Interview No. 71

Interview By: @Ryanson

Newgrounds can be seen as a country all its own, if you'd let yourself see it that way. It's just one of many lands in the wide world known as the Internet, with its own group of administrators and rules, its own icons and popular culture, and most importantly its own group of famous celebrities... and people who live to respond to any- and everything that celebrity does.

But then there are people who allow themselves to break free of such limitations.

For those not in the know, please allow me to introduce Rina-chan. Easily one of the most well-known people on the internet, a mention of her screen-name alone can invoke strong emotion from either side of the cynic/idealist scale depending on a variety of factors. To remain unbiased about her is hard - I'm having a hard time myself writing anything that doesn't completely praise her, while also watching my words carefully to see that I don't accidentally insult her in any way. I think where I lie on that scale will be obvious in my questions though - and dammit, I wouldn't have even done the interview otherwise.

I've been looking forward to this for about a year (!!!), but have been far too lazy to do anything about it. When I finally got to it... I found the overall content lackluster, through no fault of Rina-chan's. I've been away from the game for a long time. Perhaps I let myself get carried away; maybe I should have started with lesser names, worked on my questions (written a year ago, constantly revised during the interview itself) a bit longer... Procrastination, man.

Either way though, this is not about me. This is about Kira Buckland a.k.a. @Rina-chan. Without further ado then...

Q: Hello Ms. Rina-chan. Or is there a simpler name I can refer to you as?

A: Doesn't matter xD

Q: Doesn't Matter it is :P How is it there in Alaska?

A: It's getting cold.

Q: This interview is going up on Newgrounds, so for those users who may not have heard of you... who are you and what do you do?

A: I'm a voice actress for various online media. I joined Newgrounds in the fall of 2004 (my original username was "KagomeHigurashi"--LOL) and started a Voice Acting thread on the BBS which later disbanded in favor of its own forum (voiceactingclub.com) for animators and voice actors to link up with each other. I've also written a few silly parodies for fun, like the "Brawl Taunts" trilogy, although now I'm trying to focus exclusively on voice work.

Q: So then, what does an average day consist of for you?

A: I work at a small, locally owned coffee shop as a barista, so I'll spend most of my day making and serving espresso drinks to customers. When I get home, I usually record lines for people or attend videogame tournaments/sessions.

Q: Online, you've been known as a lot of names -- I originally knew of you as Kagome. Are you still a fan of InuYasha? Did you get to see or read how it ended?

A: It's actually been quite a few years since I've watched or read Inuyasha, although I was a huge fan of it back in high school and Kagome was my first ever cosplay. I don't have time to watch much anime these days---I'm more into video games.

Q: This is an obvious question, but why did you change your name?

A: Kagome was a generic username that a lot of people had. I wanted people to be able to find me in search engines if they looked up my name from credits of a flash movie.

Q: And why "Rina-chan?"

A: Rina-chan is a completely random name that came to me one day when I decided I needed something different.

Q: So, how did you first come across Newgrounds?

A: I don't remember entirely, but I'm pretty sure it was because people in my high school anime club would watch movies on there, and I'd been trying to get into voice acting, so I signed up and started emailing animators asking if they needed extra female voices.

Q: Speaking of, that's probably what you're most well-known for -- voice acting. How'd you get into that whole deal?

A: When I was sixteen, a girl in our DDR group showed us some voice clips she'd recorded for people online. I thought it sounded like a lot of fun and asked her how I could get started. So I joined the VAA with the horrible sounding $10 microphone I had at the time and started auditioning for things.

Q: Did you ever... expect to be as popular as you've become over the last few years?

A: No, although I always had the goal to get my voice out there more and be in more things. A lot of it was luck, honestly. There are plenty of online voice actresses who are just as talented, if not more so, but I got started on Newgrounds early---back in the day when for most of the girl roles, people would pitch up their own voices or get their sisters to do it. Now, people have a lot more options to find voice talent.

Q: How does it feel being asked to do all these voices for online projects? Last I remember, your FAQ says you lost count of all your numerous roles. Over 1000, I think?

A: I'm really grateful that I don't have to spend much time auditioning these days---people just e-mail me and already have a character picked out for me to voice. But sometimes it gets overwhelming because I have a real job during the day and go to tournaments in the evening...I'm not always so good with deadlines.

Q: Do you usually help the makers of these various projects in other ways besides voice acting for them?

A: I don't know how to draw or animate, so I usually just voice act. The exceptions are things like parodies that I've written. But usually animators want to write their own stuff.

Q: What kinds of equipment and/or programs do you use to record yourself, personally?

A: I use a Samson C01U and record with Audacity. A USB microphone is important because it doesn't run through the sound card, so you can use it on any computer for pretty much the same results, and it reduces hiss and static.

Q: As you've stated earlier, you've also started your own voice acting forum. How'd that whole idea come about? Or I guess more accurately, how did you start the club on Newgrounds, and how did it evolve into the forum as it is today?

A: I started a thread in the Clubs and Crews section back in '05 because I thought it might be a good idea to have sort of a central place where people could say "hey, I voice act, here's my demo" or "hey, I'm an animator who needs these certain voices." But because you can't edit or delete posts, and none of us were moderators, it was nearly impossible to organize or enforce rules. So it was just easier to make a separate forum. But now we get more than just flash requests---machinimators come there a lot, and even some paying projects have shown up.

Q: Really? What kinds of paying projects?

A: They're mostly things like mobile games and apps. A few times we've had flash artists offer to share ad revenue or sponsorship earnings with the voice actors. And sometimes people donate after I complete voice work for them, which is really cool.

Q: A side-note, on the forum you're known as Haushinka, right? Your official website is named Suzumiya-Haruhi. A lot of anime inspired names. Any reason for not just naming yourself Rina-chan on all of them?

A: Haushinka is actually my username on the Voice Acting Alliance, which is a different forum that's been around longer (I'm not staff there or anything) and I've been on it forever so I didn't want to change it. That name came from a Green Day song. I should have just used it for everything, but it's too late to really change anything now!

Q: On your F.A.Q. you say your first role was in an unfinished radioplay as the character Sailor Mars. If the opportunity presented itself, would you ever reprise your role?

A: Yes, I actually did end up playing her later in a few fandubs and such. I just remembered that because it was the first role I actually got cast in. I think the first thing I was in that got completed was Ichigo in a Tokyo Mew Mew fandub back in 2004.

Q: A pretty big role, how'd you get the various female voices in Castle Crashers?

A: Tom Fulp actually contacted me directly to do that one! From what I can tell, the contributors to that game were all people from the Newgrounds community (the soundtrack was from Audio Portal artists) so I think that's why I got the part.

Q: And how'd you feel when you were contacted? That's not an everyday occurance, I'm sure.

A: It was so exciting! But I had to keep it secret until the game was released. That's how it is for pretty much any professional role---you're not allowed to give any information to people unless the developers say it themselves.

Q: Out of all your roles and performances, do you have any favorites?

A: I always like playing Princess Peach in things. It's just such a fun role, and she's the character I use in Melee.

Q: Voice-acting-wise, who are some of your role models?

A: My biggest role model is Tara Strong. She can make her voice do so many different things, and she doesn't get typecast into doing just one certain voice. That's something I really want to work on myself, because people ask me to do the same voice a lot and it's too recognizable. Michelle Ruff is another inspiration of mine for the same reason.

Q: Aside from voice-acting, I also hear that you can sing...

A: Just for fun. It's mostly like...me singing My Little Pony songs in my car when no one else can hear. But it's something I'd like to work on, because it makes you more marketable in the voice acting field.

Q: One of your most famous series online is of course"Brawl Taunts," a collab with Kirbopher. First, how did you and Kirbopher actually meet?

A: We met online---he was one of the animators I emailed asking about voices when I first got started.

Q: And how did the idea for Brawl Taunts get started?

A: It started with me sitting in my friend's living room talking about how ridiculous Dedede's final smash looked, and him saying "Show me ya boobs!" in the Captain Falcon voice.

Q: You've also been involved with Kirbopher in a few other collabs. What's it like working with him?

A: Fun. We're really close friends, even though he lives all the way in New York and we've only met in person a couple of times.

Q: Another famous collab you were involved in was made by Ed, of Eddsworld fame. What was it like working with him?

A: That was so many years ago, so I don't remember much... it was pretty much normal, like I get a script and then send the mp3s back through e-mail.

Q: Besides being a voice actress, I've read that you're also a professional gamer. How'd you get into that?

A: I'm actually not a professional gamer (not good enough to be one, haha!) but I do compete in tournaments regularly. The main games I compete for are Smash Bros Brawl & Melee, Street Fighter, and Pokemon.

Q: Ever win any big prizes?

A: The highest I've ever gotten in a tournament was third, and that was for Brawl. I can't spend as much time on gaming as I'd like to these days because I'm focusing on trying to build my career. One of my favorite games of all time is actually Guilty Gear, but they don't really have tournaments for that anymore.

Q: Besides your online resume, which seems impressive enough, you've also done work outside of the internet. "Official" work. What was the first "real" voice-over work you've ever done? Did they get in contact with you, or you with them?

A: The first professional project I did was extras for an anime called Tweeny Witches. I got connected with the company that dubbed it after winning the AX Idol voice acting competition in 2007. Then I got a bigger role as Eri in AiKa R-16. Soon I'm moving back to California so I'll be able to start doing official work again.

Q: Aside from the admiration you get from fans, you also get a good deal of criticism for various reasons. How do you yourself handle such criticism, or even extreme hate for you and your work?

A: There's nothing I can really do about the hate, so I try to ignore it for the most part and just work on improving myself. Every once in a while someone will give me criticism that is actually constructive, so in that case I can take it into consideration to better my work. But I'm still not sure why people bother to make comments like "you suck" because there's nothing I can learn or take away from that. It's not going to help me better myself in any way, because it's not a specific critique.

Q: If I may use a specific example of the extreme hate, one of the most in/famous "attacks" on you recently was "Street Fighter Chode." Have you seen it?

A: I didn't even bother to watch that. Someone posed as me writing a fake review on it though, so I just reported that account to Newgrounds and they deleted it.

Q: Being a girl on the Internet with any bit of fame must be tough enough without all the criticism. I don't envy you. Regarding any love-letters or creepy stalkers, is there anything you want to say to any and all those guys who are up in your grill?

A: Honestly, I find it funny. Because in real life I always get turned down by the guys I like! Although, "I fapped to your voice" is a really awkward comment to get...

Q: In your spare time, do you watch any series on Youtube, or Newgrounds?

A: I've been following all the My Little Pony episodes on YouTube! But... as far as user-created content, I haven't been following anything specific. Usually I just end up watching things that my friends link me to.

Q: How often do you visit the Newgrounds community nowadays?

A: Not as much as I used to. I stay away from the BBS these days, and just tell people to email me if they have a voice request. There's a lot of negativity there that I don't want to deal with right now with all the other things going on in life.

Q: Speaking of... are there any plans for the future you want to discuss? Any upcoming projects, cons we can look forward to?

A: Nothing too major at the moment, although I do record for things almost every day. But I usually post up various cool things I'm in over at my Facebook page. I wish I could afford to travel for cons! But I'll probably be attending some as soon as I move to California, because there are lots of them within driving distance. I usually end up hanging out in the console room the whole time anyway.

Q: What's been playing on your iPod recently?

A: A lot of Korean pop! I'm not even joking. It's really awesome. Like... SHINee. And Big Bang, they're my favorite. I just have to say, Korean guys are really hot! I wish I had more Korean fans, haha.

Q: Being a video gamer, what are some of your faves? That aren't fighting games, of course...

A: Well that's a tough one because I mostly play fighting games! But as for things completely out of that genre... I loved all the Ace Attorney installments. And Pokemon! I meet up with a group of people every week and we battle our Pokemon. We have gym leaders and everything.

Q: I only mentioned fighting games because I assumed that, as you go to tournaments, you play mostly fighting games

A: That's true. Street Fighter (various versions), Guilty Gear, Tekken, MvC3, Tatsunoko...

Q: What are some of your favorite movies? Recent or over-all.

A: Well, I could watch Ninja Assassin over and over. But that's not even because of the plot, it's because of Rain and all his shirtless scenes.

I must sound like a perv XD

Q: Will the world end in 2012?

A: Nope!

Q: What trend are you tired of hearing about, that you just wanna go away?

A: Well, I wouldn't call it a trend, but I hate all the spammy stuff that goes around on Facebook. Like, "repost this if you agree" messages and people including me in huge group conversations to promote their websites or tagging me in pictures that have absolutely nothing to do with me, just to get more views. So I guess you could say certain types of Facebook behavior just need to go away.

Q: Is there anything about you that you'd like to share with the users of Newgrounds? A secret perhaps?

A: Well, I'm learning Korean. I guess a lot of people don't know that unless they're friends with me.

Q: To pick up those hot Korean guys? ;)

A: Haha, well that's part of it! but I like learning new languages

Q: Any advice you want to give to your fans, or for people who unknowingly wish to follow in your footsteps?

A: A lot of people ask me for advice on voice acting... the biggest tips I can give are to 1) practice constantly - pay attention to voice acting in the cartoons you watch, the games you play, even commercials you hear - and think, What made this voiceover good/bad? What can I take away from this? And 2) take acting lessons. It's cool if you can do funny voices or sound like Solid Snake or whatever, but you have to have feeling and motivation behind your lines, and acting classes are the best way to learn that.

Q: Thank you for taking the time out to talk with me. Any last words before we wrap this up and send this on its way?

A: Yes... feel free to email me or add or like me on Facebook/Twitter! I'm really a nice person :)

Interview No. 70

Interview By: @The-Great-One

Today's guest is certainly a hidden Newgrounds member despite his stuff being shown through different collection pages. He has his own collection page by the name of Jimtopia which has featured Jim and Pals Shorts. However he has branched out on a past Robot Day with the submission Turing Test. He is none other than @Jimtopia

Q: How did you find Newgrounds and why did you join?

A: Near the end of 2005 I really started to get into flash animation, and a good friend of mine (who I still hang out with to this day) took notice and suggested that I begin posting my works where people could see them, namely Newgrounds. When he told me about it I didn't think I was good enough to post my cartoons online, however, several months later, after just finishing Stuck in the Desert I decided to take a chance and see what people thought of my stuff. I guess I joined because, living in the middle of nowhere, there's not a lot of people I can show my work too, so I realized that posting them online was the only way I would ever get any kind of realistic feedback.

Q: Your first flash would in turn start the Jimtopia series. This flash would be entitled Stuck in the Desert. Where did the idea come from for this flash and looking back on it are you still proud of it?

A: I distinctly remember a Cartoon Network promo using "The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas," for one of their little "between-commercial" spots (I think it was something to do with going outside in the summer, I can't really remember), and I thought it was pretty catchy so I did a little research online and managed to find out what the song was and who it was by. Upon listening to it, I can't remember how exactly, but I came up with the idea of it being the worst song to have to listen to when you're stuck in the desert, and thus the idea for "Stuck in the Desert" was born. I wouldn't say I'm really proud of that cartoon any more, however I do think it's a good first submission. It's a silly idea and all the concepts and jokes come across fairly clearly in the (very basic) animation.

Q: Jim: His Hidden Life would bring forth some new characters to the world of Jimtopia. Are these characters based off of any real life friends?

A: Nah, Jim's friends all just kind of spawned out of me needing people for Jim to bounce jokes and ideas off of. "Hmm, I need someone to beat up Jim for this joke. I know, I'll create a bully!" "Oh, Jim needs to be chatting with a friend for this joke, how about a goth kid?" And so on and so forth. Once I got to 6 characters I decided that was enough and that became the official group, so to speak.

Q: What is the Spongebob Best Day Ever Music Collab?

A: Wow, I had totally forgotten about this. Spongebob's "Best Day Ever," is a song from the Spongebob Squarepants soundtrack that is actually quite catchy. I grew up watching Spongebob, so when I saw this collab in the forums I decided to join up. If I remember correctly nothing ever came of it though, it just kind of died due to lack of interest.

Q: Jimtopia Changes would have you break the fourth wall on many different levels. I see this flash for the most part as a parody of what over-protective parent activists think about television violence and what they would do. Is that what you were going for or were you going with a different route?

A: Upon re-watching it just now I suppose that was sort of the idea I was trying to get across, though at the time I don't think I was consciously trying to convey any sort of greater message. The humor in Jimtopia, at least in my mind, has always been that his world is sort of this blank slate, there's no canon or continuity (or there very rarely is anyway), and so I could pretty much do whatever ideas came to mind, and the idea of his actions becoming more and more censored and "child-friendly" as they happened struck me as entertaining.

Q: Before we continue I want to talk about the Tetris Unleashed trilogy. It started with Tetris Unleashed, then Tetris Unleashed 2 and ending off with Tetris Unleashed 3. Where did the ideas come from for all three of these, and what made you want to make two sequels?

A: The Tetris Unleashed series is a very odd specimen in my collection, as much as I hate doing anything remotely serious with Jim, all three of these seemed to turn out well. It's weird, back when I made these I had no particular interest in Tetris, I wasn't very good at it, and honestly I think the only reason I made them is because I enjoyed the Tetris theme song so much that I wanted to make cartoons using it. Ironically now that I'm not doing that series anymore I actually have gotten very good at Tetris, my current record stands at 40 lines in 41 seconds!

Q: We now come to the "Jim and Pals Shorts" starting with Jim and Pals Shorts: Ep 1. Certainly a creative idea, are the idea of the flash and the spawning of the idea similar? In other words did a song just pop into your head while you were thinking? If so which song, if not then where did this idea come from?

A: I think this idea actually just spawned out of laziness. I was trying to think of a funny, easy to animate concept that would be a good character introduction for Jim and his friends, and this is what I came up with. It required very little actual character animation, and it was pretty easy to put together. I really don't remember where exactly the idea came from for thoughts to be translated into music though. My best guess would be that it started with me trying to think of songs that best fit the characters personalities, and then that somehow morphed into thoughts being turned into music.

Q: Episodes 2 and 3 of Jim and Pals Shorts would give comedic laughs and play around with a quote literally. Jim and Pals Shorts: Ep 4 is a bit different. It involves the game Pong no doubt, and although it is short there is a fair bit of writing here. How did this concept come to you and what was the process in creating it?

A: The idea for this one came from when me and a friend were working on a flash pong game (which I believe you can find in my 2007 submissions still), and there was a weird glitch where the ball would get stuck in the paddle and just shoot back at lightning speed. We thought it was hilarious at the time, and I translated that into the idea of how dangerous it would be to be on the pong field when that happened. So that's where Jim and Pals 4 came from.

Q: From one video game parody we jump into another with Jim and Pals Shorts: Ep 5. This time with the game Portal. Where did the idea come from for this one and with the release of Portal 2 will we see another one of these?

A: This episode just came from funny little ideas I got while playing the original Portal. I don't think I'll be doing another one for Portal 2, for two reasons. Number one being that I haven't had a chance to play Portal 2 yet (despite really wanting to), and number two being that I'm sure by the time I do play it every parody and joke will have been done to death.

Q: My favorite flash by you has to be Jim and Pals Shorts: Ep 6. This was not only very creative and funny, it would also be the first time we hear voices for the characters. What all can you tell us about this short and how did you get these two as voice actors?

A: I don't ever remember doing a casting call or anything, I think I just heard there voices in other flashes that I had seen and decided to contact them about voicing Jim and Gary. I actually still keep in contact with the guy who voiced Jim, turns out he's a pretty cool dude. As far as the short itself goes, I don't think there's too much I can talk about, a friend of mine made almost the exact joke that you see in the episode and I thought it would translate well to a cartoon so I made it the joke for Jim and Pals Episode 6.

Q: There comes a time in every artist or animator's time when they realize that they truly are enjoying what they're doing, they then see that they may be limited as to what they have and thus expand. You would take this venture with Jim and Pals Shorts: Ep 8. When it comes to working with flash could you please tell our readers is it difficult or can it come to them overtime?

A: Growing up, I was not a very artistic person. I very rarely drew as a child, I didn't really make music or write, but for some reason near the end of middle school I decided to start fiddling around with animation, and although I'm nowhere near being a decent animator yet, I am progressing. My point being, if I, someone who had zero artistic training or experience, could figure it out then I'm sure anyone reading this could as well. You've just got to keep practicing.

Q: Fizz (Episode 1) would be a revival of one of your earlier flashes Fizz. Why the urge to revive this character and wait this long to do so?

A: Fizz is one of those characters that I thought of when I was a kid and he just always stuck with me. Early on in my Newgrounds career, when I was trying to do new things and practice animation, I remembered Fizz, and I thought it'd be fun to do a cartoon of him battling a robot, however since I was still very new to animation at the time, I had to work under my own artistic limitations, so Fizz was reduced to a "Jimtopia style" caricature. Later on down the road I, once again, remembered Fizz and decided that I was finally at a point (artistically) where I could do the character justice, so I created the Fizz you see in Fizz Episode 1. Sadly I don't think there's going to be an Episode 2 for that series, though maybe someday I'll release the audio for what would've been Episode 2, all the VA's I got on-board did an amazing job.

Q: The one flash that would take a year before being released would be Jim and Pals Shorts Ep 10. You have told people why this was through a news post, but for our readers could you give us a small rundown?

A: To put it simply, I wanted to make Jim and Pals 10 a special episode, but that plan very quickly fell apart, and after that experience I decided to focus my efforts more towards Fizz Episode 1. So by the time that was done, school and work had already started back up for me, and as a result Jim and Pals 10 ended up taking way longer than any of the previous installments and thus it released nearly a year after Jim and Pals 9. Interestingly enough though, Jim and Pals 10 is my favorite one out of all of them.

Q: Your best flash movie on Newgrounds is your latest one entitled Turing Test. I am very curious about the inspiration for this one. What all can you tell us about this flash?

A: This flash was inspired by a story I read, which was written by a man named Sam Hughes. I was attempting to think of something to do for Robot Day 2010, and the idea of translating one of Sam's works into an animated feature had always been in the back of my mind, so I decided to use his story "The Difference" (which you can find here: http://qntm.org/difference), as a template, and write a script based on the idea of a supposed chat bot trying to convince people that it was, in fact, human. Despite the time constraints of getting it ready and submitted for Robot Day, I'm fairly happy with how Turing Test came out. I actually almost abandoned the project halfway through because I thought the Newgrounds community would hate it, boy was I shocked when it ended up being my most popular flash.

Q: What is Retro 280?

A: My first foray into the world of music production. I had a brief phase in my early teen years where I wanted to make electronic music, so one year for christmas I got an electric keyboard and I started making my own music under the monicker "Retro 280." Not sure why I chose that name to be honest. I guess it sounded cool to me back then. That phase did end up dying off, but recently (in the last couple years) it has resurfaced.

Q: Your first step into the Audio Portal would be with a song entitled Borgs. What was the process you and your band took into creating this song and looking back on it are you still proud of it?

A: I actually only posted those first few songs to test out the Audio Portal. Really though I'm not proud of any of of my stuff currently in the Audio Portal. I'd love to post some of my newer stuff, but since Newgrounds uses a Creative Commons license, then I can't post nearly any of my new tracks due to my use of sampling.

Q: The Interviewer has spoken to many different singers in the past and I assume we can add your name to this list. About Boredom is certainly quite the song. Are you the one singing in this song and where did the inspiration come from?

A: I am singing in that one, though that's a very rare thing. Frankly I don't like singing very much and I don't really do it anymore. That song is a special exception because the way it was structured required some sort of lyrics, so I decided to just sing them myself that time. I honestly don't know where the inspiration came from for that one, sometimes I just think of a few chords that sound good together and it ends up turning into something more.

Q: What can we expect from Jimtopia in the future?

A: Well, despite my dilapidated and out-of-date Newgrounds page, I am still regularly producing content. I had a brief contract to produce a series for The Escapist, sadly though that didn't end up working out for several reasons, so I decided to shut down production after three episodes. But I've always got ideas for new content and series floating around in my head, so hopefully one of these becomes something more in the very near future. The two things I do tend to update pretty regularly are my Youtube music page (where I post new music under the name "daks"), and my Twitter.

http://www.youtube.com/user/daksMusic

Jimtopia Twitter

I first got into contact with Jimtopia when he asked me to review his flash movies. Afterwards I was surprised that not only did he have his own collection page, but he also seems to be underrated and not as known throughout Newgrounds. I'm still not entirely sure why this is, but I for one think it is wrong. Jimtopia is certainly a wonderful addition to Newgrounds and one I'm sure will surprise us more in more in the coming years.

Interview No. 69

Interview By: @The-Great-One

Today's guest is a Newgrounds member unlike many that you do tend to see here. He started out like any other Newgrounds member, cynical and mean, but as time has passed he has strangely enough become nicer. So nice in fact that he has been awarded the 2011 Newgrounds Mid-Year BBS Award for Rookie of the Year. He is also like myself a fellow interviewer, but on his own project entitled Asandir's interview with Newgrounds forum users. The old quote is nice guys finish last, hopefully that will be the cause when the rest of the assholes are gone and he still stands, he is @Asandir.

Q: How did you find Newgrounds and why did you join?

A: Well, I played Toss the Turtle on Newgrounds from time to time, by searching for online games around 2009, I stumbled across it again in December 2010 and simply wanted to keep the medals and also to earn alot more of them from other games. My first account ever on an internet site, and Asandir arrived. Although I would later start to use the forums regularly.

Q: When people talk about you they say you are one of the nicest members of Newgrounds. You weren't always this nice though. Your first post was in a thread entitled Giving away genuine account 1/11/11. In this thread you called someone's account worthless. Looking back at this and where you are now would you say you have grown?

A: Yes, I can remember my first months here. I was pretty sure that people would start to rip a nice user apart, and I didn't really care about the forums at that time, I didn't know anyone and just wanted my daily 5 posts, then it were 8 posts and now it is way more on a daily basis. I soon started to be nice and how I am in reality, and somehow, I ended up being seen and liked in a way that I could have never imagined. I like that, but sometimes the influx of Asandir threads can be a bit annoying. ;)

Q: This is a question I like to ask forum regulars. Being a BBS Regular what is your take on the Forum Moderators?

A: I think that they are doing a very good job, honestly. They are fair and they are always there to give you advice and to answer questions and they are more a part of the community than on other sites, as far as I see it. We have alot of moderators with different personalities, and some of them are just lovable, like Rucklo and Bahamut.

Q: Would you like to be a Forum Moderator? Whatever your answer is could you please explain?

A: Something that I always thought about, especially in the first months of my membership, I wanted to become a moderator rather sooner than later. I later realised that I am more of an active forum user than a good candidate for modship, especially since my english is not really the best. I think that it is better, when the moderators have fluent english. I send private messages to moderators, when I think that they have overseen anything, and I think that this is the perfect combination. I can help out, and still post like there is no tomorrow :D

Q: What is it about Newgrounds that you like the most and why?

A: Without any doubt the lovely community. I realised that at a later point of my membership, but the forums here are really awesome, the members are nice and helpful and the moderators stay in touch with the members, so that you can always ask them about problems that you have. I wouldn't visit Newgrounds nearly as often without the forums, that's for sure.

Q: What is it about Newgrounds that you dislike the most and why?

A: Only one thing. The amount of bad or even stolen flashes, that pass every day due to 5-Voters. Although the stolen flashes get now flagged every time, when I see one, and it would be a lie, when I would say that I don't take part in getting them flagged by enough people.

Q: If you could change anything on Newgrounds, what would it be and why?

A: I would make me an adminstrator. No, but on a serious side, I think there is one thing that really needs to be fixed and that is the search function, it is pretty much useless and doesn't work nearly as good than on other sites.

I could also say: "Change the voting system, so that the minumum required score is 2, but that doesn't help at all. The people have to change their voting behaviour, the system works well. Not the system is bad, but abusing it.

Q: You are the winner of the 2011 Newgrounds Mid-Year BBS Awards as Rookie of the Mid-Year. How did it feel for people to not only nominate you, but vote for you for this award?

A: I felt very happy, when I saw that people nominated me for Rookie of the Mid-Year 2011. I think that I followed the on-going voting most actively, I always counted the votes and was very happy to see that most people saw me as winner of this award. Needless to say that the official results were really satisfying. Thanks goes to everyone who voted for me!

Q: This is where we get awkward now. Recently you have started Asandir's interview with Newgrounds forum users. Currently you have interviewed two different users. Where did the inspiration to do this come from? Why forum users? Who can we expect next?

A: Well, there was a thread, were the topic opener asked about the best interview that we have read or seen, and Suprememessage replied: "None because I haven't been interviewed yet." I then offered in said thread to inerview him, it was firstly intented as joke, but then the idea grew on me and I started to interview him.

I interview forum users, since they are most interesting for other users and since I know them better and can ask them specific questions.

The next ones to be interviewed are also regular users of the BBS, to be more excact, I hope that I can interview Legnus, formerly known as Gimmick, in the near future, since he joined 2008 and has an overview over the last years of Newgrounds and how it changed.

Q: You are also an artist with your first submission being Happy bacteria. Where did the idea come from and why work with 3D?

A: I wouldn't call myself an artist, to be honest. I started to play around with the 3D program Sculptris, which is very easy to use, and since I played Doctor Mario shortly before, I thought that making a bacteria could be fun. I liked the result and decided to upload it. I would have never imagined that I would end up getting scouted, though.

Q: I think my two favorite pieces by you are Jigglypuff and Chubby white seal. Where is the influence for these two pieces?

A: Well, they have very different sources, obviously. For Jigglypuff: I am a huge fan of the Pokémon games and since round characters can be created more easily in that program( you start with a ball), I decided to make Jigglypuff.

The Chubby white seal on the other hand is simple inspired from a real plushie that I have, it looks like that in rality and I am most proud of this work, therefor.

Q: Although you haven't done much artwork, have you thought about taking a step into 3D animation? No matter your answer, could you tell us why?

A: That was never my plan, mainly because going in that direction costs quite alot of many in Germany and I am nowhere as rich enough to pay that, and I am also not interested enough in it this subject.

Q: What can we expect from Asandir in the future?

A: You can expect that I won't release art in the near future and that I will foucs on the forums, although I could end up making less posts, since I start to study in October. Apart from that, more interviews, of course, since I like that idea a lot.

You can be also sure that I will continue to search for abusive reviews, to clean up the review section from the rule-breaking users.

Asandir is quite possibly the nicest guy you will meet on this site. Sure there are other nice guys here, but for the most part there are some less than pleasing people. However he is certainly a treat for us to have and one that I am proud to say is everybody's friend. If Asandir and Bahamut had a strange love child out of a night of passion, you would have the most productive and friendliest Newgrounds member ever.

Interview No. 68

Interview By: @NekoMika

Today was a pretty great day and I as I was looking through the audio portal I notice one user I had not seen submit an audio piece in awhile. As a check through their audio history I notice that they seem to put a good deal of thought into each piece of music that they write being that almost each piece is submitted within 2 to 3 months of each other. Then I suddenly remember ... this is the guy who holds voice acting contest!! Then I thought, why not give him an interview?! After a couple of days of waiting for a response I got the green light from the man himself. Today's interview is with @FatKidWitAJetPak!

Q: So how did you discover Newgrounds?

A: Well, back in the good old days when the warm, delicious smell of grandma's home made cherry pie would greet me after a long day of Middle School, I would sit back and relax with a plate of ice cream and the aforementioned delectable snack while sitting next to a computer with none other than "Newgrounds" reflecting off of my boxy glasses. Aside from creating

obnoxious run on sentences, I was there for one reason and one reason only: to dick around. I loved going to Newgrounds and play Flash Games, look at hentai, and do what kids in the South do, minus the tractors.

Q: Interesting and what lead you to creating your account and the why this username?

A: I created a series of very silly comics around the age of 13. These comics usually revolved around the adventures of "FattMcPatty and LardyLarLar", two sociopathic fat guys with jet packs who always got stuck in strange situations together. I thought the idea was hysterical, so as an immature teenager I decided to make that my username. I kept it because it is easy to remember and unique... I have never seen anyone else use it before, and most people here who actually like my shit know me as "Nick" anyway.

Q: Well that certainly would help some users understand your username. Did you encounter any hardships starting here on Newgrounds?

A: Oh lord yes. I faced many challenges when I first arrived to Newgrounds, including the harshness of forum regulars, figuring out what I was best at by spending a lot of time with multiple seemingly pointless programs, and trying to be accepted with my work. After about two years of poorly done animations, I got into voice acting and finally started to get known in the community. After that, I got into making music that wasn't made entirely out of horrible pre-set loops and started to get known in the audio community. It took me a while, but I finally managed to find something that I was good at.

Q: Have you created any music that has managed to get on the front page?

A: I have gotten top of the week about 8 times and have gotten front page about 3 times if my memory serves me correctly.

Q: Got any other audio pieces you are truly proud of or they just got many good reviews and downloads?

A: On average, I spend about 1 - 3 months on each song I create. Most of that time is spent brainstorming, trying to piece together my thoughts into a suitable soundscape. Once I have many, many ideas dotted down in my head, I begin to craft it all together piece by piece until I am satisfied with a certain tune. Then I go to that tune and master everything to make sure it sounds great with headphones. I still need to figure out speaker mastering, but that just means I have room left to improve! Since I work so hard on each song, I am typically proud of my ambient music. The two that stand out to me, however, are "Breathe With Me" and "Ironesque Valley". I was actually crying when composing Breathe With Me, and tend to get emotional every time I listen to it. I don't know why I get so emotional over music, but hey I guess being different is a good thing.

Q: The NG CD project sounds quite interesting. Are all 200 songs the same genre, different kinds, contest pieces or what?

A: The NG Audio cd is going to include multiple CDs that revolve around certain groups of genres including rock, ambient, and techno. All the information on the contest can be viewed on the thread here on NG.

Q: What got you interested in the Audio Portal?

A: After 2007 rolled around, I began to grow severely interested in becoming part of the constantly growing Newgrounds community. I tried making flash games, designing, writing, voice acting, and making music. After a few years of deciding what I was best at, I narrowed it down to Audio and Flash design. In 2010, I really dedicated myself to teaching myself ambient creation and worked my way up to what I am today. I still have a huge, HUGE load to learn, and am excited to get better every day. I have the urgent and strong need to express myself and my perspective about the world around me. I feel that ambient music serves more than enough poetic justice for what I feel needs to be expressed. I can really pack a whole variety of emotions into just one song.

Q: Well that is most certainly a feel good story. What eventually lead you to doing the voice acting competitions in the audio forum?

A: I saw a lot of hidden talent here on Newgrounds. I wanted to create a sort of sub culture that had its own "voice" in the NG community, no pun intended. I decided that the best way to get together this community was to create a sort of "Voice Acting Contest" that challenged voice actors to push their limits and create great voice demos. I also wanted people to realize that they can truly do a lot if they simply believe in themselves. After a few contests, this community seemed to come to light and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to everyones different styles and concepts. I consider voice acting to be a major part of the community, and I surely would hate to see such talented voice actors vanish simply due to the lack of recognition. I am very glad that Tom Fulp was generous enough to offer store credit and front page prizes for the top four winners of each contest.

Q: That is most certain to always be fun. What do you think is the funniest aspect of the voice acting contests?

A: The most fun part is interacting with the community. I absolutely love to hear all the great and hilarious skits that are made for the contest, while meeting awesome people along the way.

Q: Have you gotten any voice acting contest entries you found to sound really bad or just completely hilarious?

A: Of course. In every contest there are going to be really awful entries, but that just means there are more things to say in order for the creators to improve.

Q: Did you ever have any doubts in if the voice acting contests would go well when you started?

A: I always have doubts, but I never let them stop me from doing something. It's all about perseverance. Some of them didn't go all that well, due to my lack in judging, but all of them were finished! Now the voice acting contests are being run by various people here on NG, since I am extremely busy with reality and personal projects. In the end, I ended up getting 6 contests finished. I am currently working on getting together a massive NG audio CD project. So far, it is going fairly well with over 200 entries.

Q: Any NG users you wish to shout out or that you tend to look up to?

A: I have respected many artists here on Newgrounds. You would truly be surprised at how much talent there is on this website. I would love to give a large, juicy shout out to SineRider, Mich, KingBastard, TomFulp, ebolaworld, W-P-S, HappyHarry, Apsro, Tome89, SexualLobster, SickDeathFiend, JAZZA, Sh0T-D0wN, TomaMoto, SBB, Kazmo, MrMilkcarton, dj-nate, Kr1z, G0rc, and many others that I probably left out. I look up to many guys and gals in the audio portal and couldnt have been where I was today without the help of everyone ive talked to here on NG.

As the interview came to a close I noticed that he seems to be a user who tends to enjoy and love the audio community as a whole. I picked up my head phones and began listening to another of his songs as I let his music simply let me relax as I looked over the interview remembering what a good time I had asking him the questions and getting back answers and insight from him.

Interview No. 67

Interview By: @The-Great-One

Today's guest is a bizarre and underrated animator. He has the skills to be just as random as eddsworld and the musical creativity to give even the great Weebl a run for his money. With animations such as Touching things is fun V2, Everybody loves the fruit, and The Nature Song, he is certainly a force to be reckoned with on Newgrounds. He is none other than @koit.

Q: How did you find Newgrounds and why did you join?

A: I found NG in early 2004. Back then I was mainly creating internet gifs which were fairly popular and often went viral, such as my animations known as the traffic light men, which I formed into www.trafficlightwars.co.uk

I was told by a number of people that I could animate well and that I should give flash a go. I'd also seen a few other people I know (mainly through B3TA.com) create flash animations and I thought, yeah, I'd like to do that. So I did.

I joined because I wanted somewhere to publish flash animations to and keep them live on the web and so I started submitting, and haven't look back since.

Q: Your first flash submission would be entitled Space Crew: Episode 1. What was the process you took into making this and looking back at it are you still proud of it?

A: Space Crew 1 was the first flash animation I submitted to NG, but wasn't my first ever flash. That was entitled - theatre : obvious. It was really a test animation to animate the old saying of "the pot calling the kettle black" - when I realised that I could use the software, I set about making Space Crew.

Obviously it's based on Star Trek as I love sci-fi and all incarnations of Trek. I wanted to create a set of characters based on the real characters and make a comedy show essentially. Looking back now, as a first real animation, it was rather ambitious. During the making of it, I learnt a lot. If I had to re-visit the animation I would be appalled at how I would have layered the animation and created the various movie clips etc. Nowadays I am far more organised in the creation and how I structure them.

From a process of creating it standpoint, I did then what I do now..... have the idea, create a storyboard and the complete scene by scene.

Q: Nursery Rhymes: the truth would be a very funny flash movie that depicts what really happened in those nursery rhymes. What inspired this and have you thought about making another one?

A: I've always been very immature in my humour and have those "what if" questions in my head all of the time about any random thing. I've always found nursery rhyme songs very fascinating for some strange reason and so it was a very logical thing for my brain to put the two things together. What if this happened to a nursery rhyme.

Again, looking back I don't like it now because at heart, I am also a perfectionist and so now I see flaws everywhere !!

I could easily create another one as I've actually got a few more ideas on paper for other nursery rhyme skits.

I have a massive pile of paper on my computer desk with scrawled ideas, storyboards, phrases that I could later use, waiting to be realised into something creative. If I were to address Nursery rhymes 2, it may have to join the queue of ideas !

Q: When Sexual-Lobster was here we talked about some of his twisted works. Now we come to you and with the flash Touching things is fun. Where did this idea come from and why did you feel the need to remake it with Touching things is fun V2?

A: Touching things is fun (which is easily my most well known animation/song) came about like most of my ideas for animations/songs whilst I'm in the bathroom. In this case, whilst I was in the shower.

From an early age I've been singing normal songs but with alternative lyrics that I just make up on the spot, and they usually rhyme as I have a quick wit. This skill came from my Dad who to this day does the same thing.

Anyhow, referring to a previous answer, I'm immature with my humour and so these things merged to create dirty lyrics. Add that to the fact that I can make a decent tune up in virtually seconds in my head.......

Well, the tune came to me in the shower and I pretty much made up the whole song with lyrics during the showering process and as soon as I was dry I rushed to my computer and sang the tune/lyrics in.

The animation followed because visuals to those lyrics are obvious.

It's a simple animation really and because of that simplicity and base humour, it went down very well. Although mainly in Britain.

It disappoints me to this day that it's only in Britain really that this animation/song does well. Maybe Americans don't get the humour as much. Hard to say.....

Soon anyhow this video will be released onto iTunes video store, and I hope it goes as viral in American schools as it still does to this day in England.

I made V2 because many people commented "what's with the veins"..... in the early days I was using a poor monitor which was very bright and as such hid, the veins from me. I wanted them subtle and to me, they looked like they were. It was only after I bought a new monitor that I noticed the veins were SO obvious. I had to create V2 because I was embarrassed for myself....

Q: How your garden grows appears to be a very simple concept, but one I was surprised that you did not make as disturbing as your past works. How come?

A: I like to flick between disturbing/dark/dirty to family friendly. So to counter balance FC (which later was renamed to Funt) which to be fair is my rudest animation/song to date, I had to create something nice.

And besides, if you think about it, this animation is about Nature. Not a nice thing really as each of the items introduced is capable of killing the other !

Q: Everybody loves the fruit is a very fun flash. The animation itself is a bit disturbing, but the song is so innocent that it would be one you would probably hear on a preschool show. When it comes to this song and flash where was the inspiration?

A: With Everybody loves their fruit, I can't honestly remember what the inspiration was exactly. It's doubly strange as actually I don't eat any fruit as I don't like the textures. More than likely it was just another case of me creating a random song in my head. I usually come up with the title lyrics initially and then build a song around that.

Q: The counting game is certainly a fun flash game, but I will not say here why. Where did the idea come from for this?

A: With the counting game, it really came about because of my failure as a coder. I had planned on creating a fully fledged game based on the concept. In fact, I still have the project half done on my to-do list, now re-titled Instances.

I've left it there for years and may not ever finish it.

Anyhow, this game came about because of my laziness to finish and so I abused it and created something altogether different. Typical Koit thing really, take something and flip it on it's head and make something odd/dark.

Q: Vegetables follows almost the same route as "Everybody loves the fruit" however it's not as for lack of a better word -- cannibalistic. Why this sort of change were you fearing of doing the same thing twice, but under a different skin?

A: Vegetables came about because I wanted to return to the family friendly animation style. After I first created Everybody loves their fruit I always wanted to do a food trilogy, so Vegetables followed, as did Meat. I wanted to get Mr Apple into this animation but at no point could I make it work, so decided that he was there, just behind the scenes. Sort of a Borg Queen.

Q: Shape shape shapes is quite possibly not only one of your more creative songs, but at the same time one of your most creative flash animations. A good bit is going on here I just got to know though where did the idea come from?

A: This was another family friendly animation I created to balance out the weirdness of what some people might class as my sickest animation, the Pit.

I wanted to do an animation that would appeal to my nephew and niece. The song was in my head as per usual before ideas of an animation, the animation followed.

I liked creating this one because of the background that I added to it. Basic gradient colours with a shape ball being rotated behind with a high transparancy. I like the way they change colours to suit whatever shape is in the current limelight. It's a nice idea.

Q: When Edd Gould, better known as eddsworld was here we talked about Koit / Eddsworld collab. Edd had this to say...

"It worked well the first time, not so well the next. The fact it was incredibly random and a suprise to see where the next person would take it was interesting to say the least. Simply because you would leave a door wide open and they would just break a hole in the wall claiming its a new door. You never knew where it was going."

Would you agree with this statement? No matter your answer could you tell us why as well as what it was like to work with Edd?

A: I wasn't necessarily a fan of Eddsworld as such but I admired Edd's work a lot. I mean he has a great artistry that surpasses mine. I can't for the life of me create comic style drawings that translate well into animations. He's awesome at that and so I wanted to join forces with someone who did have talent.

Anyway, we both spent a bit of time on B3TA.com and from there it was simply a case of asking him to collaborate. He did. Obviously.

I don't really agree that the first is better than the second. It's true that the first went down better but we tried different things with each. The first one was simply a case of creating something absolutely random.

I was disappointed with the reaction to the animation purely because no matter where it was posted, I would get lambasted and accused of ruining the animation. In fact however, I helped moved it along lots and did some audio work for Edd's parts.

I wanted to do Collab 2 to show these, what I'd term as "naive internet gimps", how well I can animate if I want. Edd wanted to change the style of this collab and suggested both longer parts and a straight narrative. That's what we did.

However, because Edd and I both had ongoing projects (such as paid commissions etc, and he was battling an illness) it sat there in production hell for well over a year.

I thought the 2nd one tailed off and wasn't superb, but it had better artwork than the first.

I enjoyed collaborating, I wouldn't say working with him as such as it was really just a case of doing something, emailing and then waiting.

I am more than open to part 3 if he wants to ! - although I'd prefer a return to randomness.

Q: We now come to two flash movies that I have been wanting to talk about and they are Cat Vader and Cat Vader 2. To me they are in a way reminiscent of the Garfield comics. Are these flashes based on what your cat Vader has done and will we be seeing more?

A: Yeah, pretty much every scene is based on what Vader used to do. I used to live together with my girlfriend and our Cat, Vader. He was black and had a squished face as he was one of them special breeds.

My girlfriend and I split not long back and she took him with her and as a tribute to him I created CV2.

The scenery in each animation is exactly my house and it's garden recreated. Including the cat playcentre. Which makes it even more personal.

There maybe a CV3 at some stage in the future, depends if I can work out enough material based on a limited amount of Vader lines that I haven't already used.

Q: In my personal opinion your best flash has to be The Nature Song. It seems that garden you grew a while back bloomed quite well. Where did the inspiration for this song come from and why did you decide to do it acappella?

A: Thanks for liking that. Nature song took me ages to do on an animation level. It's a very intricate flash and is probably the animation where I have spent most time getting each piece to look correct. The overall finish is very fluid and I'm very proud of it.

In terms of the song, well I wanted to produce a song acapella. It wasn't necessarily going to be the nature song, but when I did come up with the idea of expanding on How your garden grows, ie you see the flower and weed make a return from that initial animation, I then thought, this would be awesome in harmony.

Creating music I love adding harmonies and in fact the majority of my songs will contain at least 1 harmony, if not several. The song then grew and grew (no pun intended with the them of the animation) as I added more nature levels.

Q: Your first journey into the Audio Portal would be with a song entitled Elevator !. Quite the interesting song, how did these lyrics come to you?

A: The lyrics and them to that song came because at the time I had just come out of an "interesting" relationship with this young lass. It was all going weird and not working correctly. They say that the pain of relationships drive songwriters to create songs, and in this case, they aren't wrong.

I collaborated with a fellow musician named MysterBob, someone who I worked with before. He created the lovely guitar work for the track. I don't have a guitar and that's the one thing that annoys me about my own skills. I wish I could play !!

Q: When it comes to writing music, where does it begin? Does it start with the melody or the words?

A: It can work both ways. If I come up with an idea for a song or animation, then the title or lyrics will come first...... not necessarily all of the lyrics, but enough to give me a workable structure with which to fit around a melody.

Then in my head, the rhythmn of the lyrics will lead to a melody. Then it's simply a case of sitting down and playing some stuff on my Korg and come up with the various parts.

With songs specifically written for my animations, I usually create the drum track using Acid Pro, then move that work into Cubase where I add on synth parts. That is then all condensed down and put into this really old sequencer I use on my windows 98 PC. That's when I add the vocals, do the editing and mixing. Then back over to my main PC for the final creation/mix.

Q: What advice would you like to give to the different musicians and animators here on Newgrounds?

A: I find it hard to give advice on music as that is such a personal area. The only advice I tend to give is about audio when it comes to animations and that's this....

1) get a good mic

2) get a pop filter

3) Edit the audio and clean it up, don't just add it to the animation as is.

In terms of animation, each to their own, I'm no master, I simply create what I like......so there's the advice I suppose, just make what you want to and not follow a recipe based on what you think others might like. Sod 'em !! stick to your own plan.

Originality is key I reckon.

Q: What can we expect from koit in the future?

A: Expect a lot from me.

I have 2 completed animations waiting to be released.

I have a 17 track album about to be released to most digital stores..... just gotta finish off the vocals to 5 tracks but before I do that I am going to build a vocal booth in my "studio" (which is in fact a 2nd bedroom) so that I can have super smooth vocals to go with my new awesome mic which I am yet to fully exploit.

A few animations should be appearing on TV again. So as well as seeing a multitude of repeats of rude tube and "touching things is fun", expect to see Found some poo and Blob !

I am also hoping that someone will offer me a creative job so that I can quit my boring retail job and allow me more time to be creative.

It's hard working 40-45 hrs a week and then having the energy to complete stuff that I want to do.

I also want to move into a collaborative partnership with a decent animator (someone far better than me) to work on audio tracks that I'd create. I see success coming from this path !

koit is truly an underrated artist here on Newgrounds. His works truly deserve be given a bit more light shown on them, if you haven't checked him out I most certainly suggest you do. If you are a fan of TheWeebl, eddsworld, or Sexual-Lobster then you will like this guy and what he has to offer. koit is truly a hidden gem.

Asandir's interview with Newgrounds forum users

Interview No. 66

Interview By: @Asandir

[ PART 1 | PART 2 ]

Q: The-Great-One - The first thing that interests me is your username. A name, that sounds good, but that also brings the duty with it, to live up to the expectations, that are connected with it. How did you get the idea for this username?

A: Wade announced the username lock down. Which meant that you could no longer change your name at will, this was before the 2007 redesign. My original username was Wilber7, and I wanted to change it something that sounded a bit better and didn't have a number in it. So I came up with The-Great-One out of nowhere just for fun. It has stuck ever since.

Q: The-Great-One - Judging from your banner and current userpage header, you seem to be a fan of My Little Pony - Friendship is magic. Can you tell our readers, what you like about the show and you became a fan of it?

A: I have made a news post about this already and that can be read here. I will give you and others the short version though. When I was browsing the Internet, I came across some My Little Pony fan art and I knew one of my friends Ragnarokia was a fan of the show so I sent it to him. He asked me if I ever watched the show, I said no, and he told me that I really should.

One night I was a bit bored and I thought, what the hell, went on YouTube and watched the first five episodes. What I love about this show is given the subject of My Little Pony all people would have to do is just create something half-assed and pass it off to sell toys, but the creators put effort into it and breathed new life into it, that made it fun not only for kids, but there are some jokes in there for the adults to that the kids may not get.

Q: The-Great-One - Do you think that you changed over the time you were here, as user, or also in real life?

A: Definitely. When I first came here I was a noob. I thought I knew everything and I found out very quickly that I was wrong. I got helping hands from MaestroRage and others, but I also got my ass kicked and put into place by ZekeySpaceyLizard, if it wasn't for him I would not have been the person I am now. This site truly has matured me both here and in real life, but that doesn't mean I can't have some stupid fun now and again.

Q: The-Great-One - You surely have an opinion about the moderators of Newgrounds. Do you think that they do a great job or not?

A: I do believe that the moderators do a great job. the Forum Moderators take control, the Review Moderators are always helpful, and the Icon Moderators don't get nearly enough love. Overall all the moderators do a great job.

Q: The-Great-One - Would you like to become a moderator some day? If so, what kind of moderator?

A: I once wanted to be a Forum Moderator, but I don't think I could handle that responsibility, the only reason I would want that power is to be more helpful. I wouldn't mind being a Review Moderator, but you really got to look at the rules and question which reviews are abusive and which ones are not. What helps an author and what doesn't? So I'm a bit wishy-washy on being a moderator.

Q: The-Great-One - You took your time to write the Flash Review Terms 2.0, which are pretty helpful for every passionate reviewer. With over 500 reviews, for both flash and audion submissions, you qualify as very active reviewer. Do you enjoy writing review, and what is your motivation?

A: I do enjoy writing reviews, the reason I made the Flash Review Terms were to make my reviews better. I revised them to make it more fair on both sides. I am motivated as a critic here to review, I enjoy giving feedback and constructive criticism to others. I have only found over 10 flash movies that can truly receive the honor of the perfect score in my system though.

Q: Ryanson - You are a member of Newgrounds since 2005, which makes you the oldest member of The Interviewer, together with SCTE3, who joined on the very same day. With that being said, how did Newgrounds change in your opinion in that time? How did you experience the redesign 2007?

A: It definitely changed a lot -- more streamlined, more user-friendly. I don't actually remember the redesign. In fact, to be honest I can barely remember the Newgrounds before the redesign -- I think it was a bit blockier, a tad clunky looking, maybe a darker background, but that's it.

Q: Ryanson - Do you think that you changed over the time you were here, as user, or also in real life?

A: I've definitely changed online. Looking back at several of my early reviews, oh my God I cringed. I was such a little bitch back then, as were most of us at the ripe age of 14 or so. I think there was a gap of time when I left Newgrounds, as there always is, but I kept coming back though. And every time I came back, I kept learning harsh lessons and kept observing. I'd like to think I adapted pretty well over time.

I know I changed in real life. Here's hoping it's for the better.

Q: Ryanson - You surely have an opinion about the moderators of Newgrounds. Do you think that they do a great job or not?

A: Whether they do a great job or not is not for me to say. They at least do their job. That's all that we can ever ask for.

Q: Ryanson - I heard that you and Jedi-Master are very good friends. Could you tell our readers, how this friendship developed? What did you think when Jedi-Master recently left, and what was your reaction when he came back?

A: Well me and him ran into each other at the supermarker one day and I was like "Nice ass," and he was like "Nice dick," and I was like, "Wanna feel it in your ass?" and he was like "Wanna get it cut off by my lightsaber?"

And then we went to his mobile home and Mr. Ham will never feel the same again. Oh, btw Mr. Ham is the gerbil in his ass. Funny enough, his lightsaber was really a vibrator. And it felt good against my uterus.

...But no, if I remember correctly it was just as Jedi-Master was really starting to become known on the forums last year. I think someone made a thread about me trolling someone on tarahlovehentai's Facebook status, and Ptero said "That's Ryanson," and Jedi was like "No it's not," and Ptero and I were like, "Fuck yeah it is," and I PM'd him and he was like "Oh :("

And then we started PMing for real and idk man over time something happened. Friendship is weird man.

Q: Ryanson - You are currently working on a game project, called "The BBS Brawl". Can you tell me more about this project?

A: It's more an idea, a long extended joke. I say that because I've had this idea for more than a year now, and the more I get done, the closer it is to becoming a reality... it's still a long ways away from being completed.

It's just an idea I had, "What if the BBS was a fighting game," same as any other forum I frequent. But then, this one really took off and evolved. I was obsessed. As of now I have pretty much the entire mythology set up. It'd be great to see it come to light.

I think it'd be a nice collab thing to do, but I'm so afraid of asking someone. This is (one of) my baby(/ies), and I'd hate to ask someone else to do it... or give up even partial creative control. I think that's one of my problems. I should probably just ask. Idk.

Q: Ryanson - You said in one of your newspost, that you got hacked this year. Did you every expect that this would happen to you?

A: Truth is, I never got hacked. It was something I said because I let something spill that someone didn't want me to. I even made a seperate account to seem legit. Lol

QUICK SOMEONE HACK ME.

Q: Ryanson - Judging from your userpage header, you were once named Ryanson209. When did your namechange happen, and are you happy with your current username?

A: I changed because I was tired of my numbers holding me back.

ryanson209 is a name I've used for a long time, and I still use to this day. The story of the name's creation is not important -- what's important is, I'd finally thought, "Hmm, people with numbers in their usernames don't usually take off. I'll ask for my numbers' removal." I PM'd Wade who took off the numbers, and then I PM'd Mike who capitalized the R.

I'm glad I got the change. It'd just so more natural to say than to say a name with numbers. Not that numbers are bad, but numbers don't feel so unique ya know?

I should probably change my banner now, though.

Q: NekoMika - You are a member of Newgrounds since 2005, which makes you the oldest member of The Interviewer, together with Ryanson, who joined on the very same day. With that being said, how did Newgrounds change in your opinion in that time? How did you experience the redesign 2007?

A: Well at the time the portal was getting spam submissions such as Adolf Hitler Around the World in 80 days and some Kity Krew spam was appearing then and after two months of just voting and watching things in the portal I began to roam over to the forums where at first I was mostly just goofing off and slowly changing how I posted over time although I was 13 then, I was just goofing off and having fun like everyone else on the forum but I have changed since those days though.

The redesign in 2007 took a couple of days for me to get used to really. Although the admins had to fix a quick forum glitch where EVERYONE could post in the NG News and strangely make topics which seemed to flood every other forum with half the page being just NG News topics.

Then there were several other glitches across the site that are less minor and still a bit noticeable today, just small things like the top 10 reviewers on the portal statistics page all having 0 reviews among things. The redesign went over rather well though as I am still enjoying the site to this day.

Q: NekoMika - With over 1000 flash reviews and over 2000 audio reviews, you qualify as one of the major contributors of Newgrounds, in terms of reviews. You are also a part of the Review Request Club. Can you tell our readers a bit about the club, and how it works?

A: The Review Request Club had humble origins mostly being a hub for some reviewers and a place that those wanting reviews could go to. Usually it was a mix of good and bad submissions but there tended to be gems amongst them too that were great. It eventually fell to pieces as no one was maintaining it anymore and thus sonofkirk made a new one and after awhile left and eventually SuperSteph54 helped take over making both lists. When I came back after going on a 6 month hiatus I began reviewing again there with a large change in how I did so.

I even offered to help as well so SuperSteph54 would not be bogged down with as much work as he is an audio mod and also tends to help a lot in the audio forum too. So he simply maintains the point list while I do the requests list. A couple of years back it was a decent balance of flash and audio and these days it is mostly audio, some art, and if the week goes well we may get 7-10 flash requests.

The goal of the club itself is not to simply boost your review count or write one liners. No, the main goal is to review the author's submission and let them know how they can improve should you feel they have room for improvement that they can make. Not all the requests get a large amount of reviews since some people feel it is hard to review something that they do not review often or they simply do not have the time to get the reviews done.

Q: NekoMika - You do not only have a lot of high-quality reviews, you also have a Deity Whistle. Would you wish to be a review moderator at some point? Or maybe some other kind of moderator?

A: Possibly, but that decision rests with the mods and admins and not me. I guess it would be cool to see how it feels sometime. As for moderating other parts of the site..? Maybe the forums I guess.

Q: NekoMika - I know that you are additionally a member of the Elite Guard Barracks. When and how did you become a member, and what kind of work is done by you there?

A: Actually I am simply an ex-member of the place for the time being but I still drop in from time to time to report flash content that needs to flagged or try to help someone figure out how to get better at flagging reviews sometimes as well if they need the help. The place is pretty lax but they try to watch for users who may try to cause problems as well.

Q: NekoMika - Your profile image and some of your posts revealed to me that you are, similar as The-Great-One, a fan of My Little Pony- Frienship is magic. How did you become a fan of the show? And how do you think about the recently created Official Mlp:fim Crew?

A: Well let's just say it was a couple of days after I had turned 18 and saw some other users and a couple of friends posting pony pics so I decided to see what the show was like and after a few episodes I was pretty much just enjoying it. Then I found Eurobeat Brony and I have to say that a majority of the fan songs and fan song remixes all sound rather good to me.

As for the recent MLP club creation? I am rather happy to see it there as it keeps the hateful posts down (usually from users who have yet to watch the show and just hating on the fans and show for no real reason, no idea why, if they don't like the show or such then they don't really need to post off topic derogatory stuff). I do enjoy the club though as the original thread had no structure or even rules to simply be followed and was a free for all mostly. Glad that Bryan made the club though so users who enjoy the show have a place to discuss it without worrying too awful much.

Q: NekoMika - The flash submission "Snow Wars", where you took part in, got a Daily 5th Place. Are you proud about this trophy?

A: I would guess so. Mostly it goes for the guy who made it. I advertised it in my BBS signature for him for a few months and then removed it later too. If I tried to help with doing something for a flash in the future, I would be quite happy to see it earn a trophy too.

Q: Atlas - You are the youngest member of the Interviewer, both in terms of join date and age. I am pretty sure that you heard like older members said time and time again, that Newgrounds was better in the past. How does that make you feel? Do you believe them, and does it influence your experience on Newgrounds?

A: Well I'm a member of NGArchive and just love the way the site looked before this and wish I could've been here for it. But I'm glad i signed up when I did since I get to experience this site design and the redesign.

Q: Atlas - Do you think that you changed over the time you were here, as user, or also in real life?

A: Well as a user I posted a bit better and have been watching what kinda of threads I make but in real life the only thing that has changed is that I'm starting to get back into filming and making videos.

Q: Atlas - You surely have an opinion about the moderators of Newgrounds. Do you think that they do a great job or not?

A: Well some do a great job and others have been active for months or years. The art mods have been doing a great job I think. The audio mods are doing a awesome job and the only problem is Canas. Isn't this the second time he's been hacked?

Q: Atlas - Would you like to become a moderator some day? If so, what kind of moderator?

A: I think everyone wants to be a moderator of some sort but really forum mod would be number one followed by art and audio mod. Any of those would be awesome but I've been lacking in reviewing art (I've been voting instead) and audio, I haven't listened and reviewed enough, I think.

Q: Atlas - So far, you have submitted 12 flash submissions to Newgrounds. Is there one flash, that you are most proud of, and can you tell us more about your flash work?

A: I'm most proud of "Hex and Pent Short" I made that and the other one to test out motion tweening and some new software. The other hex and pent was made to try out voice acting. I am hoping to learn stop motion and maybe work with that but you never know.

Q: Atlas - The Audio Portal is granted with 29 audio submissions by you. Which one is your favourite work? Are there any audio artists, that you especially like?

A: My favorite of my has to be Happy- Casio Arpeggio. I especially like BERSERKYD, merlin, Ben Spurgin, FDA, and Audio-Star.

Q: What can we expect in the future from The Interviewer?

A:

The-Great-One: So much is in plan. I have a huge list of people to go through as I'm sure my other Interviewers have as well. We can only hope to see big things in the future. I can promise this though, with the redesign coming up, there will certainly be future changes.

Ryanson: MAYBE I'LL DO SOME ACTUAL INTERVIEWS, HMMMM. Rina-chan, what do you guys think? Shall I finally do it?

NekoMika: More interviews of course!! Really hope people still enjoy reading them in the future too.

Atlas: Well more interviews and a change of scenery.

Now the interview with the Interviewer is over. I surely learned more about this group, and can say that all 4 members are not only experts in interviewing others, but also in getting interviewed. It was a huge honour for me to be allowed to make this interview. My thanks goes to The-Great-One, Ryanson, NekoMika and Atlas, together they are The Interviewer.

And with those last words, we now got to know a more personal part of every member of The Interviewer, that showed to me that all 4 of them participate in even more ways positively to Newgrounds. I can only feel the highest respect for The-Great-One, Ryanson, NekoMika and Atlas, thank you for being a part of Newgrounds!

[ PART 1 | PART 2 ]

Asandir's interview with Newgrounds forum users

Interview No. 66

Interview By: @Asandir

Today, we have a special issue, because we will experience a role reversal, when The Interviewer gets interviewed for the very first time! To achieve this goal, all 4 members, namely @The-Great-One, @Ryanson, @NekoMika and @Atlas will answer the questions.

[ PART 1 | PART 2 ]

ANSWERS WILL BE POSTED BENEATH THE _A:_ DUE TO TWO PEOPLE BEING INTERVIEWED PERSON ANSWERING WILL BE NOTED AS SO.

Q: How did you find Newgrounds and why did you join?

A:

The-Great-One: I found this site around 2004. I was on a site called Video Game Director's Cut (VGDC) and one of their flashes "Rise of the Mushroom Kingdom" brought me to Newgrounds. From then I browsed the different areas and I wanted to do some reviewing, so I signed up in 2006 and I have been here since.

Ryanson: I actually came to Newgrounds, repeatedly, because of these DBZ dress-up games. Mmm, Bulma was my favorite -- if only because of the cheap cartoon nudity. You see, these "dress up" games were more popular than not for the fact that on the more mature ones you could dress your favorite characters down. This particular one had funny quotes when you clicked on her tummy, her nipples, or her vag... but that's neither here nor there.

Now I can only assume the rest of the story from here -- I joined because I eventually kept coming to Newgrounds more and more, and actually looking around at the games and movies and stuff. My interests at the time were limited then, but I kept coming and was pissed than as someone who didn't sign up, I couldn't vote. Finally, I had that I could stand and I couldn't stand any more -- I signed up. I assume the video that got me to sign up was an animated music video for the song "We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful" by Reel Big Fish. It was a collaboration, and focused on various video games. I say this because I remember this song was on the front page the day I signed up.

NekoMika: I was about a 13 and a couple of weeks old and I was at my dad's apartment (when he was still living in one anyways) and I kind of just got tired of playing and making crappy movies in windows movies maker using MS Paint and sound recorder. So I began to use the internet and just went to Yahoo chat rooms goofing off and just getting a good laugh from seeing what all people said in them.

However after a bit of that I decided to look up some Mario and Sonic flashes from that time and came across this and my dad thought it was hilarious anyways. Then I began to explore the site curious of what all it had and came across a few things I seemed to enjoy then such as the All Your Base meme and Animutations by the guy that would later do Lemon Demon, Potter Puppet Pals, and Brodyquest which I have enjoyed almost all of so far as well.

Then I decided to sign up so I could have some cool looking level icons and back then, my username didn't look to great either sadly. I like the way it is now though. It looks a whole lot better now than it did then.

Atlas: I found Newgrounds through my friend Eric who introduced me to Egoraptor and Oney animations on Youtube and then he told me about Newgrounds and all the animations there. I originally signed up with willywonkarocks1 as my username but then abandoned the account and started over with J-Rex.

Q: Newgrounds has good aspects, but also bad ones. Could you tell our readers one thing that you dislike about Newgrounds and another that you like the most?

A:

The-Great-One: It is hard to dislike something about Newgrounds, but some people of the community are either not good or just flat out stupid. I guess the one thing I like most about Newgrounds is the Flash and Audio Portals. I truly wish more people would visit both of those places especially the Audio Portal.

Ryanson: I dislike that there is less Ryanson.

NekoMIka: I don't really dislike too much about Newgrounds. If there is anything I really don't like is those cookie cutter accounts which seem to keep popping every week with new crap. Back in 2009 there was possibly only about 2 or 3 of them and no one though anything of them. Fast forward a couple of years and you see 6 of the 10 top contributors are cookie cutter accounts with most of their flash submissions having a score range from 1.6 to 3.4+ range strangely. That and instead of just 2 or 3 cookie cutter accounts there is about 35+ of them now sadly.

I like almost everything else about Newgrounds though, the Review Request Club, Audio Portal, forums, flash portal, and just almost all of the site in general. However if I had to choose one I enjoy the most I would either be saying the forums or audio portal. The forums because there is almost always some interesting topics on them even though some days they feel rather boring and nothing else sadly.

Then I would say audio portal mostly because I've been enjoying music since I was roughly 3 years old and playing Resident Evil, Twisted Metal, and Super Mario World and later just a couple of not too cruddy Sonic games. Not only that but almost every day there is a lot of new audio pieces coming through, some sound bad but most of them are pretty good.

Atlas: One of my favorites would have to be the art portal and one thing i dislike are some of the spammers that newgrounds has attracted but with success spammers aren't uncommon.

Q: TheInterviewer account was created on the 2nd of August, 2009. How did you get the idea to start making interviews?

A:

The-Great-One: I was an avid reader of the Newgrounds Mag, I loved reading the interviews done with other artists here on Newgrounds. When the Newgrounds Mag stopped, I thought why should these stop? They were done by regular Newgrounds members so I thought why couldn't I? I originally started The Interviewer in 2008, but it failed. I brought it back in 2009 and it has been running strong ever since.

Ryanson: I didn't make The Interviewer, but I can tell you how I was contacted to be a part of it. I was a fan of Songs To Wear Pants To and was like "Hey, do you want to do an interview for Newgrounds? You've got a fanbase there." He was excited for it. I like to think that, since he got a bit bigger since my interview, I helped him. But really I didn't.

Anyway, after the interview I got a PM from The-Great-One and he was like, "Hey nice interview, I do interviews, wanna join?" I was like "Hell yeah!"

NekoMika: I just wished to see what it would be like and thus I interviewed WritersBlock and then recently I did a second interview with FurryNG which turned out pretty good anyways. I mostly do it since it gives a break from reviewing and allows you to take a nice look at other users and what kind of life they come from.

Atlas: I first started by asking i fhe could do a poxpower and I-Mockery interview and then awhile after that I asked if I could try to interview TheSJProduction but then he didn't respond so I interviewed The-Great-One and thus starts my interviewer journey.

Q: Where do you stand as a member of The Interviewer? In other words what is your purpose and what do you think of it overall?

A:

The-Great-One: I am the chief editor and the one who controls the account. So overall I keep everything in control. I choose other people who want to join the ranks of Interviewers, I look over their lists, and then see where we go from there. I have posted more interviews than others, but I've been doing this longer.

Ryanson: I did a few good interviews, then I got distracted/lost inspiration. I'm mostly just a member in-name-only at the moment. I have ideas and will move from one to the next faster than lightning, and interviewing was one of them. My opinion matters in The Interviewer at least.

NekoMika: I stand as the one doing the least interviews since I tend to put trying to write good reviews above other things at times and thus I've only made two so far. I do have plans to interview more users soon as well though so I have that coming.

As for purpose, I would say it is to show users a back story to other people and let them make their own thoughts and conclusions of the user for themselves while trying to entertain them a bit I would suppose.

Atlas: I guess I would be in ranks the lowest since I've only done I think 2 interviews and. My purpose is interviewing since that's what the interviewer is all about.

Q: How do you decide, who gets interviewed? Is there some kind of debate with the 3 other members, or have you the freedom to freely interview users, who seem interesting enough?

A:

The-Great-One: I look over a person's profile from all their submissions, posts, and anything else I can find. If I find that there is something interesting about their works to discuss and find out more about then I send off a PM asking for permission. Once I get a response for confirmation I go through all their stuff again and begin asking questions.

Everybody is allowed to interview others at their own will. They get to pick. However I ask that they tell me who they intend on interviewing and to share their lists with other Interviewers. That way we don't have anybody crossing and possibly confusing the interviewees with multiple questions. There is a lot of freedoms here though, but I make sure that quality is never sacrificed.

Ryanson: The few I did, I was just like HMMM THEY'RE BIG, HOW ABOUT THEM? TGO thinks a lot of what his fellow interviewers think though, he asks us if he should interview whoever which is really cool.

NekoMika: How I decide who gets interviewed? Well I pretty much want to interview those who I would feel as being notable and possibly important to one part of the site or another. As for if there is a debate between the other 3? No there is not, we simply let The-Great-One know who we plan to be interviewing so no one will end up interviewing someone else being interviewed by another person on accident.

Atlas: Well i usually PM The-Great-One with a list of ideas/people interviewed and if he gives me the okay then i go on with the interview. I'm sad to say that I really haven't talked to SCTE3 and Ryanson.

Q: Did it every occur, that someone declined to get interviewed by you? If so, what were the reasons? Or was there ever an interview that didn't get released, despite being finished?

A:

The-Great-One: For me I have had some declines through group interviews with people either being too busy or not wishing to participate. SCTE3 never responded with The Review Request Club interview, Blaze-Heatnix turned down The Forum Regulars interview, and Sate was too busy for The Graffiti Crew interview.

One interview that never saw the light of day has been "Interview with 'The Room Tribute' Creators" there really wasn't a lot of substance there to really be a good interview so I scrapped it.

Ryanson: Oh it did. I've always wanted to interview Rina-chan. And I still call dibs on her, guys! I got her permission... but as successful as she was, I couldn't think of any GOOD questions anymore. So... yeah.

NekoMika: Well I've only interviewed two of them and neither declined. If I get declined in the future I may feel a bit down though seeing as they don't wish to be interviewed but will respect them and leave them be and let them do as they do on the site. If someone declines an interview I would feel it is for personal reasons, the fact they maybe just don't wish to or they don't maybe know who the interviewer is as all. Well I have an interview done at the moment but I am simply going to wait on it being put up, I am in no hurry at all. Just relaxing and enjoying the time fly by on this wonderful site.

Atlas: No one has every declined but some people have never answered the questions but I'm sure it's because they were busy working on other more important things. Well I originally interviewed Manly-Chicken but I asked bad questions and didn't ask enough as well so The-Great-One interviewed him and it went well.

Q: There are other users, like The Journalist, who concentrates on interviewing succesful flash creators, and lately Asandir, who interviews forum users. What do you think about them?

A:

The-Great-One: I got word of The Journalist from Ryanson. There was a thread where people were calling him a copycat. I spoke with him and we became affiliates. I like how he does his interviews and there have been any new ones since that thread, I think he has sadly died down. As for you Asandir, I really like your interviews with the different regular members on Newgrounds. It is interesting what they have to say.

Ryanson: The Journalist, while I've not read his stuff, seems an interesting idea. I think most people, myself included, thought he was a rip-off of The Interviewer. Turns out, both are now... collegues? Idk.

As for Asandir... hmph. Whatta punk.

NekoMika: Well I certainly have no issues with either of them. However should someone be interviewed by them I will look at the questions they have been asked so I know what I should try to avoid while interviewing the person myself. If they have already told how they found Newgrounds I would certainly want to avoid questions that would be pretty much a repeat of those questions as they interview would be a bit dull since it is the same questions and answers and I doubt anyone wants to read the same ones twice in a row. As for Asandir doing interviews, they look pretty nice anyways, decent, to the point and mostly forum users which is pretty cool anyways.

Atlas: Well I never really read The Journalist since I don't like the how the interviews are put on the page in that weird order. The forum users interviews are very fun to read and hope to see more interviews in the future.

Q: The 28th September 2011 was a very special day for The Interviewer, since your interviews got frontpaged. How was your reaction on that milestone?

A:

The-Great-One: Tom and I have been talking a lot about The Interviewer, but when he messaged me and told me about that it truly surprised me and made me happy. A lot of artists, animators, and musicians strive for the Front Page and find it an honor to be there. It makes me very happy to see that The Interviewer shares part of this.

Ryanson: I was like OMGOMGOMG then I remembered I haven't done an interview in a while.

NekoMika: I was actually pretty happy to see that have happened as it felt like a long time coming anyways. I guess any kind of exposure to those artists through interviews will be really good. Almost like NG Mag all over again except no pictures on the sides and that such. Then again the words tell more of a story on the user than the pictures would too.

Atlas: Well at first it was cool since it just said interviews but now it shows the most recent interviews and I really love it.

Q: Your very first released interview was held with Tom Fulp. Through the last years, you interviewed other famous people on Newgrounds, like Luis and Bahamut. How does it feel to stay in touch with them through those interviews, and did your view on them change, after you interviewed them?

A:

The-Great-One: My views on every person I have interviewed has changed. Because I got to know them a little bit more. That's one reason why I love doing this is because, not only am I learning so much about them, but I am passing on what they have taught me to others and I hope that my readers have learned just as much as I have.

Ryanson: Sometimes, sometimes not. It feels really weird, like for a bit I almost expect them not to change after the interview, so that the interview will always be relevant. But before you know it, they move on to their next project and you're like "Man... should have asked them that question. Oh well, maybe next time!"

NekoMika: Well it is nice since they give a thoughtful input and allow us to see how they live and such. After the interview is over the opinion will usually change depending on who you interview I think.

Atlas: Can't really answer about the one you named but interviewing Afro-Ninja kinda changed my perspective. I thought he went to college for a few years for programming but as the interview says he went to one class and learned it from there on.

[ PART 1 | PART 2 ]

Interview No. 65

Interview By: @Atlas

Today I'm interviewing one of Newgrounds elite Flash creators @Afro-Ninja. He is most known for Territory War and Newgrounds Sim.

Q: How did you find Newgrounds & why did you join?

A: I first heard about Newgrounds on the news back in the late 90's. They were doing a small story on furbies and mentioned that newgrounds had a game where you could microwave them. I didn't have internet at home so I first checked out newgrounds occasionally at the Library's internet terminal. I visited off and on for a few years but I didn't actually sign up for an account until 2002 when I actually got into producing flash. Thinking back I should have just signed up earlier, but oh well.

Q: You seem to be quite the programmer, how did you get into programming?

A: My first experience with programming was trying to dissect an old TI-86 calculator game and re-program it into something else. I didn't get very far but I was very interested in how it worked. The summer before my senior year of high school I applied for a programming seminar class at a DeVry university and was accepted. It was essentially an introductory logic/programming class based around C++. After an initial learning curve I got the hang of it fairly well. After the seminar I sort of applied what I learned to actionscript since the two languages share a similar syntax. I experimented a bit but the first real game I 'programmed' was a point and click called 'Escape from Elm Street.' The game was coded terribly but it worked and I was happy with it.

After high school I attended DeVry as a full-time student in the CIS (computer information systems) department where I learned the basics of other languages like Java and Visual Basic, then moved on to general concepts like Object Oriented Programming. As the years went on I did my best to read up on actionscript tutorials and try keep applying what I was learning in school to flash. With each game I create I try to refine my style and strive to be more proper, concise, and structured.

I don't consider myself an expert programmer by any means. For one I don't particularly excel in math, and I don't read up as much as I should on coding/design patterns. That being said I feel that general logic and organization are more important than pure math ability in terms of game creation. That comes from playing games, figuring out what makes them work, and trying to duplicate the results in your own project.

Q: You have 4 submissions that were made for the Time Trials, how were your experiences in the time trials?

A: The time trials were very fun but of the ones I've participated in the first one (five) was my favorite. One of the original members dropped out so I applied to swap in last minute and they gave me a chance. Everything really was completed in three days, it was a rush. As the time trials went on it felt like the rules became more and more lenient and I ended up spending more time on animations that weren't even as good as my first. I do miss being able to spend free time on animations but ever since I adopted flash as my job I pretty much have to stick to games- I'm not complaining of course, but unfortunately I'm not a good enough artist/animator to make a career out of it.

Q: You only have 3 audio submissions and 2 of them are tests. Why have you never pursued audio?

A: Audio is really just something I've played around a bit with but have yet to create anything notable. I've always considered myself really bad with music, notes, scales, tones, keys, etc but I took a short class in basic music theory and became pretty interested. Afterward I purchased a copy of fruity loops to play around with. I chose fruity loops because my pal josh (kelwynshade) had been using it for years to create pretty amazing stuff. He also has an actual music background though, so it's to be expected. Like I said before games and programming take up a majority of my time but music is something I would like to pursue more on the side like animation.

Q: Your first submission Smash Bros. Tournament is your first submission submitted and your first to get an award. How do you feel about that flash now?

A: I actually still like it, haha. It's mostly something I can look back on, watch with friends, and laugh about. I cringe at most of my other old stuff because I was trying too hard.

Actually my first submission to the portal was a comic animation called 'The Adventures of Gary' that I animated for a friend. A few years after signing up I requested to have it deleted because I wanted to clean up my old stuff a bit. Thinking back it was kind of a silly move. If anyone is interested in you can find it in the trash area of my site, as well as a bunch of other really bad stuff.

Q: One of your 2005 submissions Newgrounds Sim v.1.2 won you 2 awards, over a million views, over 12,000 reviews, and a spot in three different collections? How did you think of the idea for that game and how long did it take to make?

A: I don't remember how I came up with the exact idea for NG sim- I'd imagine it was partially inspired by the success of dating sim games at the time. I was heavily into the ng bbs back then and this was also when one of the older redesigns had just taken place. So somewhere between all of that the idea for an NG based sim game came about. I shot a quick message to Stamper to see if it was ok to use the existing site design in my game. He gave me the go ahead and I got started. I remember working on it mostly at the computer lab at DeVry in my spare time over the course of a few months, maybe more. The scope grew a little beyond what I had originally planned but I was happy with the end result. I had hoped it would perform well in the portal but it definitely exceeded my expectations after coming in at first place for the first monthly NG flash contest. To date it's been my most successful entry to Newgrounds. I've had some sort of sequel in mind for years but other projects keep taking precedence. Maybe some day :)

Q: One of my favorite of your submissions (two actually) is NG Is Under Attack Part 1 & 2. Was the inspiration for this flash based off the teletubbie incident with the BBC?

A: The idea was originally inspired by another portal animation at the time that gave anthropomorphic qualities to .swf files. Unfortunately I don't remember what it was, but it lead to the idea of having a 'portal town' of sorts where all the .swf files lived together, which is what NGUA starts with. Tom was posting a lot of articles about his copyright issues with the BBC and at some point I decided that it would be cool to incorporate it into a story with my 'portal village.' It was also my way of paying respect to a lot of my favorite authors and animations at the time by featuring them in my flash.

Both parts did pretty well for their time, and part 1 was my first front-page feature. I started work on part 3 later down the line but I tried to incorporate too many ideas and became too frustrated with my limited animation ability. It sat on the back burner for a while and eventually fell into obscurity. I even started a remake of the first part thinking it would motivate me to finish the series but neither happened :(

As much as I'd love to say I'll finish it the truth is that the series is too outdated at this point. None of the issues are relevant anymore, and most of the featured content/characters are forgotten about. Making a part 3 in today's portal wouldn't work unless I re-wrote the story or found a successful way to incorporate new portal characters.

Q: I'd say the flash most people know you by is Territory War, how did you think that idea up and why did you use stick men?

A: After randomly messing around in flash one night I started coming up with a little engine where you could toss grenades around and bounce them off the floor. From there I played around with basic platforming and stage scrolling. I feel like I had worms in mind but it wasn't until some people commented on my engine and its similarities that I decided to keep going and turn it into an actual game. My previous games had mostly only involved point and click mechanics, so Territory War ended up being a pretty big challenge. I went with stick figures because they were much easier than actual characters and I was already spending a large amount of time on the programming.

Q: You have a total of 49 awards over the 8 years you've been here, how does it feel to have so many?

A: I'm proud of them but I don't like to place emphasis on them. Awards in general (especially portal awards) are very subjective. One day's daily feature might not have been good enough for top ten on any other day. My goal has always been to keep at least a 1:1 ratio between submissions and awards so I think over time it evens out in terms of whether or not the awards are justified.

Not to sound too cheesy but if you start relishing in awards then it's easy to become careless with current and future work.

Q: What can we expect from Afro-Ninja in the future?

A: I'm bouncing between a few different projects right now- Most notably Territory War 3, and a port of my Escape the Car game for the XBL Indie channel. I also have a new installment of the Escape Series sitting on the backburner and ready to release later this year.

Aside from my main projects I have a notebook full of ideas and I'm never sure which ones to shoot for next. Stuff like an Afro-Ninja fighting game, a Castlevania tribute, Newgrounds SIM sequel, etc. Once my schedule clears up a bit I really would like to take a break from games and play around with more artistic stuff such as music, animation, and even video production. I keep telling myself I'll get to it after a certain project but new things keep popping up. Can't complain though.

It seems Afro-Ninja is just a regular Joe who got into programming after messing around and has been getting better and better over time.

Interview No. 64

Interview By: @The-Great-One

Today's guest is mainly a coder here on Newgrounds. He has done works on games such as Letz Maek A Flash Gaem, Ban That Fulp!, and Friday: The Game. He is an interesting forum member, but overall he is quite possibly one with the most unique usernames that is just as fun to say as it is to spell, @Manly-Chicken.

Q: How did you find Newgrounds and why did you join?

A: A long time ago back in 2007 I was like 13 or something. I really loved the Tony Hawk Pro Skater games and wanted to find good flash based skateboarding games. Unfortunately, none such exists. I eventually got flash Cs3 but never used it. Slowly I started learning code, and slowly I got back into Newgrounds.

Q: Santa's Missiletoe would be your first flash game on Newgrounds. Where did this idea come from and looking back on it are you still proud of it?

A: I'm not "proud" of it per say, I'm more impressed that I got it to work properly. It was an insanely simple game that i could finish in a day right now, but it was my first game on Newgrounds, and my first real game, and it's pretty damn impressive for one (even if it sucks)

Q: What is The Windows Collab?

A: Aww shit, I'm gonna have to answer that one... I admit it. Back in 09 I was a... n00b. A Mikeys9607 style n00b. I had numbers in my name that was based on an aol account because there are no good aol names left.

Basically I sucked and thought I was good at animation and couldn't be told otherwise or I'd get pissed off. An example why you should lurk for a year or so then start posing if you're young.

Q: You would be part of the lazymuffin draft collab. How did you come across this collab and what was it like working with other artists?

A: Not really all that hard. I didn't actually work with anybody, I worked on stand alone animation.

Q: Letz Maek A Flash Gaem is game that is all about speed with three different challenges. How did you come up with this idea? Also will there be a sequel or would adding more things make it complex?

A: I was at summer camp and I had 2 game ideas: a minigame collection that only used one button a RPG like NG Sim, but you can control how good the flash is. The first one never came to be, but I wound up kinda doing the second in like 3 days. It even got the front page :D It also was my first game with medals (that didn't work for 2 months...)

Q: Ban That Fulp! is a recreation of an old Internet game called "Spank the Monkey". Did you use that as an inspiration. Also what is the story behind this Stickam chat?

A: Ban That Fulp is a rip off of spank the monkey, and it's only popular because it has tom fulp in it. The story of the stickam chat is that, as you know, the REAL NG chat isn't done yet.

A popular alternative is the stickam chatroom. Back before the group chatroom that can't die, we had a bunch of rooms like "ng hotties" or "ng books" because the room died after an hour of inactivity. One day, Tom came on, which he never does, and he starts posting links and streaming furry porn, so he gets permabanned (I just missed it). So I make a game in 1 day.

Q: This is the one game that I have been eager to know about and that is Friday: The Game. You would work with Pjorg on this game. Whose idea was this? Whose jokes were whose? Also do you regret not having an option for killing Justin Bieber?

A: Friday: the Game is a game I'm really proud of. I saw how popular Friday was on youtube, and how there was only one real game for it (Rebecca Whack). It was originally going to be a small game where you only have 2 or 3 choices, pick one, if it's right you move on, if not you die, etc.

I tried getting Luis on board, but no. This was my first real collab with Pjorg not for a game jam.

Q: Power Devour! is one of those wave games. Where you have waves of enemies coming in and if you have to kill them. However with this one some have to be killed a certain way. This would be you and your team's Game Jam entry, how did you come across this team, this concept, and what problems did you come to when making it?

A: It's not our first game jam. MY first game jam was game jam 2 with the godawful wreck "slappy the walrus". In game jam 3 I was on vacation in Florida, and I was going home on the second day of the jam. They were letting you pick your teams (kinda ruining the idea of a game jam) I made a fan thread about finding a team because no such one exists.

NonPlusUltra pm'd me about joining his team with him and Schleif. Later during the livestream I met pjorg (and I was working on a game with Elfman-rox but it never got off the ground.)

We made a game called "They Came From Nam" featuring a giraffe vietnam war vet named "giraffe rambo jesus" saving his daughter from vietkong paper planes. It had 3 bosses and was hard as shit.

The NG community hated it. but it came in third in the jam. We made power devour in the next jam without NPU. We were supposed to have 3d-xelu, but he never showed.

It got a better score, but it was still sucky. We then made everybody poops in the latest game jam and nobody liked it.

Q: Staff Sumo Smackdown! is another game you would program for. How did this game come to be and why the Newgrounds staff members?

A: It was a week until Pico Day and I finished Friday the Game a little earlier. Redharvest wanted a programmer, and I answered the call.

I used the NG staff because pico day is always about fictional characters. I did it to stand out.

Q: There seems to be a story here with !-!Awesome Collab!-!. You would submit entries, the collab would fall and be resurrected to !-Awesome Collab-! New Thread to give us the flash The AWESOME Collab. It seems your entries would not be entered and I don't believe you were the only one exempted were you? What can you tell us about this?

A: Like I said, I was a n00b. It was a shitty collab and I made an even shittier part for it, and I freaked the fuck out when I didn't get accepted.

Some people have an inner child. I have an inner n00b who can come out at the worst times.

Q: You have assisted with the 2010 Newgrounds BBS Awards and the 2011 Newgrounds BBS Mid-Year Awards. Why did you decide to offer your services here or were you chosen?

A: I assisted in the 2010 awards by making a crappy minigame where you catch daily 1st trophies with the ng tank.

I MADE the 2011 mid year awards from scratch in 1 day.

Q: When it comes to programming, what does a programmer do?

A: A programmer is somebody who deals with the code of a video game of course. It makes the game do things. Without code, a flash game is just a movie that loops forever and has no preloader. Games can have no art (text based games) but have to have code or some sort of programming. Movies are the opposite, requiring no code.

Q: You are certainly a collab man. When it comes to looking for a collab to join, what should someone be looking for and what should they be aware of?

A: They should look for somebody they work well with and has their sense of humor/ideas and you should enjoy working with them and enjoy what they make.

Even if they don't do much it always helps to bounce ideas off of people to see what they think.

Q: What can we expect from Manly-Chicken in the future?

A: I'm trying to stay focused on that penguin game I'm working on with rice pirate but I lose focus so easy. I'm still working with pjorg, so stay tuned.

Manly-Chicken is a creative mind no doubting that at all. His coding work is not only impressive at times, but I can only see it getting better as time goes by. His name should be one on your list of possible programmers for any upcoming games or collaborations.

Interview No. 63

Interview By: @The-Great-One

Today's guest has done a lot of work for Newgrounds while at the same time juggling his own life. He has been known for his works on Sheep go to Heaven..., Boss Bash, Trick-or-Treat Adventure!, and Portal Defenders. These along with many others would make him not only a wonderful solo game creator, but also one that you would want on your side for collaboration. He is the great @BoMToons.

Q: How did you find Newgrounds and why did you join?

A: When I was in college, I'd see the logo on links friends would send me all the time. I didn't really think about it at first, but eventually I decided to check the site out directly. When I started experimenting with Flash, I noticed all the comments on NG and that they let anyone submit, so I decided I wanted to get feedback and exposure for my stuff.

Q: Your first flash submission would be entitled Donkey BoM. This fascinating game would bring forth a good bit of interesting elements combined with the mechanics of Donkey Kong. Tell me what made you want to bring these mechanics with this sort of storyline?

A: All my early games were experiments trying to learn Flash. I used to not think a platformer was even POSSIBLE in flash. The code for Donkey BoM is TERRIBLE. The story is from the Book of Mormon (BoM) which is a book of scripture, like the Bible, from the Latter Day Saint faith, of which I am a member.

Q: Sheep go to Heaven.... Jesus Christ where did the idea for this come from?

A: It comes from a scripture in the New Testament about separating souls at the final judgement. It's also a great song by the band Cake. I thought I'd combine the 2 concepts into something funky. This was the first game Tom front-paged on NG and I almost crapped my pants when I saw that it had been played over 1,000 times.

Q: BoMToons-Tamagotchi took this small device and put it into flash format. Growing up as a kid I always saw kids with these, raising whatever they may have had on it. Did you yourself also have one of these?

A: I never actually had a tamagotchi, but I played with some friends'. This again was just an early experiment to challenge myself with Flash. A lot of my early games are about the art and story rather than the gameplay which tended to be really simple cuz of my lack of experience in Flash.

Q: Nephi's Adventure and Nephi's Adventure 2 would be two very interesting point and click adventure games. What would the inspiration be behind these two games and why did you wait so long to make the sequel?

A: The inspiration for these games is the story of Nephi in the Book of Mormon. Of course we added a bunch of crazy stuff, like meat and hotdog salesmen to make it more fun and funny, but the underlying story is from the BoM.

It took so long to make a sequel because we got real jobs and had a lot less free time. It's also hard to follow up something successful with a sequel because you're intimidated with trying to out-do yourself.

Q: What was Bomtoons Idol supposed to be?

A: Ha ha... where did you find that?! We have all these characters from the Book of Mormon and we thought the anarchronistic idea of ancient characters singing modern songs would be really funny. For example, there's a guy named "Shiz" in the BoM who gets decapitated, but before he dies, and while his head is chopped off, his body tries to lift itself up off the ground. He was going the sing the Beegees "Stayin' Alive."

See? Isn't that funny? Each character was going to have a funny modern song that fit their ancient personality. I'd like to return to the idea some day.

Q: When poxpower and Mockery were here we talked about some of the creations that you would help them out with. The first being Haunted House Candy Hunt!. poxpower stated that you were just "the unlucky bastard who replied to our request for a programmer" while Mockery stated that "Working with Bom and Pox just felt right. They shared my weird sense of humor and just wanted to make fun games". The question is how did you come into contact with these two and would you kindly tell us about working with these two?

A: Yeah, they put out an APB on the forums saying they needed a programmer, so I sent them a demo of one of the Boss Bash levels. They liked it enough to choo-choo-choose me.

I responded because I had played Domo Kun's Angry Smashfest and I thought Mockery was some kind of Flash god. Turns out he's just a normal nice guy who REALLY likes pop-culture.

Poxpower is extremely talented and dedicated to his work, he's also a really depressing whiner who thinks he will never succeed in life.

They're both GREAT to work with!

Q: Boss Bash would be nominated for the 2008 Newgrounds Tank Award for Best Flash Game. Where did the idea of this game come from and how did it feel to be nominated?

A: I have always enjoyed boss fights more than any other part of games. There was a forum collab long ago where each person would recreate their favorite boss fight in Flash and they would all be compiled in one epic game. 2 of the games in Boss Bash started there (Wart and Thunderbird). The forum collab fell apart and I was left with these 2 games that I had put a ton of work into. So I decided that a 3rd would round it off well and I made the Abobo level.

I was really honored to have it nominated for a Tank Award. I knew it had no chance of winning after seeing the other nominations, but it still was a nice nod to my emerging Flash skills. Every year there have been tank awards I've had a game nominated, but never really felt like I had something that deserved to win... maybe next year right!?

Q: You would work with poxpower and Mockery again on the game Trick-or-Treat Adventure!. What all would you say you contributed towards this game?

A: I contributed all the code for the game. The point and click engine is not perfect, but it's pretty good and accurate to what I remember playing. That game would have made us a fortune if we had released it in 1990. It really is a huge game with lots of fun and funny puzzles.

My favorite line is when you try looking at the kitchen sink: "YOU DID IT YOU FOUND THE KITCHEN SINK YOU WIN THE GAME! No, just kidding, it's just a sink full of dishes." Rog crammed so many funny lines into that game, there's something different for each action on hundreds of items. You have to play it to get an idea of just how crazy it is.

Q: In Pico Blast you got to work with two individuals who have been here before Luis and thatcomposerguy on the flash game you three brought to us for Pico Day and that was Pico Blast. What was it like working with these two and how much input did each of you have?

A: I really enjoy working with Luis. He's very open to collaborating and not whiny (like poxpower). He always takes my crappy game sketches and adds a unique spin that brings them to life in a refreshing way. We have a good working relationship where we can riff and get on the same wavelength quickly. I've never had the feelings of conflict or differing opinion with Luis that I've had with most other people.

ThatComposerGuy is the same way, we send him a demo of the game and he creates something epic. I'd highly recommend anyone who needs music to work with him, he needs little direction and creates things that you'd swear were made by a whole orchestra.

Q: Super Mafia Land would take the game Super Mario Bros. 2 and give it a different take. Is this a return to Donkey Bom in a way? What inspiration came to create this?

A: This game was kind of stream of consciousness. Jmtb02 and I had always talked about working on something together and we both really loved Super Marios Bros. 2 (we're among the few who didn't absolutely despise that game).

Looking back we didn't think it through very well. We just started making stuff, then chose a name, then forgot to make the game relate to the name very well. Weirdly, it's one of my most popular games and has been played millions of times... probably just due to the name.

Q: You would team up with Luis and thatcomposerguy yet again with one of Newgrounds biggest games Portal Defenders. There is certainly a story to be told here and I want to know all of it. Mainly whose idea was it and then the process that went into creating this game. Also will we be seeing Portal Defenders 2?

A: I don't really remember, but I think this was Luis' idea. He had recently finished working with NegativeOne and Mindchamber on NG Rumble where he learned a bunch of skills for animated fighting in games. He had these anims of Tom and Dan with utensils for some reason and sent them to me with the idea of making something "small" like the arena game from the console version of Castle Crashers. Funny thing: in the original Portal Defenders demo, there were giant puppy dogs on either end of the arena that would swipe you when you got close.

As tends to happen, this "small" idea turned into something huge. We completed one wave, then thought the wave needed a boss. Then we did another wave and it was so fun to beat up all the artists, programmers, and mods from NG we just kept going. Soon we had a bunch of waves and bosses and mini-games all from a "small" idea.

I'm still really proud of the "paint the town red" bonus game in there. The whole "bloody footprints" engine in the game was a really small touch that, I think, gave the game an extra feeling of polish.

Yes, we are working on Portal Defenders 2. I have a working engine for the 1st level and Luis has done a ton of art. This one will be much larger in scale with multiple scrolling levels and follow much more of a beatemup style gameplay. The art has evolved to a cool new level and we have some crazy ideas for the game play. It will be kind of a "turtles in time" style story line where Tom (and co.) get sucked into the NG portal and have to fight through a bunch of crazy levels set in popular NG universes.

It's so large in scale we've actually considered possibly maybe eventually releasing it on a console. (!)

Q: Luis LAUNCH holds the same concept as other launch games such as Toss The Turtle, Kitten Cannon, and Learn To Fly. However this seems a bit more simplistic, but like other launch games it is addictive as hell. Why would you say these games are addictive? Also why would you want to make one and involving Luis?

A: It was Luis Day and I wanted to see if I could make a game in a day. I thought it would be a cool present to him to make a game and give him all the ad revenue. I think he's made over $700 on it now... maybe I should have split it with him ha ha.

Those games are addicting cuz they play on our human desire for upgrades and improvement. We're so curious what's beyond the next horizon. It's kind of manipulative, but I thought being propelled into the sky by your own bean-induced farts was pretty funny.

I love the end of the game when Luis' lifeless carcass floats into space... timeless classic.

Q: If someone was to ask me what your best game was I would tell them Chibi Knight. Where did the inspiration for this game come from and what was the process you took into bringing this game to life?

A: The only Zelda game I like is Zelda 2. Everyone else hates it because it betrayed the Zelda "formula." You can see my love for Zelda 2 in Boss Bash and Castle Crashing the Beard.

Chibi knight grew out of CCTB. So many people kept telling us how much they loved CCTB and that we should make a full game. So I started tooling with the idea of a more full-scale CCTB, maintaining the core upgrade dynamic, but adding in full quests and permanent items and more bosses and normal enemies. It became my "free time" project that I would tool on whenever I was bored with everything else. I actually showed a demo to Luis, but he wasn't excited about it, so I just did all the art myself.

It sat around for over 2 years, then I showed it to Dan at Armor Games since he really likes to support midieval-themed games. He asked me to expand on it and offered me a really nice price to sponsor it. So I finished it off and released it.

The response has been incredible. I never thought it would be so well-received. It's been played millions of times and I still get around $250 a month just on its ad-revenues. That's impressive for a game that's been out so long.

I think the key was getting my daughter to do the voice acting. When the game was almost done, I was showing it to her and realized I needed more personality for the knight. I had just bought a new high-quality microphone that I needed to test, so I decided to let her contribute to the game. It was a fortuitous idea that really paid off. People love the personality and my daughter feels like she's the queen of the world for having a game that "she made" that's so popular. She even had a "Chibi Knight" themed birthday party.

Q: Madness: Premeditation would be your Madness Day entry. It is a complex game at first and takes some getting used to, would you say that this was intentional?

A: I didn't purposely want it to be hard to learn, but it is a different kind of game so some time learning is to be expected. We probably could have walked people through a better tutorial up front, but we were crunched for time to get it out on Madness Day.

It's one of the games I'm most proud of creatively. We wanted to do something new with a Madness game that had never been done before but still keep the spirit of madness. There are so many things I want to improve about it, but the underlying concept is really golden. We cranked it out in just a couple weeks, and it had a shaky reception at first, but since then, as people have recognized how unique the concept is, the views/plays have really gone up and its become one of my better-performing games.

Q: When HeRetiK was here we talked about his art collab The Red Line, it involved many different submissions connected together through the use of a solitary red line. You and many other talented artists would take this concept to the next level with the art collab Newgrounds Worm. You've stated that it was behind the scenes for a few years since 2007. Could you tell us the story of this and the different connections made by you and all of these amazing artists?

A: The idea was originally started by someone else who sent out private PM invites. Some people came through with art pieces, and some dropped the ball. Since they're all connected you can imagine how hard it was to organize all those people and make sure they had what they needed and followed the rules.

Eventually Renaenae revived the project and she's the real mastermind behind its completion. She badgered people endlessly and did quality control to get them all seamlessly together. She deserves the most credit for the final product, all I did was one picture in it and programmed the viewer.

Interesting fact: Mike, from NG, had a working 3D version of the worm using a 3D environment modeled by Mindchamber, but he ended up getting too busy to finish it off so we decided to just fall back to the 2D version. The 3D version would have blown your mind though.

Q: When it comes to working with collabs or collaborating with another person what do you look for? What advice can you give others wanting to collaborate with one another or start a collab?

A: I think collaborating almost always makes for a better final product, but sometimes, when you have a certain synergy with someone then the project almost flows naturally and doesn't seem like you're really working at all. If you can find someone like that to work with, then hold on to them.

The biggest challenge with collaborating is when someone doesn't hold up their end of the work load. So, if someone is willing to stay up late with you for 3 days in a row to finish something, that's a skill worth recognizing and holding on to also. Don't let a "finisher" slip through your fingers, that's worth just as much, if not more, than the creative synergy I mentioned above.

I feel like me and Luis have both of those things when we're working together, which is probably why we've returned to each other over and over... I JUST CAN'T QUIT YOU LUIS!

Q: When it comes to making a sequel one thing people should be wary of his being repetitive, but at the same time they don't want it to be entirely different from their previous iteration. What advice can you give to those who are looking to achieve a proper balance?

A: You're probably asking the wrong person, I don't have many sequels and the sequels I have done really weren't as big of hits as I had hoped. I know lots of developers out there make it big from releasing sequels, but I haven't figured out the formula for success on that one yet.

Q: You are no stranger to the Art Portal. Many of your entries tend to resemble your artwork in your games, but one entry tends to stick out and that is Wilbur. You have stated...

"It was supposed to represent how NG is kind of like wilbur in that a lot of people don't recognize its positive traits and worth and it just takes a few dedicated spiders to help other start to see it for what it really is."

Do you still stand by this statement? Whether your answer be yes or no could you shed a little bit more light on this?

A: Did I say that? That's some deep shiz right there... I do think NG is like that. I believe its a gem of the Internet, though hidden by lots of surrounding dirt. There is so much creativity and talent in this community and such an honest base of critical Flash-playing fans. I don't think any other site is quite like it. Lots of people get stuck on the thought that NG is a "nasty" "porn-filled" site. And to some, it probably is, but if you dig past all that you hit a solid foundation of real people who are honestly creative and trying to improve themselves, develop skills, express their inner thoughts, tap into a world that connects with others, reaching out.

I know Tom was like a "Charlotte" for me. I was wallowing in my own mud trying to make a name for myself and improve my "trade" when he saw some kind of potential in me and decided to encourage it. When he put "sheep go to heaven" on the front page, it was like Charlotte writing "Some Pig!" in her web. Every time Tom promotes something, he's showing confidence and faith in someone. Often, that someone might not deserve the promotion, but because Tom has faith in them, they live up to it. Some people let him down, others build themselves up based on his confidence and become what he saw in them underneath all the dirt of inexperience.

I've heard many other developers and artists express similar sentiments. The real difference between NG and other Flash portals is Tom. He's one of us and has a talent for discerning budding talent... just like Charlotte and Wilbur!

Q: What can we expect from BoMToons in the future?

A: It seems like I have less and less time to work on independent stuff because of my full time job at WoogiWorld.com. We have a 3rd installment for Nephi's Adventure planned, and a kind of multi-player excite-bike-ish game too. A sequel to Chibi Knight is a much-demanded must, and Portal Defenders 2 will also come out some day if I ever get any more free time.

I can't resist creating new stuff and sharing it. It's just part of who I am. I love the feeling of starting and planning new projects and I love the attention that comes from people who appreciate what I do. I hope to make new things that no one has imagined yet. I hope to make enough money to allow me to create whatever I want without being tempted to "sell out" or being under the direction of someone else.

I want the freedom to experiment and create.

BoMToons is certainly a dedicated and hard worker. It seems to me that doing nothing would be the equivalent of driving this man insane, putting him in a straight jacket would send him up the walls wanting and needing to create. His inate creativity is his gift not only to himself, but to all of us. If you're ever looking for advice or a Newgrounds artist to look up to then this is one of them.