I felt inspired to keep going. The truth is, I was really struggling in real life at the time. Things were tough, and making animations to later share them became a real refuge. This place gave me purpose, joy, and a sense of belonging I couldn’t find anywhere else.
Not long after, I uploaded Legend of Pokémon, which I had to translate into English with help from @setsuna956, because my English was terrible. To my surprise, it got an amazing reception. Today, it has over half a million views and more than 650 reviews. That really boosted my confidence, and from there, I dove headfirst into Flash, lol.
Around that time, I discovered @RupeeClock’s animations and got really interested in joining the Clock Crew to become his friend, so it happened and started learning english just like that. I joined the crew under the name @SharinganClock (though I was never a Naruto fan). Later, I switched to @ParappaClock, which felt more like me.
I started making short Clock animations and other short sprite clips, but I was too shy to post them on Newgrounds. Instead, I shared them privately with friends and uploaded them to SheezyArt, which became my "safe zone" for stuff I didn’t dare to submit to the Flash Portal.
Then came All Your Base. February 2006 was huge for me, my tribute animation to that meme made my first Front Page and even won three awards and cash. Incredible.
Around that time, I also started meeting incredible people through Newgrounds, artists and animators like @Rebaz, @GoldenFox, @FrozenFire, @Dan-Dark, @Rule, @MichaFrario, @SuperColoroid, @DuDuL, and others whose names I sadly no longer remember... but their presence meant a lot to me back then. It really felt like a community. I lost contact with many of them, many are inactive nowadays.
2006 became my most productive year on Newgrounds. I also released my first Furry Random Stuffs movie, a collection of mini-animations I never dared to post individually. I took the joke of being called a furry to create such name. I also joined my first collab and even hosted a Clock Crew one:
And here on Newgrounds, on Valentine’s Day, I met @Markanime, who’s been a close friend of mine for over 17 years now. You can even check out a remake of the animation Marco uploaded that very day:
I also remember proudly winning a Christmas animation contest organized by @Godlimations, where we had to make a short holiday-themed animation. It was a small event, but meant a lot to me at the time and felt like real recognition for my work. With the prize money, I got a Wacom, which I sadly never used much.
That same year, during the Power of Three game jam hosted by Newgrounds, I created JOYCOT Entertainment (which is still active) and designed Kazami with @Cris-Fox, the girl from my avatar. She was born out of that spirit of collaboration and experimentation, and even if the project didn’t go far, she’s stuck with me ever since.
As I couldn’t dedicate as much time to animating as before, I teamed up with NinJaco, a very close friend at the time, and together we made The Magician and SWEET GRIM, before he eventually adopted the name @TwistedGrim. Both movies were rushed in less of a month! And so on, with the cash, Twisted got his Wacom and created a Youtube channel months later!
Then I fell into a deep depression in 2012. Previously, my ex-girlfriend cheated on me and some members from the Clock Crew bullied Rupee and me even harassed. So, I decided to reduce my presence on social media and lay low for years. Life got a lot harder, and I ended up getting addicted to League of Legends. But hey, things are better these days! I’ve shifted my focus more toward programming and music, and I’m in a much healthier place now.
When Flash reached EOL in late 2020, it hit me hard, I was finally getting the hang of AS2 for retro gaming. Suenio was an experimental game using some libraries I created called Retro FL, made specifically for Flash AS2. Sadly, these libraries don't work on Ruffle and probably never will, as even desktop Flash Player 32 struggles with them too. I’m currently migrating everything to be compatible with Ruffle, optimizing it along the way, and it's going well!
Many people first discovered me through a a very popular post I made back then, trying to revive Flash before Newgrounds had its own player. In the end, Flash Player died, but thankfully, Ruffle stepped in to help. While Ruffle is still evolving and hasn’t reached its first official release, I developed Flash Forwarder Tools to help those who couldn’t get the NG Flash Player working. I recently released version 2.0, and I’m happy to keep contributing to preserving Flash content.
In 2022, @Markanime also released his biggest game on Wii U and Switch, Pad of Time, featuring music composed by me. This followed the earlier release of El Silla on Wii U, which also included tracks by me. The game is released on Newgrounds for free if you are a supporter:
This year, I’ve also decided to make all my music, including tracks from those games, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) license. This means:
You can now use my music from Newgrounds however you like, as long as you give me credit in your web-based projects. I’ve also enabled downloads, embedding, and external API use. Feel free to use it in non-commercial projects (no selling or stores), including games, animations, Twitch streams (even if you're a Twitch Partner), YouTube videos (even if they include ads), and more. I’m also okay with you using it in desktop games, as long as they’re not commercial.
Thanks for reading, and if you were there during those early days, thank you for being part of something that truly kept me going. Oh, and I ended picking up a legal Flash 8 licence in 2013. Pls Abobo, don't sue me :)
Edit: We reached 1,500 fans today, wooh!
