What a year it has been!
Probably my most expensive year yet! So much so, I may need to cut a lot of things back for 2025 to prevent getting into the red! But it was quite the experience nonetheless. It was kind of like my āexperimental yearā. Thought not too substantial, thereās still some progression for me and my work as well as a few downturns as well. Letās review them by month, shall we?
January
The year started off real sour because I was recovering from a strange variation of the Whooping Cough. A lot of my family members got it and I was the last to recover. Not the best start for 2024, to be honest. Fortunately, there were some ups that month!
Iāve submitted one of my older works from 2023 as part of an Art Gallery Collab run by @Aalasteir! Possibly the first collab I ever participated!
- Ordered Plush from Plush Poll
It was also this month where I decided to order a custom plush meant for a major contest originally meant for this year. Unfortunately, that contest didnāt come to be for a few reasons as the year went onā¦
February
My experimental year continues as I decided to make a ātestā contest of sorts! Basically a contest meant to encourage those to be invested in my games even just for a few minutes. Originally intended to be one winner and a $50 prize, but this was later changed due to my poor writing describing the deadline. Before the contest, the only OviVixen characters I ever showed in the promotionals were Fox Sprite, Nu, BigNu, Rattino, Pangomalta, and Pop-Hoppy. I kept the rest of the cast hidden because I wanted players to discover the rest of the cast themselves; fortunately, this contest has helped a lot with that!
The winner for the initial contest was @TomDoy for their piece āFox Sprite 64ā!
I also brought in an Achievement award of $20 for whoever helped reveal the most or more significant characters, and that award went to @CALDM2001 for their piece āOviVixen Arcade Master Editionā!
Overall, Iād like to thank all who has participated in that contest and hereās a link where you can find all of them!
- Post Contest Character Reveals
March
- Post Test Contest & Winner
Because I didnāt make the deadline very clear, I extended the contest all the way to March that allows an additional winner and $50 prize money. The winner for the late entries was a Newgrounds newcomer at the time by the name of @rosarjc with this great piece!
- Earliest Easter ImaginableĀ
Easter should always be an April thing! No exceptions!
- Post Contest Character Reveals
April
The plush meant for the now shelved contest had arrived that month! Iāll open the contest once I get the funding for it and OviVixen as a whole gets enough traction. In the meantime, there it goes eating my art on the daily!
May
The greatest and most dramatic experience Iāve ever been to! Never have I met this many people all at the same time! Met @TomFulp, @BrandyBuizel, and the @Pukebomb crew again as well as quite a few others too who I have met in both Pico Day and the Yestercade event a year prior. I would like to briefly thank and mentioned all who I met there: @DeadlyComics,Ā @Chourios,Ā @JoeCanvas,Ā @Malformed,Ā @Sirmi,Ā @KevSomeone,Ā @Andyl4nd,Ā @Jonas, @ninjamuffin99,Ā @EllieDoodles343,Ā @rappinawful,Ā @novaruah,Ā @Krinkels,Ā @Luis. Got stickers from @Imprez, @RavioliBox,Ā @devoidgazer, @DavidBurt, @EugeneDoesArt,Ā @BobbyBurt,Ā @ehjur,Ā @leroyalmess, @robdogdraws. Glad to have personally met @SrPelo, @Spazkid, @PhantomArcade, @TwistedGrim, @Spinalpalm, and the dudes who made Bridge Kids! It was a rather extreme day throughout and ended with an intense drive back home!
I guarantee you this, I will not go to any Pico Day meetup until I have SOMETHING to show! Whether it be an animation or a game showcase kiosk, anything to prove Iām a Newgrounder!
June
Crap happened that made me have to rethink my finances especially for 2025. It was that month where I had to shelve my big contest and think about further prospects outside of OviVixen. Working on the game or any art pieces werenāt exactly fun as my dying tablet was only allowing me to work on whatever for 2 hours at a time with a 3 hour charging break inbetween. Unfortunately, that was my ābetterā days with the tablet as the month, it decided to go ākaputā! I could no longer access the start screen and had to do some major workarounds to salvage as much as I can from it. I didnāt realize how much I have truly lost until long after I factory resetted the device.
It wasnāt all clouds nā storms in June! @rosarjc gave me my first OviVixen Fanart! Iām very grateful for that!
July
Just as when I thought I would only get one fanart ever, here comes @LobsterMango with their piece āReply Guyā! That really put a smile on my face!
A lot of āupsā in July as @Aalasteir invited me for an interview talking about a wide multitude of topics as well as anything OviVixen related as well as the Pico Day event! Thanks, man, for having me on!
It was also around that month where I had to bite the bullet and factory reset my ādeadā Surface tablet. It was back up and I returned to drawing; however, its poor battery still makes working on it a complete drag. Stupid thing even went back to inaccurately reading its battery thus spontaneously shutting down after reaching 50%!
August
Despite August being a significant month for OviVixen, because of the drama I had with the tablet, I didnāt have much to show for that month. Maybe next August, Iāll reveal something much more significant!
I also participated in a collab run by @Little-Rena. It wasnāt too big of a role, but I had doing it! Thank you for accepting my submission!
September
- Start of the Twelve Hypotheticals
OviVixen-related dreams started showing up which motivated me to do some nonsense! First, I dabbled with Blender and made a few models: not the best models out there, but definitely improvements from the last time I touched that program. This was also the start of the Twelve Hypotheticals thing I wanted to do on a casual basis, and it all started with this character!
October
Didnāt do much this month because I got sick again with a similar illness I got last December, and the symptoms lasted just long too!
November
I didnāt want to end this year offering nothing, so I decided in December to run a slightly bigger contest similar to the Test Contest from February. But first, I had to do some major tweaks for the OviVixen games as a whole! I always wanted to overhaul OviVixen Arcadeās whole soundtrack, and it was this month when I actually did it! Three of the songs are actually posted here on Newgrounds as standalone audio!
The three songs all make their debut in the most recent update of OviVixen Arcade!
- Special Thanks to the Following:
@SanyaUmbra for your interpretation of Fox Sprite!
@UrnSudden for using Fox Sprite to help with your 3D modeling!
DecemberĀ
It was the start of December where I updated Arcade and Master! Arcade with the music overhaul and slight gameplay improvement, and Master with some major bug fixes. Both fully downloadable on Itch.io!
This contest was basically the āTestā contest but with double the timeframe and prize money. Itās now closed but the winners will not be revealed until last five minutes of today EST: basically when Newgrounds is about to hit 2025! The two winners will receive $100 each as a kickstart for their new years.Ā
As one of many top-offs, Iāve also participated in one of @Aalasteirās final collabs of the year! A rather silly one, I might add!
Conclusion
Again, it was quite a wild ride! It has got me thinking of more important matters for 2025. So much so, it has me considering a bit of a hiatus until I get things in line. But enough of those thoughts! Today is for celebration! I wish all of you a very happy new year!
