"ALL THE NEWS THAT'S FIT TO POST"
@TaintedLogic
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Good Morning Newgrounds! Welcome to The Tank Tribune! The Newgrounds Deathmatch Auditions have concluded with Round 1 under way. We sat down with TaintedLogic to talk about not only the Deathmatch, but the Newgrounds Underdogs' Audio Contest as well. There's a change to one of the sections of The Tank Tribune. Don't worry, it's not a replacement, just something a little different. Clock Day is next week, August 15th. The Newgrounds Summer Fest is coming at the end of August, which also signifies the end of Summer. School is back in session, for primary to college alike. Here are the hip happenings of Newgrounds!
The-Great-One
INTRO AND OUTRO
@sorohanro
FEATURED COMPOSERS
@TeffyD @Kettako @HouseMasta @Psyguy @Setu-Firestorm
@Karco @MaestroRage @DPK4 @ClassicalFreak @Envy
@TheMerelyHuman @MarkRuff21 @AndrewCr @EDG4RXD @MJnHerAbsolution
@Whatlollolyeet @Banana-head @50Steaks @Anonymous-Frog @TankmanTriweekly
NG TORONO 2023 TRIBUTE
@spicycoffee
@ninjamuffin99 hosted a meetup in Toronto. Tom Fulp was one of many Newgrounds members who attended. There were many stories, laughs, and pictures. They all met up at a The Royal Theater to watch movies from Newgrounds famous Flash Portal. These movies can be seen in this morning Sunday Matinee at the end of the paper.
The 10th Annual Art-Inspired Music Contest has come to a close. @Random-storykeeper has announced the results for this year's winners! Taking home the win in 1st Place was @Everratic for AIM - Bellowers of Grief. It was inspired by @themefinland piece Bellowers of grief. Congratulations!
Bellowers of grief
themefinland
@wavetro has left his Instagram account behind. He gave a review of Instagram, describing its flaws, and its stranglehold on its users that it tries to achieve. The part of this post, which is the bulk of it, is the explanation of the other social media sites that creators use to get their names out there. YouTube, Twitter, Odysee, and Newgrounds. If you're an online creator, you should definitely read it.
This year's Summer Fest is two weeks away! August 25th, 26th, and 27th! @Kekiiro has announced the full schedule! This year's panelists include @ninjamuffin99, @Bleak-Creep, @Jack, @SrPelo, @stradomyre, @RickSteubens, and @milkyace!
We are currently in Round 1 of Newgrounds Audio Deathmatch 2023. The Tank Tribune sat down with former combatant, judge, co-host, and current host of this year's Deathmatch @TaintedLogic, to talk about this and the Newgrounds Underdogs' Audio Contest.
Interviewer: @The-Great-One
Interviewee: @TaintedLogic
The-Great-One: You are hosting two contests this year. One being the (NGUAC). How has this contest evolved over the years? What makes you passionate about it after so long?
TaintedLogic: When I first joined Newgrounds about 11 years ago, I was most excited about using it as a platform to share my own music. I still enjoy making music, but over the years I’ve cultivated a passion for giving others feedback on theirs. I think I’m actually pretty good at giving constructive feedback, something I’m not sure I can say of making music myself, especially on the production/mixing side. I review every piece that I score as a judge for these contests. I don’t think of the goal of these contests as just to determine a winner. I see people coming back to these contests year after year, improving greatly in between. It’s really fulfilling for me to see that improvement and think that I’ve helped motivate that improvement, even in a small way.
The main way the NGUAC has evolved over time is that it’s gotten bigger. The first year, we had 63 participants. Since Covid, it’s been about 400-450. The format is pretty much the same, although the rules have gotten longer and more specific as I’ve learned to anticipate certain problems. I’m also much more proactive about sending reminders for people to participate, boosting our “retention rate” in the 2nd and 3rd rounds.
Also, in the early days of the NGUAC, shortly before the results were posted, I would build anticipation for the results by concocting an elaborate fictional narrative in a series of posts explaining why the results and/or judges were “in danger.” Like many aspects of the NGUAC, these “stall stories” were inspired by some (tamer) jokes made by @Step and @Echo in the early days of the NGADM. Eventually, I discontinued the stall stories, in part because some contestants got very confused and even angry with me. Also, a lot of the forum discussion about the NGUAC now takes place off of Newgrounds itself, especially on Discord.
Most importantly, in 2017 I changed the name of the NGUAC. It used to be the NGAUC, but some folks on the Chips Compo site run by @Johnfn convinced me to switch the U and the A so that we had a standing contest named “chips” and another one named “guac.” XD
The-Great-One: The other contest (is the NGADM). How did you come from auditioning back in Deathmatch 2013 to hosting ten years later?
TaintedLogic: I think it was @Step and @Echo, actually. Darklight17 wasn’t even a member of the site in 2009. But anyway, before I hosted or even participated in the NGADM, I was just a passionate spectator. As a @Waterflame fan, I followed the contest closely in 2012, when he finished 2nd overall. I made a Newgrounds account shortly thereafter, and decided to audition the following year. But I actually have both judged and hosted the NGADM before. Step asked me to be a fill-in judge one time while he was still hosting, maybe in 2015. Then, when he and Echo stepped away from hosting a year later, I helped find new hosts and judges to re-organize the contest, a process led by @ThatJohnnyGuy (then known as RealFaction). @ChronoNomad and I ended up co-hosting the contest in 2017, and I also came back on board as a judge for 2019. So I have a long history of stepping in to help with the NGADM as needed, although the NGUAC usually keeps me plenty busy by itself. :)
The-Great-One: The NGUAC and the NGADM seem to be similar in nature. What are the differences between the two?
TaintedLogic: It's true that the NGUAC format is heavily inspired by the NGADM. I think the main differences are as follows:
1) For the first couple of rounds, the NGUAC subdivides the contestants into groups based on fan total, a proxy for experience level (both with music and with Newgrounds). This helps give less-experienced users a better chance of advancing to future rounds and gaining exposure from the competition, since they're not directly competing with some of the heavy-hitting NG veterans. Then, in the final round, musicians of all skill levels face each other, sometimes with surprising results!
2) The NGUAC is way shorter - 3 rounds and 2 months vs. 6 rounds and 5 months for the NGADM. I try to make sure that the NGUAC is wrapping up before most high school and college kids are back in school. The NGADM usually wraps up in November.
3) A lot of the later rounds in the NGADM are 1-v-1 match-ups, which makes the contest really intense and personal later on. The NGADM also has a series of “fill-ins” lined up ready to rejoin the competition in case someone drops out. That’s not as necessary in the NGUAC because the groups you’re competing against are so large - usually 30+ people in every round.
4) There are also a couple of small administrative differences. The NGADM has usually been stricter with "forum thread management" - creating threads for both discussion and submission, as opposed to one for both in the NGUAC. Various other NGADM hosts have also implemented age restrictions, banned submissions from unscouted users, and had much harder deadlines, whereas the NGUAC has always accepted and even encouraged young and inexperienced musicians to join, and in recent years has had a 24-hour leeway period with submission deadlines. Overall, the NGADM has more of a reputation for exclusivity. Most people join the NGADM because they already know it exists. Meanwhile, I send hundreds of personal invites for the NGUAC to Audio Portal users every year, simply because they’ve posted a song in the few weeks before the contest starts.
It used to be that people regarded the NGUAC as kind of like a stepping stone to being able to compete effectively in the NGADM - users like @Bassfiddlejones and @FinnMK won the NGUAC one year and the NGADM the next. But I think the “stepping stone” model is less relevant now that the NGUAC typically has more participants than the NGADM. In recent years, we’ve had really talented NGUAC winners like @VociferousMusic and @Anthonyragus who have never auditioned for the NGADM.
The-Great-One: How do you like the prospects in both contests this year compared to last year?
TaintedLogic: Oh my goodness, I don’t even have the space here to list all of the musicians I’m excited about. Suffice it to say that I added more than 10% of the NGADM auditions this year to my favorites list, most of which I will likely end up downloading into my personal song library, and that I will certainly pad my favorites list again after the NGUAC tryouts are complete.
The-Great-One: Anything you want to add about the Deathmatch and the Underdogs?
TaintedLogic: Huge thank you to my fellow judges in both contests! These contests are not just something that I can manage alone. I have a lot of help sending PM invites (@ADR3-N), identifying potential rules violations (@Everratic), and managing the Discord servers (@LD-W). Plenty of contestants also make constructive suggestions for how to improve the competitions every year, which I appreciate. These contests ultimately serve as a way of enhancing the sense of community we have on Newgrounds, forming lasting connections between talented aspiring creators, and so they would mean nothing without the contestants themselves. People might think of the NGUAC in particular as “TaintedLogic’s baby,” but it takes a village to raise a child. :)
This week's featured artist is @FunnyPlush. He joined the site back in May 2021, but hit the Art Portal March 2023. Although still new, he has quite a grasp on lighting and shadows. Check out his works below and his art thread Plush's Landfill!
Hoodo
FunnyPlush
TODAY'S HAIKU
A prolonged, dense heat
finally lifts. A wily
summer breeze fills me.
@TaintedLogic
Welcome to something a little different. To celebrate the Newgrounds Underdogs' Audio Contest and the Newgrounds Audio Deathmatch, I thought a change to the history portion of the paper was in order. This is the Audio Portal History. A lot of movies and games on Newgrounds wouldn't be what they are without music. This site has a ton of it. Not just that, it is one of the best places for musicians to put their works up for feedback and use. The best place to start would be the winner of the first Newgrounds Audio Deathmatch on the site. @ErikMcClure, who went by Blackhole12, was one of the combatants in the first Deathmatch. The first Deathmatch was a new idea and was still being worked on. ErikMcClure would snag his victory on May 24, 2010 with his song Soar [Original Mix]. If you're not following him on Newgrounds, you should, he's still on the site making music to this day, with his latest song entitled Eternal Sky.
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