Pico Day was the most surreal Friday night of my life so far.

Over 300 damn people showed up at a venue that worked out super well for everyone, cartoons were screened, I got to exhibit a playable work-in-progress demo of the second Randy game and got some great feedback, had internet people incredibly humanized for myself even more, and pretty much every Portal was covered, Movies, Games, Audio and Art!

Newgrounds is turning 30 years old next year - it has survived the dot com bubble bursting, ad revenue drying up (and the site not being “advertiser friendly”), the “death” of Flash, the late 2010’s “dry period” on the site…

And this past Friday we broke a meetup record.

I could develop senility and memory loss in my elderly age, and @TomFulp at the top of the stairs that go down to the theater, laughing and smiling and looking onward as the crowd applauded and they tried to get the cartoon screening’s audio to work, would forever be ingrained in my mind.

I already wasn’t worried about the future of NG, but now I’m definitely not.

Enough sappy! Some shoutouts before we get to my lil’ photo dump:

@CaptainStevie @Lolofyr @TeraVex @MisterMantid: Thank you for contributing (and for your future contributions) to my funny mouse game and for hanging out around my demo table! Thank you Lolo for making us all Randy buttons to sport, and thank you Steve and @CheddarExuberant for the build-a-bear of my fursona that left me speechless for probably the first time in my life!

@Smugerryarugerry: Thank you for the kind words and for your sick push-up skills!

@BallisitcBanana: Congrats for being the only one to play through the entire demo to the cutoff point I put in!

@GirZiggler: Thank you for a copy of your EP!

@PukeBomb: Your table came out awesome, I enjoyed being your rival dojo across the way from you…though who teaches the finer martial art is yet to be decided. :P

The two young kids from outside the venue that snuck in briefly like the IRL equivalent of visiting NG when you’re too young for it: How apt!

@BrandyBuizel and @Coby: You KILLED it!!!!!!! I commended Brandy while I was there but you both went above and beyond making this happen. Thanks for the fresh glowstick, Brandy, and thanks for the trading card thing, Coby!!

Everyone who helped set up and strike everything down: Good hustle! The venue was appreciative of our Boy Scout leave-no-trace cleanup and we worked pretty fast!

To everyone who attended and everyone I met that I haven’t named here: Was this awesome or what?? Thank you for making this awesome and for saying hi to me!

The weather: Thank you for cooperating!

Pictured (left to right): Me, @MisterMantid, @CaptainStevie, @Lolofyr

Pictured: Me and @CarterSterling

Pictured: @CaptainStevie

I have a bunch of footage on my video camera to comb through, but I’ll probably put together a little video on Pico Day and post it, maybe to NG and opt it out of awards, take the opportunity to do a submission like that, hehehe. Just gotta troubleshoot getting the video off the camera’s SD card!

HAPPY PICO DAY!!

-XOXO DN