Well this was a blast from the past. In more ways than one.

Haven't heard that song since Flipnotes Hatena was still alive and well. The style of your animation also matches the era this would have been heard, which some may call bad, but I actually like the charming simplicity and basic effects.

It's like you managed to bottle-up 2000s nostalgia with your style. I'll definitely look into your stuff.

Really love the animation, and this review is WAY too long for this really short animation...but that's how it be sometimes.

This fits so well. I'm dying of laughter from it all.

Wow. That escalated quickly. Pretty graphic too, but despite all that it was still a really fun watch. I can really see the improvement from the first episode you made all these years ago. Still a little hard to keep track the character switches in the story, but it's leagues better than before.

I'm trying to think of potential way to improve it, but the only thing that comes to mind are specific musical cues. Something like characters having either their own specific melody or instruments that represents them whenever it's their turn to be on screen.

I know sound design is tough because I haven't even made it to that stage myself with my animations. I'm still learning how to inbetween more efficiently. I'm not sure how you and your husband work with adding sound, but maybe you two can make a few experimental shorts where both of you can play around with the music and sounds to get something more harmonious with the animation. Kinda like what they did back in cartoons from the 20s, 30s and 40s, but you don't have to be all wacky and silly with it. Those techniques still apply with more serious animations (even movies and games do this), and you'd be surprised how these small changes makes a world of difference to an already great animation. Not critiquing the music, I'm pretty sure it sounds great on it's own. It's just with more involved animations like this it's better to be a little extra with it. But in the end it's just my personal preference.

The story in this is shockingly grim, and almost "realistic" with the way it depicts things. By the end I just wanted to hug these characters to make them feel better, and the credits left me feeling haunted. Not even sure if Flare is in a good spot either now that I think about it.

I'm struggling to even think of things to say about the story. I just hope the next episode is a little more lighthearted by comparison. Feels a little too soon to descend into madness with characters we barely got to know.

Although, I will say even if it's not meant to be funny, Flare sliding on her face for like a good 10 feet, and the guard accidentally chucking one of the kids up a tree gave me a good chuckle with how ridiculous it looked. I mean that guard must have been SWOLE to be able to chuck-em that high up without trying.

Overall, still pretty interested to see what will be in episode 3. I've got no idea what's gonna happen next, but I don't think these characters are gonna have a good time from the looks of things.

Even though it's a bit early to leave a review, I have to say the engine for this game feels so much better than any of the previous Tankmas games. That gap year really helped Tankmas in the long run.

My only issue so far isn't even about the game itself. My slow ass 5mbps internet speed can't even load the game anymore, and it just hangs on the loading screen forever. It's almost like it times-out my connection after a while.

I've found a workaround by using my much faster mobile data, but a proper fix would go a long way for people who don't have the best internet connection.

That's all I have for now. Might update this review as the games goes on

Dec 5th: OMG they have dash dancing! 11/10 best game

Dec 7th: I can finally load the game using my crappy Canadian internet! It's a Tankmas miracle!

Dec 29th: Christ, these arcade games are so unoptimized that they froze everything on my laptop after just 30 sec of play. I know a 13 year old laptop with 8GB of ram is pretty low, but needing like 16GB of ram in a 5 year old PC shouldn't be the MINIMUM requirement for a basic looking mini game. Seesh.

There's a part of me that really wants to love this game, but needing to constantly hold the top left or top right of the screen while doing tight platforming with WASD + space ain't gelling with me.

Something about the movement also feels way too sensitive for what feels at times like single-tile precision platforming. Often times I was massively overshooting a platform after a wall-jump and hitting a spike trap. Although, it could be because I'm not used to playing a platformer with with just my left hand on my keyboard.

All and all. Most of my issues would be fixed if the camera followed the character as they moved around the stage, and when the player stops they could then adjust the frame to capture the picture.

Oh fuck! I passed-out and woke-up in 2003!

Sucks that Ruffle has a few problems with flash files on Linux. I'm pretty sure I got all the achievements, but none of them got unlocked (plus they all have garbled text).

Pretty fun experience! Wish there was more, but what's there is really good.

Had to listen to it multiple times because I kept tuning-out and just listening to those sick beats.

As someone who first heard you from the ReGOONion song, I got immediately hooked. Then in another song when you mentioned your old deleted stuff. That lead me down a big rabbit hole, and made me love your work even more. Point is, I'm glad you decided to come back and bless us with more dope ass tunes.

Amazing that you got Grant Kirkhope on-board the goon train (wait, that doesn't soun-). Can't wait to hear what he has to offer. Same with the album art. Can't wait to hear your album when it comes out.

Lastly, pretty great tip about using a PC when starting-out music making. I was thinking of doing some myself (one of these days when I'm bored of drawing, and animating, and 3D modelling, and...), and that was pretty much the exact idea I had. Just playing around with the default instruments like a monkey until I eventually find something that sounds good. Then experimenting with audio recorders to expand my instrument variety. Music theory be damned.

Sorry if this was the longest review you've seen on Newgrounds. I tend to do that a lot on accident, but that just means I'm passionate ok!

Good luck with the album, and I'm saving this because I like those beats. You can't stop me!

As someone who owns multiple laptops with Intel HD Graphics GPUs, I can say this is very relatable.

You know it's a quality GPU when a mid-spec PC from the mid-2000s with an AMD or Nvidia GPU can beat all my early 2010s laptops no problem.

By far the most offensive thing about this song is the full 30 seconds of nothing at the very end

Really cool drawings, and nice photography too!

You can say this burger is very...memory-hungry?

I'll go get my coat

This is my absolute favourite drawing from the Tankmas event, and also my favourite drawing you've done.

It's so well done, and the atmosphere is amazing! Plus the "there she is" characters is the cherry on top.