Every year, Tankmas ADVENTure gets bigger and bigger, with better artists and cooler ideas, and every year my life gets a little more hectic around December. I've been, not only the lead programmer for advent, but often the sole engineer, and this year was tough (though @brandybuizel has gotten a lot better at dealing with my code). I was working 2 jobs while also maintaing HaxeFlixel when December started so the time I could dedicate to advent was already limited. Next December I want to spend more time with my friends and family, which is why I can't do Advent anymore.
This year's advent had a ton of great talent, and a lot of great ideas that I fumbled when implementing. I didn't even bring back the waiter, which is one of my favorite things in advent. It's been a joy to do advent these last 4 years, and I love hearing people talk about how much they love it. I've been told I'm like NG's Santa Clause because I disappear for the whole year and show up in December with gifts for everyone. If I'm only gonna do one thing a year, I don't wanna half ass it.
I still love NG and want to create things that bring the community together, but rather than doing this with 1 big event I want to create smaller, specialized games throughout the year. I've had several ideas I've wanted to add to to advent for the last 3 years, that never panned out, and I actually think they shouldn't be limited to a holiday event. And as @psychogoldfish adds new features to NG.io, I see a slew of social games coming to newgrounds. I have big aspirations for 2023.
If anyone wants to take over the coding of advent for this year, I strongly support it, I recommend starting from scratch, mainly so you can use a more commonly known language than haxe, so you can have more contributors. If you need it, the source code for each year is listed in the games' descriptions.
Happy new year! Thanks for letting me be a part of your holidays for the last 4 years.
