WOOT! That's incredible! Wow! I won first place in the contest!

Here's what BoMToons had to say about Veggie-Matic:

This game was very polished in all respects, good menus and graphics, good voice-acting, and very addicting, fun, varied, and balanced gameplay. Plus it won some bonus points for having a wacky, semi-educational storyline that kids loved. The concept wasn't anything too new, but the execution more than made up for it. Everyone who played this one had a rocking good time and came away with a giant smile on his or her face. An additional note is that this game had some of the most organized and efficient code out of all the contest entrants.

That is just so incredibly gratifying. Oh man. My sister called me when she heard the news... she was real excited. Real proud of me. Wow. Holy shit, man.

I find it amusing that they described my source code as "organized and efficient." I thought it was kinda a mess, myself... big chunks of it were procedural at best. I just didn't have time to do it any better.

But the best part has got to be the description of everyone who played it coming away from it with a big smile on their face. Game design. That's what it's all about. Making a game... that's fun.

Wow, I just can't believe I pulled this off! :D Thanks, Newgrounds, for making this contest possible! :)

And those of you who are sick of seeing Wiggi World games on Newgrounds?

Relax, it's over. :P

Needless to say, I'm anxiously awaiting the contest results. Most people seem to have really enjoyed the Veggie-Matic game, so I like my chances. Also it seems it got FrontPage'd, which was pretty sweet. A few people bicthed about it, but that always happens at Newgrounds. Frankly, I was expecting a lot more abuse and a lot less constructive criticism. I guess I must have done something right, after all. :)

Now all I can do is wait and see if the judges agree with the masses. It's tricky, because I don't know how strongly they will weigh Fun VS Moral Fiber. The contest rules said "Games that feature one or more of these morals will be graded more fairly," with the predictable result that every single game submitted to the contest stressed as many of those values as the author could think to squeeze in.

But then none of the games were any fun, and BoMToons posted saying he thought the morals thing got over-emphasized, so I guess we'll see.

I hope the kids like it. :)

Well, I guess it took a $4000 pot for me to get off my butt and actually submit something. This wasn't the first Flash thingy I've ever made, it's just the first one I thought might actually stand a chance at NewGrounds. It's made for 5-12 year olds, so the first couple stages are excruciatingly slow. Consider yourself warned.