Cyberdevil's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Uzi and Joy]

I love the way this builds up... goes from eerie and anticipative to a real banger! Feels like the atmosphere's almost more akin to Madness than to say Pico's School, but maybe I just forget how intense those original soundtracks really are too. :)

And this REALLY amps up in a minute! And breaks down a bit and amps up again... it gets a lighter tone along the way; definitely goes from the more ominous to the more joyous.

This was cool man. Great builds; great energy all the way. Crisp quality too! And dem guitar solos! :D Kinda reminds me of Ronald Jenkees type of sound occasionally... just abundantly fun; smooth; creative and full of energy.

Happy Pico Day again man!

-cd-

[No Propeller ft. Nat James]

Getting real deja vu with the intro here, though not sure what it reminds me of... this was new! Experimental and difficult to predict, I like how there's no real discernible pattern, it's the kind of sound that seems to trigger new pathways in your brain somehow; incite interesting cognitive responses...

If I've any qualms with this it may be the vocal samples feel a little thin and high-frequency, yet still somehow far back, they're both sharp on the ears sometimes and not the easiest to hear other times; seem to fade into the mesh of music a bit much now and then.

Love the sound otherwise! Creative; smooth and vibrant... and nostalgic though I'm not sure why.

Pretty sure I haven't heard the original/samples before.

-cd-

[CarterSterling / 9 / A200]

Your passion and appreciation for the community's contagious @CarterSterling! Definitely appreciate your presence here too, and the effort you put into helping out! I've seen your name a lot around the site but probably never really connected, so this interview was great.

Interesting to know the in and out's of both the icon work and photography too. Icons in particular were way more elaborate a process than I assumed, figured it was more so old ones that needing upscaling, or new screenshots, but remaking individual ones as they originally were in high-res is a big job! And in the thousands potentially! Impressive. On going out of your way to find submissions with historic values too; preserving that grand NG legacy one thumb at a time.

Photography sounds like a fun profession too, a lot of time outside at least initially. Must be pretty cool to work at concerts in particular, seeing everything in a whole other way than you would as a regular visitor.

Can also relate to re-occurring annoyance factors re: Adobe. XD And after what they did to Flash... I'm really hoping other software developers manage to shatter their studio monopoly a bit. Apart from bugs their programs oftentimes just feel overly complex compared to their counterparts too IMO. Like Photoshop when compared to Fireworks, at the peak of Macromedia, when both seemed maybe just as viable alternatives for photo-related work, before Adobe bought the competition, kept improving Photoshop over the latter, and eventually dropped that one too... Adobe do seem to be in the lead though feature-wise right now, but maybe I just don't know the alternatives, hope some with a better balance between usability/functionality are on the rise somewhere, Macromedia really had that down initially...

Since you love Nine Inch Nails btw, I wonder what you think of Johnny Cash's version of Hurt? If you've heard it. Personally love both, but they're so different.

Impeccable musical tastes there, love all these bands/artists, Korn and Limp Bizkit in particular, that's my youth!

lol @ that Bigfoot podcast idea. XD

As for ironic jokes, unfortunately I think Gen Z are changing the comedic landscape a bit online, with an overload of memes and oftentimes pretty lazy animated material. Shorter content for shorter attention spans, thus bigger output, thus also less effort for each individual piece... but maybe it's just a momentary wave. There definitely are content creators out there going against the grain, and putting abnormal amounts of effort into the content they make too.

Anyhow great interview y'all; nice to get to know more about that iconic NGer with the impeccable haircut! ;) Solid questions; picture; all!

-cd-

Aalasteir responds:

Great to see you, @Cyberdevil Your positivity, kindness, and care for the community are always a shining beacon of great inspiration. You have my admiration and deepest respect, and I aspire to embody the same values as you!

Thank you! I also enjoyed Carter's talk about his icon work. I learned a lot, and I'm very grateful for the information shared. Carter greatly helps the community! It's very impressive that Carter has made thousands of icons. You put it extremely well: preserving the grand NG legacy one thumb at a time. Photography is excellent! I'm excited to hear the stories that will come from the Pico Day NJ Meetup! I hope they all have fun!

You are right; it is bad what they did to Flash!

Thank you so much for teaching me a lot about Flash; I now know more about decompiling and audio for Flash now.

I personally think that Johnny Cash's version of "Hurt" is extremely awesome, and I also really like it. I fully agree that the Bigfoot podcasts are funny. It's interesting how humor and the comedic landscape change. You're right that shorter material has become more widespread, though I still see amazing long-form and soulful art that is full of life, such as the legendary animation "Jimmy and Baby" by @PaulRobertson

[Aalasteir / 8 / A200]

The energy in this one is just off the charts man! And you sound awesome however you try to sound. XD Voice Acting skills for real, I'm impressed!

You definitely do have to get to Sweden eventually! :D Great answer on that great question too. I suppose I already knew what you'd say, but not how. Well-worded. The journey's the goal fo rizzle!

Must have made a serious dish-related investment to be able to have them cover such vast expanses of rooms and other areas too. XD All of this food looks delicious too... some of the earlier ones could've maybe looked even better with a little more green, or other additional color, but they all look hella tasty. Plenty of nutritious stuff too, impressed in your cuisine too you kitchen fiend you! If you don't know about it there's a Baking/Cooking club in the Clubs & Crews forum, maybe you'd be interested. :)

The GTA games are pretty good at letting you blow stuff up too. XD Oughta try some of the ones you mention, haven't played the games you play the most yet...

Also thanks for the Inktober thanks man. :) And for reaching out then. Devil's Night turned out one of my favorite tracks last year. It may btw subconsciously also be a homage at least in title to one of my favorite rap tracks from back in the day, D12 have one with the same name.

As for how I met Kwing hmm... I don't know really! He's reviewed some of my stuff before, I might've reviewed some of his... I've known about him a long time, and seen him around the site, but it's only recently we actually connected, and he asked if I'd want to do the visuals for a game idea he had. Last year he gave me some advice on how I could improve the AS2 on my own game, so maybe that's when it all started. Happy with how that turned out anyhow, even if some people apparently are pretty critical about brawler strategies and mechanics and how such things should be. :) Personally I just love a good masher, doesn't have to be too complex.

Ten MORE ways to make NG worse?! XD Oh man... I think @LilSpook did a pretty good job on those with the last one, what could I possibly contribute that hasn't been said yet, hmm maybe:

1. Remove pagination, so content just loads endlessly and makes it impossible to navigate to a particular point within any selection or collection of content!
2. Combine all menus in a collapsible dropdown, so every menu item is a dropdown menu item of another menu item, so you have to open one menu item to reach the next menu item, all the way to the last menu item.
3. Generate a random emoji reaction for everything you post, that you have absolutely no control over. Additionally have an AI algorithm learn which emojis are most unsuitable in every situation, and have it apply specifically that.
4. Require a FaceBook login to login, track everything and send all user data to Zuckerberg.
5. Ban animations, and focus on short-form video material instead, though only allow these videos in .gif format with no sound so we still stand out against competitors like YT.
6. Make the max length of a video five seconds, as to really compete with TikTok and attract a more short-attention span audience.
7. Replace the frontpage with a Pac-Man game, where you have to complete a level each time you want to open the collapsible dropdown menu or play a submission.
8. Put all of the above behind a paywall, that only allows access to the one user who bids the highest for exclusive entry to the site.
9. Have all text be the same color as the background color, so you never get any unnecessary spoilers, and can choose to highlight just the text you yourself want to read.
10. Play the sound from a random YTMND entry every time you load the site, and have it loop endlessly until you win a game of Pac-Man. At which point it'll be paused for at least five seconds, so you can manage to view a full five second video if you happen to have paid enough to be current; exclusive viewer of the site!

That'd be pretty dystopian though hmm. :) Hope they do something about the one of these that actually is implemented, and may the rest never come to pass!

Awesome interview here. Didn't expect a monologue to be this fun but you went above and beyond with it! I mean I thought it'd be a MONOLOGUE, not an actual interview. XD Took this way beyond how ever far I could have assumed you could take it!

Awesome work. Learned a bundle too.

-cd-

Aalasteir responds:

You are awesome, Cyberdevil! Thank you so much for your kind words. Yes, I would be very happy to visit Sweden. I am grateful you say that you like some of the funny voices I do. I've been insecure about speaking for a long time!

Thank you for saying that you like the cooking pictures I've made. I like cooking, but it is very rare that I eat desserts, and I tend to avoid them when offered. However, when I do eat them, I do think they are great, especially on rare and special occasions.

Absolutely! I am a massive fan of the GTA games! The reason I got a PSP was so I could play Chinatown Wars, Liberty City Stories, and Vice City Stories.

You are absolutely right! Devil's Night turned out great. You are very skilled at creating lyrics and rapping.

Thank you for sharing your story of how you met Kwing. I would say the game turned out great.

Those are excellent ways of making NG worse! We can only hope Tom doesn't implement those. They all sound like nightmare scenarios. Combining all of the menus into one would be so annoying, and having to complete a Pac-Man game level to open a drop-down menu to play a submission... that's just crazy! And having the sound of a random YTMND entry every... They all sound like insane pranks!

Thank you. I'm happy you enjoyed the MONOLOGUE interview and that you would like to share your thoughts. I'm extremely grateful, and you are super awesome! You always brighten up my day with your thoughtful and kind personality. You are an amazing friend!

[LilSpook / 7 / A200]

Very much enjoyed this one. Great conversational chemistry, great life lessons and elaborations on an unexpected field of work and upbringing too, actual theatre and acting... very cool. I probably ought do a bit more vocal warmup occasionally too hmm...

Quick wit with the Top 10 potential ways to destroy the site too, that was unexpected. XD

Glad you found your way here back in the day and continue to grace these grounds @LilSpook! Great hosting @Aalasteir. Great art @TheShokBlok.

Great episode all around.

-cd-

Aalasteir responds:

Thank you so much for your kind message. You have a kind heart and a great sense of positivity. I'm always happy to see you. Spook has a great personality, and it's very kind of her to share her experiences. Thank you so much for saying that the art is great. The art is amazing, and I'm really happy and grateful that @TheShokBlok like to make awesome art!

[Little-Rena / 6 / A200]

Aaa don't do me like that @Little-Rena! XD How and why did that potential for mutual NG OG recognition of coolness and comradery somehow wane away! Maybe it's the pineapple on pizza thing hmm...

Do appreciate the answers though, the humor, and this interview overall. Solid historical NG know-how, stories, deep-dive into culture and content and all from one of the most prolific content contributors here at the mo (you are leading the trophy count fo rizzle)!

Interesting bit on Hive-Clock history, didn't realize that was such an old account. And you've been apparently really lucky with Flash Rena! Crashes seem to happen with every project I work on, file corruptions less commonly but they do occur, bit surprising Adobe never implemented at least some auto-save functionality with the program.

In regard to that one vote per submission per account thing so much changed when they added that too, though it definitely was a good change. The order on the Top 50 shifted entirely, submissions that'd both been gradually upvoted and downvoted by the same users for years and years swapped places, and with only votes from a recent range of years now counting for all submissions, a lot of older ones suddenly had zero votes at all, especially in the AP, as old votes on those submissions weren't linked to user accounts. Took some time for all of that to stabilize.

Love the Knox throwback, I wish his movie dubs were still a thing too, on YouTube maybe they could be... they're some of the funnest content I've stumbled here to this day. And MiniClip was amazing fo shizzle, though a shame they cleared out all Flash games on their own site, they're fortunately still on NG. ArmorGames was a real force to be reckoned with too in that Flash game heyday, maybe they were they biggest two.

lmao at that Futanari discussion. XD I do appreciate your honesty @Aalasteir!

On the topic of Flash decompilers: I had to try one the other day actually when a project I was working on CRASHED on project preview. Fortunately the preview SWF was fine. Not sure how well any decompilers get around the built-in protection Flash has - you can choose to 'protect' a Flash file from import when you export it - but at least without that feature enabled this one worked really well: https://github.com/jindrapetrik/jpexs-decompiler

Though you lose directory structure with things like this, so it's harder to make sense of how everything fits together if you plan to actually do something with the entirety of it. Good for saving individual resources or getting an overview on code though.

lmao the conversation on potential gayness too! XD

Good info on all them ALTs too! Impressive number, had forgotten Noob Nation...

Nice convo y'all, and art @TheShokBlok!

So much substance in this one.

-cd-

Aalasteir responds:

Pineapple is always unstoppable. Thank you so much, I'm always happy to see you, Cyberdevil, my friend! Absolutely true, I was very shocked to hear Rena didn't experience crashes, a lot less common; that's a Clock Crew stat buff!

It's insane how much things can change by making different rules or changing them, and then the dynamics completely change how the user base behaves.

Knox made so many amazing animations; he is a legend. I just watched his dub of The Matrix. It's great that the dub has been saved; I feel saving copies is important because otherwise, we end up losing media. MiniClip was amazing; great selection of games. ArmorGames, absolutely, I remember them both very positively.

It has now become a fact: Futanari is now more unstoppable than pineapple.

Flash decompilers - I'm surprised that Flash can be decompiled. Thank you so much for the link; thank you so much for the tips. It's great that there is a possibility to get an overview of the code.

Super thanks to Shoko!

[Dark Trance Prev]

The rhythm's on point, the build, synth or strings humming with a gradually increasing buzz as you near the big drop... the keys/chords that get added in around the 44 second mark though... feel a little out of sync with the underlying beat? Maybe they really aren't, maybe that particular instrument just gives that impression; there's some kind of sonic delay ingrained in it, but it really feels to me like they're slightly off beat with each hit - a bit too late. The other layers sync well, and you really do get into the grove after a while! Good energy.

I like the instrumentation around the 4:22 mark in particular, gets crazy in a good way and builds and builds and builds... and fades nicely... and builds again! And drops nicely. The transitions are great.

Maybe the intro could be a bit less gradual, or build more notably, it takes a while before you really get into it, and the slightly off sync keys distract me a bit, other than that this is good! Proper sound quality and bass too, though a little compact possibly, I'm no production pro so I wouldn't know the first thing to adjust, but a little more space and richness with the sound might take it to the next level. Maybe you could play a bit with panning on the transitions too? Seems that might work well with this kind of music.

The style reminds me a bit of some kind of mix between Prodigy and Aphex Twin... which is always a good thing.

Very solid start! If you didn't say so I wouldn't have known this was just a preview, it plays like a full-fledged track already. :)

-cd-

[ChillyBite / 5 / A200]

Australia does seem pretty awesome! Home to some of the coolest dudes in the world. Hemsworth (the multiple), Crocodile Dundee, Dom Tomato & co, certain creative Internet icons on the greatest slumbering social media and content community of all time... should've asked more about life there hmm, seems it can be a dangerous place to live too though. Ever had any deadly arachnids or smaller if not lethal maybe at least uncomfortable-to-encounter animals reside in your shoes? Memorably wild experiences with either local people or animalia? Maybe something for another episode...

Glad you got away from them substances anyhow, sounds like you've experienced quite a bit. And hell yeah re:NG. Competition pales in comparison. I'm confounded by how more people don't end up choosing this over other more soulless social media, but at the same time glad the rest of the Internet doesn't flock here en masse, I'm sure NG could manage more, but at some point of popularity you'd probably lose some of that so essential consumer/content creator connection that also makes this place so unique...

Great talk y'all, plenty of both controversial and creative points of conversation, critical and oftentimes (IMHO) very astute worldview rambles, and all honest answers @ChillyBite!

Nice work @Aalasteir too on keeping all flowing; active listening and hosting!

Didn't feel like a full two hours at all.

EDIT: I missed the spider comments apparently! My bad, attentiveness must've slipped somewhere... nice art here too btw @TheShokBlok!
-cd-

Aalasteir responds:

I'm always happy to see you, @Cyberdevil. I fully agree! It's generous of Chilly to share his experiences and what it's like to live in Australia. He did speak of the spiders that you have to watch out for! It's great that people are choosing our community over all of those soulless social media platforms. We are on the right track!

Thank you so much, @Cyberdevil.

[Dipthong B]

This can't be an April Fools thing if it actually IS a real thing though!!! XD And it really ain't bad either... Dipthong B = Banger! Not bad at all, seriously...

-cd-

[TrinaTan / 4 / A200]

This definitely was a lively one! :) That VA passion and overall optimism's contagious. Fun talk, and solid life/VA advice, even if it seemed to turn a bit more into interrogation than normal conversation a while along the way. XD Glad you got the vocal warm-up question in again though @Aalasteir, most detailed cover art yet @TheShokBlok, and it's a good thing you did find your way to the Grounds back in the day @TrinaTan, enrichening the crazy content around here with relished reverberations of varied sorts! I don't tend to choose pineapple for my pizzas btw but y'know... for some reason I'm tempted now. :P

Keep up the awesome work y'all!

-cd-

Aalasteir responds:

Thank you so much for your generous words, @Cyberdevil I am extremely grateful, happy to see you. You are super awesome! It's great to have passion and optimism; it's something that can positively impact everyone around you when utilized in a positive manner. Oh, oops, sorry, it became a interrogation. I didn't expect that to happen. Trina has amazing advice!

Super thank you to @TheShokBlok the cover art is always amazing!

Yeah! :D I can say I am a fan of pineapple on pizza. Perhaps we can start a crew! A pineapple pizza crew! Thank you, thank you! I'm extremely grateful to be a user and to be able to see the amazing self-expression that everyone does. I am amazed every day by the amount of dedication and respect for the disciplines and the level of investment taken in self-expression. The reviews are extremely important to me, and I also try to make reviews. I feel I'm not so good at making reviews, and I am embarrassed by how little I know. I wish I could provide more value to people, but hopefully, even my perspective can at least show that I am willing to give what I can give, even if it is just one vote.

That contributes significantly to the environment. It is entirely true; every vote counts, and it is heartening to see people so invested and interested in the Newgrounds community. We are building the environment; we are the ones who make all of this happen. It is teamwork that makes all of this possible, and without teamwork, we wouldn't achieve what we have. What I find amazing is when you like it; that makes me immensely grateful and happy. Your reviews are incredibly important to me, and I am deeply, deeply grateful for the positivity and kindness that the Newgrounds community has shown. The environment is very positive, and we all appreciate our appreciation for art. Enjoying life is one of the greatest gifts. To be amazed by self-expression and understanding each other is how we continue to build the environment for us. This contributes to enjoying life, which is a gift everyone can give, contributing to the power of enjoying life. It's the true strength of appreciating the greatness of the community we are building and what we are proud of building.

We make the community! We are the community!