Hello fellow netizens!
Welcome to the first issue of the Sunday Scoop: the free weekly letter where I'll cover last week's projects, community artwork, and whatever else I wanna yap about!
This letter will be available to everyone, and will be the primary content for my free members. I hope you guys like this idea, because I like writing it. Let me know if you have any feedback or ideas!
Let's dive in:
Weekly Recap
Go to sleep!
Last week's video! Check it out →
I wanted to make another lyrical micro-song. My last one was Lemons, which was over a month ago... so I wanted to make another!
I felt this one was very relevant to my audience. And people in general. And me.
I saw a lot of videos of artists making "morning alarm" type of videos, and I wanted to do the opposite. I hadn't really seen anything like that.
Going to sleep and waking up are both equally difficult and equally annoying things! Things people do not want to do!!
(Although, I like going to sleep much more than I like to wake up.)
And it seems this song really resonated with the netizens, because...
Lots of views!
I woke up to ~30k views the next night... that was like, 7 hours later. That has never happened to one of my videos before.
Glad you guys liked it!
A Hall to Remember
A short, 5-minute dreamlike experience. Check it out →
Last week, I released a short, 5-minute game—or, I guess it's more of an experience. There is no gameplay per se, you just exist.
It's focused on evoking nostalgia, and it's based on a theme of recurring dreams I have.
This was my first ever project in a game engine. For this one in particular, I used Godot Engine (which is free and open-source).
I wanted to make something short for a first project. I don't really like to spend too much time on a project if I don't know what I'm doing or if I don't enjoy it. Otherwise, I get very demotivated. So I make small projects so that I can learn and have fun while I do it!
For this project, I spent ~3 days on it and implemented very little, but just enough so that I was satisfied.
For my next game (because there will be many more to come), I want to make something more silly. Perhaps I'll make an arcade game, since I would like to include gameplay this time!
My premium members, will get to see some sneak-peeks and brainstorming of this next game as it's in development. But once it's finished, everyone will be able to play it—for free!
Follow my itch.io page to know when it's released!
Website updates
I updated my website! Check it out →
Here's some changes that I remember:
- The layout has been changed!
- I added a FAQ page, about page, and a page with all of my official links.
- I now have showcase pages for my videos, music, art, and games (though my music page is just my Bandcamp... it is better suited anyways).
- I added a Bandcamp and Patreon logo to the website.
- The domain name is now officially justanoval.com (still runs on Neocities).
- I changed the header fonts to another cool pixel font. The last one had a single pixel above the capital Y that was just. annoying. really bothered me. bad.
- I removed my previous contact page, since I got a lot of clutter from the contact form. If you need to contact me, contact me through Patreon, Twitter, or my email, justanoval@gmail.com.
Any other changes have been wiped from my brain to be forever forgotten (or don't matter).
Some future plans:
- I learned that I could implement Three.JS into a Neocities website recently. This means I can put a 3D model onto the website. Which means... I can put berb onto the website. Then maybe you can click and drag and spin him. Or throw him. Who wouldn't want to do that? I would literally never leave my website. So that is a potential idea, but not confirmed!
- I would love to change the cursor to something funky, but not sure what! If you have any custom cursor ideas, comment and let me know!
- Putting music into the website sounds like a fun idea but I don't want to bother people. So, instead, I'd like to implement lil sound effects. Every time you click something it will make a silly noise... many silly noises...
- I'd like to incorporate a way to link the issues from this weekly letter into my website. This may make me re-design the website... again. But that is okay! I like doing that! I like web development! Learning is so fun :)
New music releases
This is totally not edited... and I totally did not forget to post about this.
Hey, give me the benefit of the doubt. The platforms took forever to put the songs out there. So I forgot they were released. Oopies!
WHISKERS THE DESTROYER and Micro Songs Vol. 2 were released on February 23rd:
Check out WHISKERS THE DESTROYER →
WHISKERS THE DESTROYER was a very fun piece to make a full version of. And I'm really happy with how it came out!
I had actually not planned to make it a full piece but I got carried away and literally finished it in a day. When I should have been doing more important things. But too bad! Cat song!
Check out Micro Songs Vol. 2 →
Micro Songs Vol. 2! Yippee!
I plan to release even more volumes. I would also like each album cover to be in a different style.
Community Spotlight
Okay, first let me start this by saying: I never expected fan art, or anything fan made. And it is so incredible to see people make something because of me or for me. It is so fascinating, and I appreciate literally everything everyone has made for me. It makes me inexplicably happy.
My entire goal with creating content has been to inspire people.
In The Mirror Geometry Dash Level by BreadBoyGD
BreadBoyGD made a Geometry Dash level for my song In The Mirror!
I may have to start to learn Geometry Dash so that I can play the level...
Check it out →
Fan Animation of Graphic Design is My Passion, by Distric 37
Distric 37 made a fan animation for Graphic Design is My Passion!
Check it out →
Something Inspiring
Worry Cat by LiteralHat. Check it out →
Someone recommended me to watch this in the comments, and I absolutely loved it. Great song, great animation. Great channel all-round.
Cool beans.
Consider becoming a member if you'd like to support me! You get to see sneak peeks, brainstorming, behind-the-scenes, scrapped projects, secret evil plans to take over the world—really just anything I don't want to blast out to the public!
See you next week!
– Justin
