My first milestone here on NG when it comes to games. I'm very happy but this blog is more meant as way to keep track of my development as someone who enjoys games and "bookmark" games I still need to complete or at least get as many medals as possible for the next milestone: 200k medal points.

This blog is also a way to review things in terms of gaming experience and as a way to vent out some frustrating elements I hate on games.

When I first joined the site, gaming was a pretty much casual experience (don't get me wrong I'm still a very casual player), I played games mostly to explore the type of games in the site and the very first game I ever played here was this:

Discovering that some games I used to play when I was younger, are saved in this site, filled my heart with joy and this first game was among them. Then I began to play games to spend free time and relax, at that time I didn't even know some games had medals and knowing that they give points to your account was part of gaining medals. My attitude towards medal-featured games was pretty much indifferent/neutral until I had 53,000 medal points. Then around December, when I first start hoarding points thanks to Tankmas games, something happened: the joy of seeing those little numbers increasing. Thanks to those games and other games, I managed to get +10k medal points in a very short period of time. This made me want to push myself further and overcome the number I reached at that time: 64k-ish points.

During that time I also began to notice some recurring names/avatars (Andrey20, Magnus727, Amereep, Mascetti, Optimos, JimmyCarlos, JME10135 just to cite a few) in the games I played, notably the "bragging rights" medals but not only that. I began to explore their profiles and I discovered tons of games I didn't know existed. I also found some walkthroughs that helped me in more difficult levels of some of the games I played. I want to take opportunity to deeply thank Magnus727 for his walkthroughs that helped me a lot with some medals and/or secrets. His profile is the one I visit the most for walkthrough updates, secrets or simply because I like to visit it for the sake of visiting his profile (plus I like a lot his cat avatar^^).

Eventually his walkthrough list inspired me to make this collection:

Here you can find in the review session my reviews where I give tips about how to get medals (usually all medals but also secrets too) and/or tips on games that might give some problems. You can find games with medals and games without medals alike. My current goal is to reach 100 games in this collection with the aim of helping as many people as possible. Considering my slow nature at reviewing stuff, I know it will take time but I don't rush.

The Nerd Corner

Collecting medals and increasing points became a way to complete a task, a goal to reach and most of all a skill to develop. I am not young like some years ago (I'm younger than many people here but still), so I take advantage of games as way to keep my mind stimulated and push away the relative risk of developing neurodegenerative diseases that scare the shit out of me. For example, if I ever will be active on this site, if this site will continue to exist and if this game is still on the site, I would like to play this exact game when I will be older (+60 years old):

I loved the quick reflexes required to beat the game. And ofc I will always continue to play games even when I'll be 80 years old. Plus videogames can be used as tool to treat and detect cognitive impairment such as dementia:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11593771/

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A 2023 review study by Zhu et al. (1) examines mobile apps for people with dementia, aiming to identify designs and evaluations. The review looked at 20 publications with the overall finding that serious games can improve cognitive skills, help with therapy, and musical apps can help slow memory loss. Another study finding is that personal life apps are effective in improving independent living for people with dementia.

Another important aspect is that videogames show potential in improving key aspects of memory in older adults. Being exposed to an environment filled with novel stimuli can benefit cognition, including memory. Studies have shown that rodents placed in enriched environments, compared to sparse environments, experience increased generation of nerve cells in brain regions that are critical for memory encoding and retrieval. Humans may also experience similar neurological benefits from novel environments. The good news is that novel environments can be delivered, virtually, to the homebound, according to NIA-supported researchers who recently discovered that video games may be used to enhance cognitive health in older adults. These findings were recently published in Behavioural Brain Research. For this study, individuals 60 to 80 years of age were recruited. The researchers hypothesized that the novel and three-dimensional environment of Super Mario™ would confer more cognitive benefits upon individuals than those conferred by a familiar two-dimensional game (i.e., Solitaire). Despite being two-dimensional in nature, Angry Birds™ gameplay was also poised to confer cognitive benefits due to its novelty for this older population. Study participants in each of these three video game conditions played 30 to 45 minutes per day for four weeks. During this time, and four weeks after daily gameplay ended, researchers conducted a series of memory tests.

While memory performance was equivalent across groups prior to engaging in video game play, two weeks of Angry Birds™ or Super Mario™ gameplay resulted in improved recognition memory. Memory continued to improve after an additional two weeks for the Super Mario™ players compared to the Solitaire players and these improvements persisted after daily gameplay ended. No additional memory improvements were found in Angry Birds™ players. These findings suggest that both novel experiences and exposure to rich three-dimensional environments may work together to improve cognition (2).

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To me medals/achievements were always linked to complete a certain task and seeing them filing the empty space of a game I'm trying to complete is linked to a sense of finishing what I started. It's not always easy because some medals' difficulty may be linked to skills or luck and this gets frustrating when you try over and over. Because a game must first relax me and entertain me, I avoid those games whose medals almost make me ragequit. I like completing them but I prioritize my mental health and getting angry at a game it's a waste of time. I wonder how can some people engaging in ragequit-inducing games (I will get to that later). My love for medal hunting actually derives from real life and more specifically a personal motto of mine developed from my personality: either things get done or they don't get done at all. It's linked to a sense of duty to complete a task to its fullest. Even in real life if I don't get done something in the most complete and detailed way effort-wise, I am not satisfied. For example I could remove by hands every single grass that I don't want in my vegetable garden. Or I can study until my mind begs me to stop because I want to achieve my mental schedule of completing a certain task.

Plus I love exploring games in every parts possible and taking my time, this is why I am not a speed-runner and fast time-linked medals are the ones I like the least because they are anxiety inducing. I want my time to experience a game.

Mental milestone

A personal achievement (no pun intended XD) of mine that I will forever remember is the 1,500 points medal from the game Windowz98 NetTown Edition:

This achievement will be forever remember as one of the hardest I ever met in my gaming experience (others are in my Steam experience, notably the hellish Flappy Goat achievement from Goat Simulator). After two weeks I got the achievement still no one managed to get it. I wish you all luck, I root for you! This was a wild experience that:

1) made me want to make a walkthrough in the hope to help others or increase the chance of getting better at least:

AOL Jump Windowz 98 Walkthrough

2) I discovered many aspects of my personality and mind thanks to this hellish experience.

This experience changed me a little in terms of some mental and physical skills, and my way of approaching medals.

I am usually very casual in approaching games, but ultimately because I like to complete tasks in games, I am becoming more competitive even though I don't want to become a hardcore player. And this leads to the vent part of this blog.

The frustration, the rage, the Venetian

Games can be a great tool to spend time with a carefree attitude, they are also a nice way to escape the horrors of reality and as I mentioned above they can help our cognitive skills, BUT at the same time, when attachment grows strong, they can be a fertile ground for rage, frustration and few patience. I don't know if it's because I'm getting old, the sense of time management is kicking in, but ultimately I lose patience easily when playing certain games that have certain features. And I'm referring to games that rely too much on luck, wonky controls

Don't get me wrong, games like this one are perfectly fine as they are intended on purpose to be the way they are:

(yes, I want that "Oh shit!" medal where you have to play 10,000 times because while I can have little patience for some games especially when luck is a major player, sorry for bad pun XD, I can also be an extremely patient person when it comes to perform tasks I can have full control. I can literally remove every single weed with my bare hand to clean my garden)

I've met many games that make me rage quite easily and sometimes it's not linked to the bad coding or bad graphic, I don't care if the overall experience is fun and the achievements are satisfying to get, for example this game was totally ok to me, I love it:

(still struggling to find secret #2, I've found other secrets and beat the game 7 times for now XD)

This is an example of a very challenging game that allow you to study a fixed pattern and acquire a nice mental and physical skill made of finger, eye, and brain coordination, timing and correct space. After 40 minutes of game I could finally manage most of platform (now I can manage them all). This is what I tend to like the most in a challenging game that fits well with my nature: the ability to develop a skill after trials and errors and a careful study of the pattern. AOL Jump is similar but I personally find it more hellish because of the random element that characterizes the run. On the contrary I hate games that rely too much on luck and randomness, not giving me enough time to study properly the game mechanics and see patterns.

Not to mention those game developers who seem to sub-consciously enjoy making player suffer by making ridiculously hard games for the sake of being hard. Fuck them all tbh. I don't have time to waste in things that even in the case I manage to achieve, don't give me a sense of satisfaction. Like rightly Magnus727 said in an interview with Aalasteir, achievements that are too easy to get are forgettable and those that are too hard are plain annoying (if I am under the effects of some mysterious drug I can even try to see, but if I immediately get enraged and I see there is no hope with my current skills, fuck you!).

I love those hard achievements that give you a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment after gaining new skills (both cognitive and physical), but because I don't want to stress out too much I always try to counterbalance with more easily obtainable achievements to calm me down such as selfdefiant's games which are also perfect as starting point for beginner medal hunters. In my medal hunting I always try to counterbalance between extremely easy obtainable medals, medium-obtainable and hard medals in a circular-like scheme. I also try to get those 100% easy medals (click credits, visit author's page, first kill, first death, etc.) as way to bookmark games I want to complete in future.

I can assure you I cursed a lot in many rage-inducing games, but this allowed me to see I am still a less patient person when it comes to specific elements of life: achieving a goal. Those hard games are a nice way to see myself under a different perspective. I also use those games to increase my patience but for now I have a lot to learn in terms of controlling my anger when it wants to burst out. Outside games I am very patient as I said, especially when I interact with people or I have to do a repetitive task.

A second account? Yes, why not

Then at the beginning of this month I read this comment Newgrounds Medals - Games and Tips by Andrey20 on a game I gave up because I didn't understand how to get other medals. That comment inspired me to make a secondary account only focused on games:

https://xianshang.newgrounds.com/

This account has many purposes:

• keep track of games I am 100% sure I can fully complete
• showcase 100% medal-completed games
• have links to two of my gaming-themed collection you can find in this account, this and this
• make walkthroughs about games I manage to solve (some walkthrough are from games that have a walkthrough but I like to give my two cents about it under my perspective)
• game-related fanarts (don't expect too many draws there though)

It will be a much more relaxed account under some aspect (B/P bonus, experience points, reviews, posts) but more focused on others (game completion, walkthrough). I also felt necessity to set some boundaries because I don't want people start asking me to make a walkthrough to a game that I might not be able to complete or master in terms of skills, so no requests. Plus my walkthrough blogs take time, I usually spend an average of 3 hours when I make them because I need to prepare visual material, think about what to say and replay the game to verify some hypothesis as I don't like giving false or incorrect info (every correction is more than welcome btw).

I won't always be active there because I focus my attention here but I visit my second account to keep an eye on things I made or I plan to make.

100k and now?

Well, I've reached my goal, I am very happy mainly because I feel to have developed some skills in terms of mental and physical coordination. My next goal is ofc 200k, but what I really want and hope to achieve is a new set of skills developed through games or mastering the ones I already have. Well, that's all folks. Have great day and sorry for this long ass blog but this is how I am^^

References and footnotes:

(1) Zhu K., Lin R., Li H. Study of virtual reality for mild cognitive impairment: A bibliometric analysis using CiteSpace. Int. J. Nurs. Sci. 2022;9:129–136. doi: 10.1016/j.ijnss.2021.12.007. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

(2) Clemenson G, et al. Enriching hippocampal memory function in older adults through video games. Behavioural Brain Research. 2020;390:112667. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2020.112667

Hello everyone, I hope everything is doing alright, as for me it wasn't a particularly happy day, quite stressful and full of negative thoughts but thankfully improved after I went planting 18 tomato plants and being able to take some pics of my favourite bird that lives in the area I live in: the crow, more specifically hooded crow (Corvus cornix). The title of this photography blog is more an excuse to talk about preening, an important behaviour among our feathered dinosaur friends. And to do this I will also share some pics of this hooded crow I've noticed these days. Whenever I see these birds my eyes shines and heart fills with joy (my mood improves a lot), and I liked a lot that when I opened my window the crow didn't fly away when seeing me, same happened today when I was outside after finishing my job with the tomatoes. He/she just enjoyed preening him/herself.

The Cleaning

One of first pics I took of him/her. He/she was drying off while cleaning and preening. What is preening? It is a maintenance behaviour found in birds that involves the use of the beak to position feathers, interlock feather barbules that have become separated, clean plumage, and keep ectoparasites in check. Feathers contribute significantly to a bird's insulation, waterproofing and aerodynamic flight, and so are vital to its survival. Because of this, birds spend considerable time each day maintaining their feathers, primarily through preening. Several actions make up preening behaviour. Birds fluff up and shake their feathers, which helps to "rezip" feather barbules that have become unhooked:

Birds also draw the long flight feather individually and firmly through the bill to restore the vanes’ integrity:

Using their beaks, they gather preen oil from a gland at the base of their tail and distribute this oil through their feathers as you can see in this other photo:

Allopreening can happen between mated individuals or or between flock members in a social species. Such behaviour may assist in effective grooming, in the recognition of individuals (mates or potential sexual partners), or in reducing or redirecting potential aggressive tendencies in social species. Most allopreening is confined to the head and neck, smaller efforts being directed towards other parts of the body. I could take a photo of allopreening in a crow pair (I think the crow on the right is the male because in other photos of the same pair he was slightly bigger than the one on the left):

Preening is a vital behaviour in feather maintenance and despite it's an innate behaviour (birds are born knowing the basics) there is also a learned component because it has been shown that birds that are hand-reared without access to a role model have abnormalities in their preening behaviours (1). Despite spending considerable time in their efforts, they do not use proper techniques to groom effectively and may do a poor job overall as a result (2). What happens when feathers are displaced? They can cause birds considerable trouble; such feathers might become damaged, could interrupt the smooth flow of air over a flying bird, or might allow the bird's body heat to escape. Preening allows a bird to reposition such displaced feathers. There is evidence that filoplumes, specialised feathers buried under a bird's outer covering of contour feathers, help to signal when contour feathers have been displaced.

More than 9% of each day on maintenance behaviours, preening occupying over 92% of that time (3). In most of the studied species where the bird's sex could be determined in the field, males spent more time preening than females, though this was reversed in ducks (4). Some ratites, which are not dependent on their feathers for flight, spend far less time on maintenance behaviours. One study of ostriches found that they spent less than 1% of their time engaged in such behaviours (5). Fully grown feathers are essentially dead structures, so it is vital that birds have some way to protect and lubricate them. Otherwise, age and exposure cause them to become brittle. To facilitate that care, many bird species have a preen or uropygial gland, which opens above the base of the tail feathers and secretes a substance containing fatty acids, water, and waxes. The bird gathers this substance on the bill and applies it to the feathers (6). Waterbirds have larger uropygial gland, however, studies have found no clear correlation between the size of the gland and the amount of time a species spends in the water; it is not consistently largest in those species that spend the most time in the water (7).

Some birds have symbiotic relationship with bacteria to defended their feathers from feather-degrading bacteria, lice and fungi. Eurasian hoopoes have this relationship with Enterococcus faecalis against the growth of the feather-degrading bacteria Bacillus licheniformis. E. faecalis inhibits the growth by releasing bacteriocin (8). Female hoopoes transfer preen oil onto their brood patches and eggs, which results in the transfer of bacteria as well. Preen oil and bacteria are rubbed into microscopic pits on the surface of the eggs during incubation. This alters the colour of the eggs, usually darkening them, but there is also evidence that the bacteria may help to protect the developing chicks (9). Other studies have shown that removing or restricting access to the uropygial gland typically results in a higher bacterial parasite load on the plumage, though not necessarily of feather-degrading bacterial species.

Preen oil helps to maintain the waterproofing of a bird's plumage. Though the oil does not provide any direct waterproofing agent, it helps to extend the life of the feather – including the microscopic structures (the barbs and barbules) which interlock to create the waterproof barrier (10). Birds such as bustards, woodpeckers, some parrot species, emu, rheas, kiwis, cassowaries and ostriches lack of the preen gland.

Preening may help to send sexual signals to potential mates because plumage colouration (which can be altered by the act of preening) can reliably reflect the health or "quality" of its bearer. In some species, preen oil is used to cosmetically colour the plumage. During the breeding season, the preen oil of the great white pelican becomes red-orange, imparting a pink flush to the bird's plumage (11).

The preen oil of several gull and tern species, including Ross's gull, contains a pink colourant which does the same. The heads of these birds typically show little pink, because of the difficulty of reaching those areas with preen oil. The yellow feathers of the great hornbill are also cosmetically coloured during preening. The preen oil of the Bohemian waxwing increases the UV reflectance of its feathers. Ritualised preening is used in courtship displays by several species, particularly ducks; such preening is typically designed to draw attention to a modified structure (such as the sail-shaped secondaries of the drake mandarin duck) or distinctive colour (such as the speculum) on the bird. Mallards of both sexes will lift a wing so that the brightly coloured speculum is showing, then will place their bill behind the speculum as if preening it. Courtship preening is more conspicuous than is preening for feather maintenance, using more stereotypical movements.

https://archive.org/details/birdwatchershand00ehrl

Preening may be performed as a displacement activity. In some cases, it is done in place of another activity that birds are strongly motivated, but unable, to do. In one study, black-headed gulls which were prevented from incubating a full clutch of eggs (by the removal of eggs from their nest) responded by preening and nest building – both displacement activities. When all three eggs in their regular clutch were removed, the gulls showed a significant increase in the amount of time they spent preening (12). The conflict between two incompatible drives, such as incubating and escape, can lead a bird to engage in displacement activities.

Allopreening, in most cases, involves members of the same species, although some cases of interspecific allopreening are known; the vast majority of these involve icterids, though at least one instance of mutual grooming between a wild black vulture and a wild crested caracara has been documented:

https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/condor/v086n02/p0214-p0215.pdf

Preening is a fantastic and fascinating activity, I love watching birds preening themselves, but it has also a dark side; if a  bird is exposed to some pollutants, such as leaking petroleum (I still have vivid images in my mind from the first Gulf War with those poor, innocent birds....), they can quickly lose the preen oil from their feathers. This causes a loss of heat regulation and waterproofing, and rapidly leads to the bird becoming chilled. If waterbirds are exposed, they can lose both buoyancy and the ability to fly; this means they must swim constantly to stay warm and afloat (if they cannot reach land), and eventually die of exhaustion. While preening in an effort to clean themselves, they may ingest harmfully large amounts of the petroleum. Ingested oil can cause pneumonia, as well as liver and kidney damage. Studies done with black guillemots showed that even small amounts of ingested oil caused the birds physiological distress. It interfered with the foraging efficiency of adults and decreased the growth rates of young birds.

Allopreening may facilitate disease transmission between infected and non-infected individuals. West Nile virus has been found in the feather pulp of several species of corvid (and we know they are very susceptible to the virus), for instance, meaning that birds that preen infected partners might become infected themselves. Even preening its own body may expose a bird to pathogens. There is evidence that water-borne avian influenza virus is "captured" by the preen oil on feathers, providing a possible route for infection. The ingestion of parasites during preening may result in infection; the tick-borne disease louping ill virus can be transmitted to red grouse if the bird consumes a tick carrying the disease.

Nicotine and/or air fresheners may trigger overpreening in caged species (seriously, screw you if you smoke in the presence of a bird or any other living creature), neuropathy can cause it too. Confining a bird with an incompatible or very dominant cage mate can lead to excessive allopreening, which can result in feather plucking or injury (13).

I also love how these photos can be used as reference material for bird wings (feel free to use them as references for your drawings, just a credit to this blog and I am more than happy^^).

Well, have a male common redstart (Phoenicurus phoenicurus) photo as final picture of this blog:

This fella is almost 3 years old. I memorized his voice and I know where he lives judging by his singing frequency in the area.

References and footnotes:

(1) Moon-Fandli, Alice M.; Dodman, Nicholas A. & O'Sullivan, Richard L. (1999). "Veterinary Models of Compulsive Self-grooming: Parallels with Trichotillamania". In Stein, Dan J.; Christenson, Gary A. & Hollander, Eric (eds.). Trichotillomania. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press. ISBN 978-0-88048-759-7.

(2) Luescher, Andrew U., ed. (2006). Manual of Parrot Behavior. Ames, IA, US: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8138-2749-0.

(3) Cotgreave, Peter & Clayton, Dale H. (1994). "Comparative analysis of time spent grooming by birds in relation to parasite load" (PDF). Behaviour. 131 (3): 171–187. doi:10.1163/156853994X00424. ISSN 0005-7959. JSTOR 4535237

(4) Ibidem

(5) Williams, Joseph B.; Siegfried, W. Roy; Milton, Suzanne J.; Adams, Nigel J.; Dean, W. R. J.; du Plessis, Morne A. & Jackson, Sue (March 1993). "Field metabolism, water requirements, and foraging behavior of wild ostriches in the Namib". Ecology. 74 (2): 390–404. Bibcode:1993Ecol...74..390W. doi:10.2307/1939301. JSTOR 1939301

(6) Campbell, Bruce & Lack, Elizabeth, eds. (1985). A Dictionary of Birds. Carlton, UK: T and A D Poyser. ISBN 978-0-85661-039-4

(7) Montalti, Diego & Salibián, Alfredo (2000). "Uropygial gland size and avian habitat". Ornitologia Neotropical. 11: 297–306.

(8) Ruiz-Rodríguez, M.; Valdivia, E.; Soler, Juan J.; Martín-Vivaldi, M.; Martín-Platero, A. M. & Martínez-Bueno, M. (2009). "Symbiotic bacteria living in the hoopoe's uropygial gland prevent feather degradation" (PDF). Journal of Experimental Biology. 212 (22): 3621–3626. Bibcode:2009JExpB.212.3621R. doi:10.1242/jeb.031336. ISSN 0022-0949. PMID 19880722. S2CID 9884724

(9) Martínez-García, Ángela; Soler, Juan J.; Rodríguez-Ruano, Sonia M.; Martínez-Bueno, Manuel; Martín-Platero, Antonio Manuel; Juárez-García, Natalia & Martín-Vivaldi, Manuel (November 2015). "Preening as a vehicle for key bacteria in hoopoes". Microbial Ecology. 70 (4): 1024–1033. Bibcode:2015MicEc..70.1024M. doi:10.1007/s00248-015-0636-1. hdl:10261/123119. ISSN 1432-184X. PMID 26078039. S2CID 8342661

(10) Lovette, Irby C. & Fitzpatrick, John W., eds. (2016). Handbook of Bird Biology (3rd ed.). Oxford, UK: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-29105-4.

(11) Delhey, Kaspar; Peters, Anne & Kempenaers, Bart (2007-01-01). "Cosmetic coloration in birds: occurrence, function, and evolution". The American Naturalist. 169 (S1): S145 – S158. Bibcode:2007ANat..169S.145D. doi:10.1086/510095. ISSN 0003-0147. PMID 19426089. S2CID 29592388

https://archive.org/details/birdwatchershand00ehrl

(12) Moynihan, M. (January 1953). "Some displacement activities of the black-headed gull". Behaviour. 5 (1): 58–80. doi:10.1163/156853953X00041. ISSN 0005-7959. JSTOR 4532768

https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/condor/v086n02/p0214-p0215.pdf

(13) Coles, Brian H., ed. (2007). Essentials of Avian Medicine and Surgery (3rd ed.). Oxford, UK: Blackwood Publishing Ltd. ISBN 978-1-4051-5755-1

Disclaimer:

This walkthrough is aimed at people willing to accept the challenge to get to 1,500 points that will unlock a 100 points medal for the game Windowz 98 NetTowns Edition. If you are ready to curse a lot (worse than a Venetian), ragequit, and get frustrated but have the will strength to accept this challenge, then this walkthrough is for you....or at least it might help increase chance to reach the goal and curse less. I promised myself that I would do a walkthrough in case I got the achievement and finally today, after a week, I did it and so here is my personal guide on how to get the achievement 1500 POINTZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!

I don't fully guarantee this guide will 100% help you in getting the achievement since the game is still pretty unbalanced in some elements even though it got better after I wrote my review on the game. Plus keep in mind that this guide might be updated since, according to developers, there are future updates that will add power-ups to the game. But in the meantime I want to share what I've noticed in this game after a "hellish" week of constant fails as I am not used to these kind of games (sorry GD but you are not my type :p), I am more a very slow player who prefers to explore things, discover secrets and unlock as many achievements as possible. Without any further ado here the guide.

UPDATE 30/04/2025: added the meaning of Sun and Moon, and added description of trees. Minor update to the strategy part about automatic reactions to jump.

AOL Jump: the basics

AOL Jump is a minigame that can be found in the aforementioned game, and it can be unlocked only after connecting to Internet (Internet Connection Wizard, it will then explode after connection has been made and AOL Instant Messenger will appear, click on it and the yellow man will run away and create the minigame). The goal is to collect as many coins as possible while avoiding enemies that can jeopardize your run if you hit them (you have to start over the minigame if you lose).

AOL Jump: enemies

There are four enemies to avoid like plague and these are:

Cacodemon, orange thing with a CD, the globe and the computer. You can notice the computer is surrounded by a red square. Well, that's approximately the dimension of the hitbox around it that I've noticed during my gameplay. All of them must be avoided, even the glob in case you have to jump to get a medal mid-air, but I've noticed that the computer is the most dangerous because it has a large hitbox that can kill your character even if he jumps relatively away from it.

pro-tip: make high jumps to avoid it as much as possible even if this means sacrificing some coins unless you mentally know where the hitbox is and you can manage it at a relatively close distance.

Little secret:

During my gameplays I've noticed a bug that can be exploited very well if you know it. This exploit usually happens when you start to gain velocity and is characteristics of Cacodemon. This exploit makes it the easiest enemy to deal with.

In this screenshot you can see the man jumping very close to the Cacodemon (in many sessions I even almost passed through it at very high speed), touching its hitboxes but the man doesn't fall down. He can jump on it safely because I think the Cacodemon has a mobile and probably a small hitbox, since he's the enemy that moves up and down in a very visible way. With other enemies jumping this close would have caused a game over, but because of this bug typical only for the Cacodemon, you can jump safely, even running almost through it when you reach high speed. Test it and see for yourself. Of course I don't rule out developers might fix it and this exploit will disappear but in the meantime take advantage of it.

ERRATA CORRIGE: I've tested this bug at low speed and it works at low speed too. You can jump on the Cacodemon basically when you almost touch it without losing. So you can jump very close to the Cacodemon even at low speed, take advantage of this bug/exploit to make the run more relaxed at least when you encounter it.

AOL Jump: Sun and Moon

Sun and Moon are two elements that appear as .jpeg images to indicate day-night alternation. You can click on them (click the "X") to make them disappear (I thank @andrey20 for pointing that out in the comment section) but because I wasn't sure what they did, I tested them in a few runs. If you make them disappear the game simply stays in daylight regardless if you click on the Sun or the Moon. You simply get daylight, but rain can appear. Other than that, nothing else happens. I don't recommend clicking on them if you aim at getting points because clicking with the mouse equals to jump, and if you click in the wrong place when you are trying to make Sun/Moon disappear, you might risk to hit an enemy and start over.

AOL Jump: trees

Trees, just like the Sun, Moon, grass and mountains, are .jpeg images that randomly appears in the path. They can be particularly annoying because they can cover coins and most of all enemies, making them subtle obstacles to keep in mind. Unlike the Sun and Moon, they cannot be removed and it would be also impossible because of high speed at which they appear. My suggestion is to keep your eyes at the right side of the screen to catch enemies and jump in time when the tree appears and hides the enemy. Same applies to coins too.

AOL Jump: power-ups

The two main power-ups are the clock and coins so far:

Clock

It slows down the speed at which the character runs. I think the slow down approximately lasts 10 seconds, judging from some gameplays of mine I've recorded to better study the patterns. They can be very useful especially at the beginning to mid part of the game (by mid part I mean when you reach circa 750-850 points) because it will allow you to resist more when speed becomes more challenging. The more, the merrier.

Coin

This is your biggest helper so far because it increases the score in a more fast way compared to mere running that increases by 1 point every 1 second. As you can notice in the image I put the value of a coin and the number of required coins to reach 1,500 score. The actual result is 42.8 but I adjusted the value. The ideal thing would be to catch all the coins that are on the path because for every coin lost, you have to recover two coins (one to balance, and the other to have an advantage along the path for when the speed increases too much). So, for example, if I miss three coins I will have to recover six to have an advantage or at least offset the loss. It essentially doubles the effort, literally since this game is based on math.

AOL Jump: is there a pattern?

I will quote what MihaP (the developer of the minigame) told me as reply to my review under the game:

the power-ups are spawned randomly without too much logic put into it, so you might have games with no or plenty coins depending on how lucky you are.

Broadly speaking it's true, the location of power-ups (and enemies) is random, but in my constant gameplays I've actually noticed a pattern in their distribution and I've roughly classified about five main patterns with a mix of these:

• more clocks, less coins
• more coins, less clocks
• equal distribution of both coins and clocks
• less coins, less clocks
• more clocks, more coins

These patterns can vary across the path, meaning I can find more clocks and coins at the beginning, then a bit less during mid part of the run and again a more balanced number of both.

My favourite pattern for this type of medal is ofc the "more clocks, more coins" especially of the beginning to mid part of the run because it allows me to collect a higher score in less time and resist a bit more when speed increases a lot.

pro-tip:

My suggestion is to hope for it to come (20% chance of getting this pattern) but at the same time it's nice trying to adapt to less favourable patterns (less coins, more clocks or less coins, less clocks). If you aim at the medal and see an unfavourable pattern you can always abort the mission, by hitting an enemy and restart until you get the combination you like the most.

Enemies are spawned randomly too but I've noticed that at the beginning of the game the distance between each enemy is short, then the more you go on and game progresses, the longer the distance is between each enemy (if you manage to get a good number of coins at the beginning, you will notice this pattern around 600-700 points approximately).

The more you play it, the more you will predict position of mid-air coins. The position of the coins in mid-air follows these patterns:

• near an enemy (some are at a favourable distance like in this case, others may be too dangerous to reach)
• behind an enemy (impossible, give up)
• far away from an enemy (it usually at the beginning of the long path)

Initially I missed many mid-air coins, but now I can predict their rough position and jump to get them without hitting the enemy.

AOL Jump: strategy???

When it comes to a strategy to beat the game, aka get the medal, keep in mind that this mixes luck, randomness, patterns and skills along with a speed that increases a lot after a while (when the game was more unbalanced the speed began to increase almost at the beginning if you didn't catch many coins, and at that time you encountered more enemies and few power-ups).

So the first thing to do is playing without thinking about getting the medal, get first a feel of the game and its pace and it doesn't matter if you lose, because trust me you will lose and you will lose a lot. It will piss you off a lot, especially when you almost reach the goal. But an advice I feel to give you is not to fix your mind too much on the game while playing, try to paradoxically keep yourself a bit distracted, focus on your breathing if you feel it is increasing (the emotion of reaching the goal can jeopardize the medal, trust me I've experienced it). For example, I hummed, talked to someone or listened to music while playing and this relaxed my mind, allowing me to reach high scores.

Of course this advice might not work with everyone and I don't suggest it to those who manage to keep their mind focused 100% during the game, in those case study the pattern when playing.

Another thing to do is getting your eyes used to the speed, initially it will be hard but the more you try it, the more your sight will adjust to the speed. When the game was more unbalanced, the speed was atrocious making extremely difficult for me to keep up with the sliding speed. I don't recommend using the touchpad or mouse to jump, spacebar gives me a lot more control over the jump, jump speed and jump force. So use that, experiment with it until you memorize the types of pressures to exert based on the proximity of the enemy and coin. It will become natural after a while (usually after 5 days of intense training and by intense I mean small sessions in the morning, afternoon and evening).

Another annoying element that you may experience is the automatic reaction to jump even when there are no enemies or when they are too close to your jumping area. It happened a lot to me during the first days; to solve this my advice is to keep playing, focusing on breathing, blocking the reaction to move the finger that would be ready to press "spacebar", and keep calm your mind. The more you do this, the less these instinct-like reactions, that tend to happen at high speed, will happen until you reach a point where you have an almost control over them.

Don't get discouraged if you won't manage, keep pushing and gradually improvement will come (score is a very good indicator of your gradual improvement, take a look at my scores and you will understand what I mean). Your eye coordination, finger coordination during jumps and reaction time will increase and get better the more you play.

I don't know if this guide will truly help you, but I hope it gave you some hints at facing this difficult achievement (in my NG gaming experience it's been the most challenging so far).

I will continue to test the game to see the types of new power-ups that will likely to be added in the next big update and this guide might be updated too.

Internet Archive logo and wordmark.svg by The Internet Archive, March 2011, source: https://www.logoeps.net/internet-archive-logo/

The Internet Archive is a name well known for those who visit the web frequently and more than often saved them time and resources when original links are deleted. As you know it is an American non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. The key core of this site is free access to collections of digitized media including websites, software applications, videogames, music, audiovisual, and print materials. Its spirit is all about free access to knowledge as it should always be. The Internet Archive allows the public to upload and download digital material to its data cluster, but the bulk of its data is collected automatically by its web crawlers, which work to preserve as much of the public web as possible. Its web archive, the Wayback Machine, contains hundreds of billions of web captures. The Archive also oversees numerous book digitization projects, collectively one of the world's largest book digitization efforts. I think that the website's words well encapsulate its spirits:

Most societies place importance on preserving artifacts of their culture and heritage. Without such artifacts, civilization has no memory and no mechanism to learn from its successes and failures. Our culture now produces more and more artifacts in digital form. The Archive's mission is to help preserve those artifacts and create an Internet library for researchers, historians, and scholars.

Because I sometimes feed on nostalgic feelings, I would like to share here the pic and link to the very first archived image on May 10, 1996, at 2:42 pm UTC (7:42 am PDT):

link: https://web.archive.org/web/19960510144231/http://www.microsoft.com/ie/IE.HTM

If you look carefully nothing before that date is archived, we are witnessing a piece of internet archeology and it's giving me goosebumps just by looking at it. This is the earliest known archived page and then by October of that year many and many other pages were archived in large amounts. Then the archived content became more easily available to the general public in 2001, through the Wayback Machine. In late 1999, the Archive expanded its collections beyond the web archive, beginning with the Prelinger Archives (collection of films relating to U.S. cultural history, the evolution of the American landscape, everyday life, and social history). Now, the Internet Archive includes texts, audio, moving images, and software. It hosts a number of other projects: the NASA Images Archive, the contract crawling service Archive-It, and the wiki-editable library catalog and book information site Open Library.

In August 2012 BitTorrent was added to its file download options for more than 1.3 million existing files, and all newly uploaded files. In November 2016, Kahle announced that the Internet Archive was building the Internet Archive of Canada, a copy of the Archive to be based somewhere in Canada. The announcement received widespread coverage due to the implication that the decision to build a backup archive in a foreign country was because of the upcoming presidency of Donald Trump.

Keep in mind that the Internet Archive acquires most materials from donations,(1) such as hundreds of thousands of 78 rpm discs from Boston Public Library in 2017,(2) a donation of 250,000 books from Trent University in 2018,(3) and the entire collection of Marygrove College's library after it closed in 2020 (4).

Why am I writing this boring history lesson on the Internet Archive? Because it has been brought to my attention (thank you Yatsufusa!) that the site is facing a critical moment because a coalition of major record labels has filed a lawsuit against the Internet Archive—demanding $700 million for their work preserving and providing access to historical 78rpm records, here you can read the official page:

https://blog.archive.org/2025/04/17/take-action-defend-the-internet-archive/

and if you click in the link provided there you can sign the petition and even make a donation but in case you can't donate spreading both links, especially the petition one can help a lot:

https://www.change.org/p/defend-the-internet-archive

I've already signed it, and contributed with money. If you want to share it with your peers, friends, relatives, etc. this will help a lot. Thank you for reading and let's keep the knowledge for all by all. Without them I couldn't be able to retrieve important info for me and for others when I provide links to my blogs. And it's also helping with my Newgrounds archeology collection since some forum threads not more accessible can be retrieved thanks to it, and some contain crucial information that are helping me with my Newgrounds guides for beginner users of the site. Thank you for existing, Internet Archive.

UPDATE: after reading Internet Archive is in danger, and needs your help! blog by TangoStar, I also decided to make a donation to Internet Archive website too, here the link if you want to donate to them directly, because donating to the link provided in the petition will boost the attention on the petition itself which can be nice to attract more people, but I personally prefer to donate to the site itself too.

I leave here the donation link to Internet Archive in case you can:

https://archive.org/donate?origin=iawww-TopNavDonateButton

References and footnotes:

(1) "How do I make a physical donation to the Internet Archive?". Internet Archive Help Center. Retrieved July 4, 2022. See also: "Tag Archives: donations". Internet Archive Blogs. Retrieved December 4, 2020

(2) "Boston Public Library transfers sound archives collection to Internet Archive for digitization, preservation, and public access". Boston Public Library. October 11, 2017. Archived from the original on January 23, 2021. Retrieved December 4, 2020.

(3) "Trent University donates 250,000 books to be digitized by Internet Archive as part of Bata Library transformation". Trent University. September 13, 2018. Archived from the original on November 30, 2020. Retrieved December 4, 2020

(4) Seltzer, Rick (October 21, 2020). "A new home online for closed college libraries?". Inside Higher Ed. Archived from the original on December 4, 2020. Retrieved December 4, 2020

Hello everyone, finally, after that sad/uncanny post, I can make a blog about something much more fun and nice: promoting smaller artists. And this time the person I want to promote is Kyoto-Beatz.

The very first thing that strikes the viewer's is the subject shown in his gallery: stickmen.

One could say "but stickmen are badly drawn!", well, listen me you little....

There are some examples of how his style is at a superior level of redefining stickmen art. First element that characterizes his works are the attention to details even in the simple designs typical of stickmen, second element use of shades such as in the same artwork I've just linked:

Pay attention to the second panel. The presence of shades on the face gives the character a more natural look, adds depth and overall creates a pleasant visual appeal to the character's design.

Third element I love about his art is the presence of backgrounds like in this already mentioned work:

Look carefully the details of buildings and road, I can almost see the iridescent effect that rain causes when it is on a road. I love the perspective of the city, the one-point perspective give a feel of vastness and size. I also like how background has this dynamic effect on it. It's a mix of futurism and cyberpunk-like feel.

In this other piece I love the use of highlights and lightings on the character's hair not to mention the details on hair:

And this brings to the fore the fourth element: use of lighting and highlights to create dynamism in the composition scene or enhance the character's design such as in these two artworks:

I want to conclude my promotion with his most recent work:

because it combines key elements of his art:

• volumetric shapes of the stickman character
• neat design conveyed by both shading and vivid colours
• dynamic poses
• facial expressions thanks also to the help of highlights

So if you like to see high quality stickman art I strongly advise you to give him a follow, fave, review and vote because he definitely deserves a spot in this fantastic site that is Newgrounds.

Once again one of those few not so funny posts about the extremely uncanny, creepy and unnerving situation in the country I live, or better shitty country due to its fascist nature (and no fascist is not used as insult but as a fact considering the political history of that monster called Giorgia Meloni, probably one of the persons I hate the most in Italy), but I need to get this off my chest because of the emotional burden is giving me.

This country is going down a dangerous, self-destructive path especially with an opposition that is still non-existent, but among the many things I could list to rightfully talk shit about this government there is one that caught my interest and not for the better.

Photo I've just took of the political talk show I watched about the thing that sadly caught my interest. I will first translate what it says:

Secret services powers

• can access University and public administration's information
• RAI circular requires video makers to film and make the sources traceable
• secret services can now access to journalists' sources
• with this decree secret services can direct and organize subversive organizations

Everything about this is horrifying at best and shows clearly how Italy is becoming gradually a slow, subtle yet silent authoritarian nation, why? Because the Senate’s Constitutional Affairs and Justice Committees have approved Article 31 of the “Security Bill,” on April 4, 2025. It is a bill promoted by Giorgia Meloni’s government that would like to address the fight against terrorism and organized crime, and police controls. And now you understand the title of my vent-blog.

The measure, originally a contentious security bill under discussion in the Italian Senate, was abruptly transformed into an emergency decree — a move that UN experts described as bypassing democratic norms and public transparency. “We are alarmed by how the government transformed the bill into an emergency decree that was swiftly approved by the Council of Ministers, bypassing Parliament and public scrutiny,” said the experts, who are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council (1).

The experts contacted the Italian Government in December 2024 (OL ITA 7.2024) indicating that if the proposed bill were not amended, Italy would be at odds with its obligations under international human rights law, including to protect the rights to freedom of movement, to privacy, to a fair trial, and to liberty, and to protect against arbitrary detention.

“The bill that is now a ‘decree’ includes vague definitions and broad provisions related to terrorism that could lead to arbitrary enforcement,” the experts warned. “The decree will also put freedom of expression at risk and may disproportionately affect specific groups, including racial or ethnic minorities, migrants and refugees, potentially leading to discrimination and human rights violations.” (2)

Everything is plain wrong on many levels but being a University student what scared even more was the first point (the one about the possibility to keep a file on everyone (students and teachers alike) deemed "dangerous to national security". To better make you understand this I will translate in English what is well explained here (the most important parts): https://www.laleggepertutti.it/718492_le-universita-potranno-schedare-gli-studenti

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Universities will be able to keep a file on students

With the new Security Decree, Universities will have to "collaborate" with the Secret Services by providing information on the political opinions of students and professors, in derogation of privacy.

The new Security Decree 31, already approved by the Chamber and currently under consideration by the Senate, provides that Universities will be able to keep a file on students, and also researchers and professors. There is no privacy that matters: the rules on the confidentiality of personal data can, indeed must, be bypassed in the name of national security. Article 31 of the bill – entitled “Strengthening of information activities for security” – provides, in fact, that all Public Administrations – including Universities and other research bodies – will have to collaborate with “Secret Services”, that is, the national security protection bodies (which are currently the DIS, the AISI and the AISE) in providing them with all the information deemed necessary for the protection of national security.

Example:

If a student – ​​or even a teacher – participates in a certain political movement, or an activist association, the University must communicate this upon simple request from the Services. The same must be done if a professor teaches theses in the classroom that are considered “dangerous” or subversive.

What changes

The difference compared to the past is that previously these national security protection bodies could ask the Universities for confidential information on enrolled students, as well as on teachers, but the Universities could oppose the reasons of privacy (and also the Authority for the Protection of Personal Data had intervened several times to limit these requests for access).

As Luciana Cimino writes in Il Manifesto, “the article in question aims to modify the 2007 law on the security information system. But if that text regulated that «the DIS, the AISE and the AISI can correspond with all public administrations and with the entities that provide (…) public utility services and ask them for the collaboration necessary for the fulfillment of their institutional functions», the new formulation of the Meloni government changes the order of the subjects and the verb, modifying for the worse the collaboration between state bodies and universities”. [Translator's note]

Mandatory collaboration

Now it will no longer be like this: the new rules make "collaboration" "mandatory" (as specified in the explanatory report accompanying the Decree), which can be requested - or, better said, imposed - by unspecified "needs to protect national security", which the requesting bodies are not required to specify or justify. It will therefore be necessary to respond to a simple request from the Secret Services, without the possibility of objecting.

In short: the good of the State comes before the needs of citizens to keep their sensitive data, such as political opinions or sexual orientation, private. And privacy is no longer valid: it melts like snow in the sun the moment the organs of the services invoke national security.

Why privacy is no longer valid

There is more: the same mechanism will apply to all Public Administrations in general, including controlled and participating companies, therefore the Secret Services will be able to ask for and obtain, in the same way, confidential information on their employees and collaborators, and all this even in derogation of the privacy regulations that otherwise should protect public employees to the maximum (from the garbage collector, from the magistrate to the municipal employee).

The agreements to be stipulated

To define the concrete modalities of this new collaboration – which, where necessary, will also extend to “technical and logistical assistance”, therefore a sort of 100% availability of their own facilities – specific agreements will have to be stipulated between the secret services and the Universities, as well as other central and local Public Administrations. These agreements may also regulate the methods of “opening” to the investigative bodies of their respective databases and computerized or paper files, containing all the information on the employees or students enrolled in the Universities.

How the filing of students and teachers will work

Essentially, from that moment on, the possibility will open up for the Secret Services to file students and teachers based on their orientations, inclinations and political opinions, or any other data deemed "interesting" by the aforementioned bodies for the purposes of national security: Universities and other public bodies will no longer be able to refuse to provide information based on the legislation on the confidentiality of personal data, not even when it concerns sensitive data, the disclosure or dissemination of which would otherwise constitute a crime.

Who can collect information

The national security protection bodies authorized to request and obtain information on university students and, in general, on all public employees – those that we have just generically called Secret Services – are, precisely:

• Dipartimento delle Informazioni per la Sicurezza (DIS, 'Department of Information for Security' in English)
• Agenzia Informazioni e Sicurezza Interna (AISI, 'Internal Intelligence and Security Agency')
• Agenzia Informazioni e Sicurezza Esterna (AISE, ?Italian: External Intelligence and Security Agency?)

When will the new rules come into force

Now we await the final approval by the Senate of the "security package" which includes the innovations we have talked about (and which contains many other important rules, such as the possibility for members of the Secret Services not only to infiltrate terrorist and subversive associations, but even to direct them) and its next entry into force, which will occur with the publication of the legislative text in the Official Journal, unless the President of Italy (currently Sergio Mattarella) raises objections of unconstitutionality by refusing to sign the measure and sending it back to a new examination by the Chambers. (3)

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I don't know what creeps me the most: the possibility to be filed because I participated for something deemed dangerous to national security (i.e. pro-Palestine demonstrations, rave parties, strikes, etc.) and so the fact they may know everything about me or the fact secret services can direct a terrorist organizations or subversive organizations such as Forza Nuova, Casa Pound, Azione Studentesca to keep at bay left-leaning or progressive movements. Not to mention the deep hit to privacy. If Partito Democratico doesn't wake up for real I won't wait for my rights to be taken away. Getting out of this shitty country is an alternative I can't wait to put in action. I am sick of living here and I don't blame the 156,000 young researchers who left Italy to never come back in 2024.

Sorry for this more anxiety-inducing post but it's important to be politically aware of what happens around the world, and I needed to get this off my chest. On a more positive note, in the next blog I will promote an artists, but I won't tell now who is ;)

Take care everyone!

UPDATE 16/04/205:

So after scrolling through various Italian media about this unsettling part, and after reading through the decree in the Gazzetta Ufficiale, the obligation for universities and public administrations to provide confidential information to intelligence agencies, as provided for by Article 31 of the bill, is dropped BUT collaboration will remain optional and must take place in compliance with privacy regulations.

Sadly the provision, which strengthens the undercover activities of the services by allowing undercover agents to direct and lead terrorist-subversive associations, still remains. (4)

Despite slight changes this doesn't change the severity of the situation because even thinking about this is enough to jeopardize political structures of this country.

References and footnotes:

(1) https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/04/italy-un-experts-concerned-administrative-enactment-problematic-security

(2) Ibidem

[Translator's note] this is not part of the article I translated, but I thought to add it to complete the info about the previous law.

(3) https://www.laleggepertutti.it/718492_le-universita-potranno-schedare-gli-studenti

(4) https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2025/04/04/dl-sicurezza-cosa-cambia-servizi-migranti-sim/7940926/

https://www.gazzettaufficiale.it/atto/serie_generale/caricaDettaglioAtto/originario?atto.dataPubblicazioneGazzetta=2025-04-11&atto.codiceRedazionale=25G00060&elenco30giorni=false

Long time no see, dear photography, last time I posted pics in my blogs was during my 2024 Recap. I've been taking photos since the beginning of the year, it's just that I've been thinking about other things, between university, different types of blogs here on NG, collabs, etc.

Today I would like to share some photos I took while spending a bit of time with my mom to let her mind rest a bit since she always work a lot at home, and deserves a bit of relax after all. Let's begin:

Common Wood Pigeon (Columba palumbus)

This fella perched on one of the Japanese maples of my garden. It is a native of the western Palearctic and belongs to the genus Columba. Because of its versatile diet makes, the bird is regarded as an agricultural pest, and due to this it is extensively hunted over much of their range. I am very glad that this does not appear to have a major impact on their population numbers though^^

There are 5 subspecies, but sadly one is extinct the Madeiran wood pigeon (Columba palumbus maderensis). Fossil records of the species are known from the early Middle Pleistocene of Sicily. Despite similar to the stock dove (Columba oenas) and the rock dove (Columba livia), the species has some key features that distinguish from other columbid species, such as:

• large size, 38–44.5 cm
• weight, 300–615 g
• white neck and wings
• wingspan from 68 to 80 cm
• tail from 13.8 to 15 cm
• a series of green and white patches on their necks is another feature of this species
• the eye is pale yellow
• overall grey plumage with pinkish breast (like you can notice here)

The species breeds in trees in woods, parks and gardens, laying two white eggs in a simple stick nest which hatch after 17 to 19 days. Wood pigeons seem to have a preference for trees near roads and rivers. Breeding can occur throughout the year if there is food is plentiful; however, the breeding season is usually between April and October. The survival rate for juveniles in their first year was 52%, and the annual survival rate for adults was 61% (1). Young common wood pigeons quickly become fat, as a result of the crop milk fed to them by their parents. This is an extremely rich fluid that is produced in the adult birds' crops during the breeding season (2).

The call is a very characteristic coo, made up of 5 syllables, the last 2 of which are slightly separated from the first three, and with the accent on the second; it is reminiscent of a low-pitched "oooh, oooh, ooh, ooooh, ooh".

Easily mistaken with the call of the collared dove (Streptopelia decaocto) due to the intonation and the accent on the second syllable, it is however distinguished by having five syllables instead of three and by the more "vibrant" timbre. The tone increases in intensity from the first to the second syllable, the highest, to progressively descend to the last, which is the lowest (in the collared dove the highest syllable is instead the first). This stanza is repeated continuously from three to five times. I swear that the first I heard the call, I thought a collared dove was a little hoarse XD

Common Blackbird (Turdus merula)

This is a lovely friend I adore to see hopping in my garden and flying across trees. I always make sure not to disturb him when I see one, even if they are not bothered by my presence because they know I am no threat. Sometimes I even feed them with some worms I find in my vegetable garden, and they gladly grab them. This is a male, they are the ones I photograph the most because they are less fearful than females and more easily approachable. The male is all black except for a yellow eye-ring and bill and has a rich, melodious song (I love listening to them when they claim their nocturnal perches for night sleep); the adult female and juvenile have mainly dark brown plumage. I have other photos of these fellas such this old photo I took last year featuring a father with his fledgling (you can notice the dark, brownish plumage):

Father

Son/Daughter

Great Tit (Parus major)

One of my favourite bird to photograph yet one of the most difficult after the European robin. I can distinguish his call but it's very difficult to photograph because he's fast, agile and doesn't remain still for too long so following him with both my eyes, ears and the camera requires a lot of skills while trying not to be noticed by the bird at the same time. 15 subspecies are recognised for this bird. The nominate subspecies (P. m. major) is the most widespread species, which can be found throughout much of Europe, Asia Minor, northern and eastern Kazakhstan, southern Siberia and northern Mongolia, as far as the mid-Amur Valley. This is a male specimen as I could notice the broad black mid-line stripe running from the bib to vent. There is a dull white spot on the neck turning to greenish yellow on the upper nape. You can see the white spot on the neck of this female great tit I photographed two years ago:

Another photo of her (I have others but this one is particularly nice due to a feature I never realized until a user I met on FA made me notice):

Notice how big metatarsus are compared to the rest of the body, this is a feature I always try to keep in mind when drawing these birds because I tend to make them smaller like in other bird species.

Fun fact: higher levels of carotenoid increase the intensity of the yellow of the breast its colour, and also enable the sperm to better withstand the onslaught of free radicals. Carotenoids cannot be synthesized by the bird and have to be obtained from food, so a bright colour in a male demonstrates his ability to obtain good nutrition. However, the saturation of the yellow colour is also influenced by environmental factors, such as weather conditions. The width of the male's ventral stripe, which varies with individual, is selected for by females, with higher quality females apparently selecting males with wider stripes (3).

The length can range from 12.5 cm to 15 cm, wingspan is about 24 cm. The black head, the prominent white cheek patch and the black stripe going down towards the legs are the most distinctive traits of this little yet brave fella. The dark vertical stripe is narrower on females and often does not extend as far down toward the legs, and this is why I can safely say that this bird I photographed two years ago is a female even if from the angle of this photo cannot be seen clearly. The species prefers insects and other small invertebrates in the summer but will eat seeds, berries and fruit in the colder months when live prey is scarce. I often see them eating in my vegetable garden. During winter they can even enter pipistrelle bat dens and eat their brain by repeatedly pecking at the head because the brain is rich in fat. This predatory behavior was recorded in 2009. They have also been recorded using tools, using a conifer needle in the bill to extract larvae from a hole in a tree.

Begging for food

A young magpie begging for food, I could take the pic when the mother was feeding him/her. The breeding season begins with the first warm days, generally in spring (with a peak in nesting in April), although in mild winters, egg-laying can take place as early as December. Here, in Europe, clutches are typically laid in April and usually contain five or six eggs, but clutches with as few as three and as many as ten have been recorded. On average, the eggs of the nominate species (P. p. pica) measure 32.9 mm × 23 mm and weigh 9.9 g. On average, only 3 or 4 chicks survive to fledge successfully. Some nests are lost to predators, but an important factor causing nestling mortality is starvation. Magpie eggs hatch asynchronously, and if the parents have difficulty finding sufficient food, the last chicks to hatch are unlikely to survive (4).

A study conducted near Sheffield in Britain, using birds with coloured rings on their legs, found that only 22% of fledglings survived their first year. For subsequent years, the survival rate for the adult birds was 69%, implying that for those birds that survive the first year, the average total lifespan was 3.7 years.

Eurasian Jay (Garrulus glandarius)

As last photo a pic of an Eurasian jay perching on a tree during a windy day (you can notice the ruffled feather) I took last month. I liked how relaxed he/she was considering it's not an easy corvid to photograph if he/she notices you. It is a relatively small corvid, with a length of 34–35 cm (13–14 in) and a wingspan of 52–58 cm. The nominate species has light rufous brown to a pinkish brown body plumage. The whitish throat is bordered on each side by a prominent black moustache stripe. The forehead and crown are whitish with black stripes. The rump is white. The complex colouring on the upper surface of the wing includes black and white bars and a prominent bright blue patch with fine black bars. The tail is mainly black. I love listening to their harsh, rasping screech and sometimes I have fun at mimic it just to troll them a bit XD

Oh well, that's all for now because I reached the maximum number of photos I can post (10 photos per blog), others will be posted in future Shutter-bug chronicles blogs. Stay tuned and have a nice day!

References and footnotes

(1) Saether, B.-E. (1989). "Survival rates in relation to body weight in European birds". Ornis Scandinavica. 20 (1): 13–21. doi:10.2307/3676702. JSTOR 3676702

(2) Gillespie, M. J.; Haring, V. R.; McColl, K. A.; Monaghan, P.; Donald, J. A.; Nicholas, K. R.; Moore, R. J.; Crowley, T. M. (2011). "Histological and global gene expression analysis of the 'lactating' pigeon crop". BMC Genomics. 12: 452. doi:10.1186/1471-2164-12-452. PMC 3191541. PMID 21929790

(3) Norris, K. J. (1990). "Female choice and the evolution of the conspicuous plumage coloration of monogamous male great tits". Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. 26 (2): 129–138. doi:10.1007/bf00171582. S2CID 36757531

(4) Birkhead, T. R. (1991). The Magpies: The Ecology and Behaviour of Black-Billed and Yellow-Billed Magpies. T. & A.D. Poyser. ISBN 978-085661067-7.

Hello everyone, I hope you are doing great in this period. After noticing how well received my previous blog about B/P and the concepts behind them, I make this journal as personal way to keep track of future ideas/projects I have in mind for my series "Newgrounds Adventures". Initially it was just this blog about blams and saves and I thank you all for the nice reactions and comments given to me both privately and in the comment section since a couple of them made me want to update some things that are visible as "UPDATE XX/XX/XXX" at the beginning of the blog. In future I don't rule out to add comments/marginal notes/additions and/or appendices to the blog, and this might be done for future blogs about this series. This series is for those who are new to the site and maybe want to understand how it works. I know there are many guides around the site, and I think many are infinitely better than mine because of their greater experience. After all, I've only been here since December 3, 2023 XD.

I just want to add my personal touch to this living experience that is Newgrounds, a site that, if used well and with consciousness, can even help one develop some cognitive skills such as ability to distinguish abusive review from useless review, write helpful reviews, blamming from protecting, etc. Of course I keep repeating that there is not a single, absolute correct way to experience NG. NG is awesome because you can enjoy, use, experience it the way you like as long as it's respectful of the site's ToS, rules and law.

But I also think that a well-rounded approach to the site helps you to fully experience it, enriching your personal experience of growth both as a content creator and as a person. Keep in mind these guides are not for content creators such as game developers, animators, musicians and artists because I know jack shit about them, minus a bit of art but that's reserved for reviews and forum threads. These guides are for users of the site, are meant to understand a bit better how this site works and function as of 2025, so in future they might become obsolete if major changes are made and in this case I will make updated versions of said guides.

So in the meantime I plan to write future guides for beginner users such as (the order is not random but intentional since I want to take my time to fully grasp concepts in order to make easily accessible to beginner users):

Newgrounds Adventures: beginner guide to Experience points and Voting Power

Newgrounds Adventures: beginner guide to Reviewing

Newgrounds Adventures: beginner guide to Whistle levels

Newgrounds Adventures: beginner guide to Support

Newgrounds Adventures: beginner guide to Scouting

Newgrounds Adventures: beginner guide to NG site layout

other guides might be added if other topics come in mind, for now these are the ones I would like to cover. Be warned: 1) they will be long so if you are a tl;dr person then they are not for you, 2) they are for users who want to be part of this site, so no stat whores guides here even if I learnt some tricks to boost some stats through some NG-related games, but I don't want to share because I would like people to understand why some aspects are the way they are and this will be covered in the guide about whistle points.

Along with these guides I also plan to do a sort of archaeological research on Newgrounds where I collect documents, videos and flash games, old forum threads that are no longer available, old site layouts, etc. To do this I started a playlist of how the site was since the beginning, and if I could even before since NG was originally a fanzine. You can already see the playlist I created and also put in the links next to my profile.

For now it's a ballpark, I hope to be able to do a more meticulous job, especially in terms of dates and related events. Here the first volume of these future playlists, thanks to Portal History pages that can be found here, I could already collect some material but others will be done with the help of the Internet Web Archive site:

I know some forum discussions (such as the forum thread that started Pico Day tradition) can still be found but I preferred to add them via Internet Web Archive when the site had a different feel in order to give that old, nostalgia or even anemoia-like vibe.

This blog is more a personal reminder for what I plan to do in future, than a way to spam my blog inbox for my fans XD but feel free to add suggestions, link or other interesting stuff that might enrich the experience. Now sorry but I have to get back Xiang as she stole the tank from the tankmen XD (runs after her just to be squished by the tank)

Newgrounds Font by Filiprb

old NG logo used as reference

Hello everyone! I hope you are doing great. With this title I would like to give an easy beginner guide to those who would like to know a bit more about B/P and this curious world of blam and protection points. The guide might be updated if people give me more correct info since it's based on my personal experience and I still consider myself a beginner B/P grinder. Another reason why I decided to make this guide is that for some concepts such as B/P bonus there are not exhaustive explanations besides the usual wiki page or help/FAQ page which are pretty simple and don't go in depth. I will use my OC Xiang to show with images some stuff and because I like to make things silly XD

Ok, without any further ado let's begin.

UPDATE 31/03/2025: added a small tip about the importance of blams in speeding up the rank leveling-up process.

UPDATE 08/04/2025: added a note about the "search for the red" tip at the end of the tip itself, after some things have been brought to my attention since the goal of the tip is not creating a hoard of people who want to blam for the sake of it with the risk to delete save-worthy stuff despite a possible low-technical skill element. The tip exists to help beginners to better understand how this system works, after they have developed enough skill to judge works then this tip is pretty much useless for more seasoned B/P grinders.

What is a blam?

Let's begin with the negative stuff or better with one of the things that characterize this system of judging movies and games that enter the Portal. It's so important to have become a verb itself in Newgrounds lingo: blam and to blam.

Basically blams are submissions that have been deleted from the Portal whether they are movies or games. From this derives the concept of blam point: a point earned for each deleted submission in the Portal, for example take a look at my statistics:

It means that I managed to get 162 submission deleted at the moment I'm writing this guide. Each deleted submission from the Portal turned into a blam point that my account gained.

If a user votes a 0-1.5 on a movie and it is subsequently deleted (see deletion qualifications below), the user receives one blam point. Movies and games are deleted if they fall below the listed score at the listed number of votes (if it gets a vote of 1.0 then 40 voters are enough to blam it):

40 votes: 1.0

50 votes: 1.5

60 votes: 2.0

If I recall well decades ago 100 votes were necessary to make something blammable. For those who have been on the site for years you will have noticed the change in the numbers required to blam a movie or game. I will quote what Tom said in the news of 6 December, 2024 Congrats Horizonauts & Site Updated!

Movie & Game Under Judgment Update

We made some tweaks to the Judgment process this week, reducing the max vote threshold to 60 and raising the blam threshold from < 1.75 to < 2.00. This means entries will finish judgment more quickly and get blammed (removed) more frequently.

What is a save?

Saves are the opposite of blams: they are submission that managed to stay in the Portal because they reached the minimum threshold to pass judgment. Every time you give a positive score and this gets summed to other peoples' positive votes, and the submission passes judgement you get a protection/save point. For example in my account I have 2,215 saves.

So every time you vote for a submission in UJ Portal section you award a point: blam point if it gets deleted, save point if it passes.

What is B/P bonus?

B/P bonus is an important tool that increases the voting power of a user, without it the voting power would be strictly based upon experience and increasing one's vote power would become more difficult. Basically it's a number that increases one's vote power. Thanks to this website you can check your stats, all of your stats, you can have a very in-depth, detailed view at your own profile and see yourself from a different and new perspective. Just insert your username and you will see everything related to your account, BP included:

https://www.wkrconcepts.com/nglogs/index.php?id=home

The total BP is given by the sum of blams and saves, so in my case 162 + 2,215= 2,377 this result gives a hint of the rank, here the full list:

So what is that percentage you see in B/P bonus? It's a number that takes your current vote power (5.99 in my case) and then adds an extra value of that amount to it, so for example:

5.99 X 0.16= 0.9584

5.99 + 0.9584= 6.9484

You can see that my vote base or vote power is 5.99 but with the 16% of B/P bonus it increases to 6.95, pretty cool huh?

pro-tip:

if you want to grind "faster" the bonus try to have an almost balanced number of blams and saves in order to speed up the process. I know finding blammable stuff may be difficult compared to past years, but in the long run it will help you level up the rank more smoothly than relying only on saves which are easier to get (I read that decades ago you could get a good chunk of blams in a day, even 80-100, now it's become more difficult. I can get almost 20 blams in a day if I am active almost an average of a hour). For example today I reached the rank of Private in a relative quick way thanks to my blams that summed to the save points instead of waiting to only reach 2,499 save points. So if you want to reach more blam points try to act like an active predator and hunt mainly for them for a while in order to reach a balanced number as much as possible.

Now that you know the basics of these concepts, let's go a bit in depth on how to vote with awareness and consciousness, so if you have the stat whore mentality (one who cares more about his/her/their NG profile stats more than the quality and honesty of the vote, this applies to every other NG stats though) then this guide is not for you.

Where to start?

Go to the Portal, once there you will see the list of movies and games ready to be judged by you:

(yes, you can see I've already voted on plenty of them minus the A-rated stuff simply because I'm not interested in that type of works)

Hunt for the red

This tip works only for the initial stages of your apprenticeship as a B/P grinder since you probably have to fully grasp what B/P is. I used it a lot when I was still a newbie in actively figuring out what was blam-worthy. When you see a movie/game highlighted in red, it means that the submission is about to be deleted from the Portal. Click immediately on it and give a low score, I personally zero vote it simply because it's the only case where I don't even take a look at it since it's already on the verge of deletion so why wasting my time watching or playing something that is already about to be deleted. It's like beating a dead horse. I initially used this method a lot because I didn't fully understand what blams and protection points were and I lacked experience and knowledge of what it's worthy of being blammed. So I used this cheap method to gain some blam points but I don't suggest to rely solely on it once you've gained enough experience to discern what to blam and what to protect.

Pros:

• cheap way to get a blam point in a passive way
• useful tool to grasp the core concept of blam point

Cons:

• very slow way to gain blam points in the long run especially if you are an active blam hunter
• not that useful once you are experienced enough to actively and proactively hunt for them

Important note to highlight: this tip is aimed at beginner people as initial and rudimentary tool to grasp the concept of blamming in a more passive way (I see the red, I blam the red, I get the blam point), not as a way to always go after the red independently of the content. It shouldn't be used as a way to harass a user or block content that might give an added value to the site. This helped me in the initial stages of blam learning, but now I prefer a more active/proactive approach, plus I highly suggest to still watch the move/play the game even if it's highlighted in red because it can help to develop a judgement skill that can be useful when one can determine blam-worthy submissions from save-worthy ones. Initially when I had to understand how this system worked, I went for the red and blammed it, but now if I see one I prefer to watch/test the submission and then give the low score according to its characteristics.

When to blam?

One of the things I love about NG when it comes to decide how to vote stuff is the lack of a prescriptive status quo. There is not a fixed rule that dictates one to always give a 0 vote under certain conditions except for those submissions that truly deserves a 0 vote. So what are usually 0-worthy submissions?

0 vote worthy submissions:

Extremely low effort animations, very short loop animations, effortless stickmen fights, effortless Madness animations, animation tests, Madness/stickmen animation tests, FNF short, loop animations, stolen stuff (in that case flag it with the appropriate type of report for the mod to review it), extremely effortless animations with no background, AI-generated stuff since it's not allowed here, everything that doesn't look effort or tutorial-educated, flashes and games with lots of bugs that need to be re-made (i.e. the game that doesn't even load or it's a black/white screen).

1 vote worthy submissions:

Here you find all submissions that still deserve a low vote but are not complete shit, usually low effort 30-45 seconds long movies unless they are good and in that case they get a higher vote from me, demos/previews that aren't any good and flashes (movies or games, doesn't matter) with lots of bugs but looks promising. In the past even good test animations got blammed easily than today because at that time people were more brutal at blamming stuff. I've found some very good test/project animations that, despite being shorter than 30-45 seconds, looked very good due to the presence of a background, fluid animation, funny elements and a short but effective plot in it. So don't take these traits as absolute, it's just a descriptive nature of what is blammable and what not. Nothing it's prescriptive here when we surpass the 0 vote.

2 vote worthy submissions:

This is the grey area between the blam and protect, now with the new threshold (2.0) things are deleted more easily and I admit thanks to this update my blams are gradually increasing along with the fact I've gained more experience at recognizing blam-worthy submissions. Now in this pool basically all 1 vote worthy submissions but slightly better fall into this category but they are not good enough to get a full 3 star vote.

(yes I blammed this video since it was an upload of a copyrighted animated series episode, another case to blam and give zero vote, zero tolerance for such type of acts and in this case I also flagged it as stolen material)

pro-tip:

when seeing a work check the title (if you find something like "animation test", "my first animation" go for a blam most of the time because a good 90% of the time they are effortless works), the description (notice if it has some suspicious elements that link to something that has been stolen, even in the case of copyrighted music that is linked in the description), the account who uploaded it (accounts with numbers are suspicious of stealing stuff, recently created accounts that usually don't read rules first are more likely to post rule-breaking stuff so blam-worthy stuff and flag-worthy stuff) and last but not least the video itself (look carefully if there are signatures that can help you to track the real origin of the video in case it's stolen or it's AI-generated, and trust me I could see some AI crap not only because it's was evident by the video itself but also because the signature had the logo of the AI-generated video tool).

When it comes to blams I usually blam and move on, but if you want to leave a review you can always hide your score and give a constructive review despite the low rating:

You can hide your score

To the save and beyond!

Everything that is 2.5 stars is something that I usually want for it to stay because I want to give the author a chance even though I don't think that anybody would actively seek this particular content out. It is one of the millions of forgettable submissions that nobody would miss if the servers got purged of them. Starting from 3 stars is usually the average of votes I give for UJ movies (for games I am less forgiving and I pretend higher standards simply because I see the videogame as the quintessential nature of art due to the combination of visual arts, music, animation and ofc game).

Aesthetically pleasing movies/games (even if there are flaws, I don't care), smoothly integrated works, good humour/parody/idea and everything that has the potential to get better in the future deserve this vote from me. Experimental movies have a higher chance to be protected by me because I love when people pushes their boundaries and comfort zones and in this case I don't even care about the aesthetic, the more surreal, the better^^

4 and 5 rates are for those submissions that make me say "wow, I enjoyed a lot this submission" both aesthetically, story-wise, animation techniques-wise and from the perspective of the message conveyed (whether it's humorous or serious). A detailed background, smooth animation, creativity, nice character design, the fun/entertainment inner value, and a well-written plot are all elements that enter in the territory of "Art". If I see that there is something promising for a 4.5/5.0 I give 4 star, if there is something still slightly missing I give a 4.5. But sometimes I give straight a very high rating when something moves me emotionally this strongly that I enjoyed the work a lot or I already know the creator for making very good quality works.

pro-tip:

If you want to maximize and optimize at the same time both the base voting power and the adjusted voting power through the B/P bonus whenever you start a new day on NG and want to vote things, go first to the UJ Portal section and start vote the first five submissions. This way you will increase your vote power aaaand will accumulate first blam and/or protection points.

Soooo where do the blammed submissions go?

Here:

This is the cemetery where all deleted submissions go and you can navigate through past submissions like I did it here. Notice the titles of some of them, sometimes even the title can guide you in blamming something because you immediately see that the person is doing it just for the sake of it or because he/she/they want to fill their gallery with something, thinking Newgrounds is Dumpgrounds or Testgrounds XD

Last advice:

I know that one is more than free to approach this site as one wishes, however I personally believe that if one really wants to nourish a creative community and creativity itself, and cares about the site as whole, it is important to take the time to look at the various submissions even if they require a lot of time as much as possible if one has the time. One is not obliged to watch and play all submissions and if one is too long (and by long I mean 1 hour), one can always select the type and length. It's also a way to pay respect to the person who made said submissions after noticing they are save-worthy ofc, for blammable stuff see points above. They spent time to make something and share part of their being, so it's the minimum that I take my time to interact with them, vote them and if I feel even to review them (I take my reviews very seriously, even more than my voting power).

Final thoughts:

Well, my guide ends here but as I said at the beginning if people correct me or give me further technical info about blams, saves and B/P bonus I am more than happy to update info with proper credits. After all this guide is meant for beginners like me and I shared my experiences that allowed me to extract these type of info since I wasn't fully satisfied with what I read in both forums and especially the help/FAQ section. Below you find the references from which I took a small part of my info and images. No need to give exposure to stolen stuff used as example of blatant blam-worthy submissions. Yes, I used Pico emoticon since he was the voting icon for flash movies/games Portal before the Tankman took the place and now.....

Enjoy the show!

References:

Expert's Guide to NG-DX

https://newgrounds.fandom.com/wiki/Blam_%26_Protect_Rank

Hello everyone, I hope you are having serene times especially now that Easter is gradually approaching. And speaking of something that is approaching I would like to share a little sneak peek of what I am doing for Pico Day since last year I couldn't participate due to the many exams I had:

This is the lineart of something that won't be a single work as I plan to draw the trio. I hope to finish it in time but since I am done with collabs I joined these months and I am relatively more free in terms of free time, I think I can manage it.

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Another curious thing I discovered in these days while browsing the image folder of the assets folder from FNF game I've installed in my PC was this:

I personally don't know if this is just a test from the creators of the game when it comes to character select placement or a possible foreshadowing of the future playable characters. If someone knows more feel free to correct my assumptions.

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Totally unrelated to these two topics, I plan to continue studying Russian language by myself despite the course is over and I passed the university exam. I will miss both the course, teachers, students and even the exam itself but this won't prevent me from continuing studying it and keep writing those Russian Diaries which helped me a lot in shaping my perception and study skills of this language.

Well, that's all for now. See you next time and drink plenty of water!