Not as much going on this year compared to last but it is 28 December once again so here is my recap post.
The main thing for me was obviously the 500,000 medal points. It seemed almost impossible at first and I had to set monthly goals of 5-6 thousand to have a chance – calculated as a fraction of the missing points. All of those just barely passed and any huge point losses would likely have ruined it (imagine the Medal Deleter waking from their slumber and deleting medals worth 2,000 or more at the end of a month).
February features this year's "miracle medal", that is a medal far above my skill level that I wouldn't have attempted again if it failed. That is "Flawless Complexion" from Solar Complex! on 6 February 23:39 local time.
Other than that, I have to say I am not a fan of Valentines at all so having everything colored pink/light red for weeks was a bit annoying, also beginning around 6 February. I wish you could disable it in some way in your own settings.
On 2 May, my account turned 4. This year I even got the first spot on a medal on that date.
July became my best month – with 7,515 points – when only considering new gains. In fact, July also has the most losses with 1,130 points. Doing the math, March and September will be slightly ahead if the losses are counted too.
August started with almost a full thousand points in Dr. Tuto's Temporal Egg Adventure (which pretty much guaranteed that month's point goal). On 4 August, due to insomnia, I got my earliest medal of the year at 05:45. It was in fact so early that Newgrounds saves the date as 3 August (due to time zone difference of six hours).
In the autumn months, I enjoyed seeing the "shield"/"NG Guard"/whatever you call it change every month. Halloween themed in October, Thanksgiving in November and Christmas in December. It seems to protect Newgrounds well but you have to get used to refreshing page every now and then. For those on Metagamerscore, this is likely where Newgrounds scanning breaks – as no one has scanned Newgrounds achievements successfully since the middle of September.
Between 21 October and around 21 November I held my best ever medal ranking spot (22nd).
December is always nice with Tankmas and Advent Chickendar making it easy for me to get my daily medals. At the moment, I am on exactly 1,490 days in a row – but there was actually a day around 1,365 where the medal system broke for 10 hours or so but it was fixed before it became a problem.
Speaking of Tankmas, if anyone needs the medal "You've Got Mail", I will happily send you some random gift – and as of 28 December, the Supporter requirement has been dropped so I don't have to write a January deadline for gift giving. Btw thanks to @ShangXian for sending me a month's Supporter this year.
Finally, I reached the 500,000 medal points. The monthly goals finally became notably eaiser during the autumn and on 13 December, I got it. This is also where I started uploading music with the "Unnamed 500,000 medal points track". I plan to do more in 2026 (the tracks are already available on Youtube if you want to hear them).
Back in 2024 I mentioned I would do a video of my daily medal points from 0 to 500,000. That was finally uploaded yesterday and it became the first video to excluesively use my own music.
Other
Being active all year round here, I get invited to all monthly votings. I usually take screenshots of them too so instead of sharing a huge list of favorite 2025 games, I will just list my 11 top picks from 2025 (well 10, I lost February). All are medal games obviously.
January: CA-6 EX (Picture Poker)
February: (I somehow managed to lose the screenshot for it...)
March: Driven Wild
April: Sunday Drive 2
May: A Walk in the Woods
June: FleshWorks
July: Newgrounds 30th Birthday Locker Collab
August: Dr. Tuto's Temporal Egg Adventure
September: Drive Dangerously!
October: MÆRE III
November: Void Miner (that was before it started deleting progress every now and then)
Looking at those games, I remember that we also reached submission 1,000,000 this year (or should I say "passed" as I noticed 1,000,000 doesn't exist).
Compared to 2023 and 2024, we (or at least I) didn't lose that many points in 2025. While I wasn't able to keep up and find all the games, I am quite sure we were spared the Medal Deleter this year which can only be a good thing. As I didn't have much success identifying the 2025 removed games, I will not make a 2026 list per say. I will just list the points lost and if I by chance find the game, I will list it too. That also means this recap can stay on longer.
Another thing worth noting for 2025 is the spread of face/age checks around the internet. At the moment it is very limited (and I am completely unaffected by it) but should it ever get to a point where you must do it to even log in and/or use the internet, don't expect to see me online again. I believe in privacy and anonymity on the internet. On Roblox, they are even locking the chat behind a face check wall in 2026 (but that is a platform for a completely different audience – and I have been obtaining Roblox badges silently for 1,035 days anyway).
Yearly totals
Medals earned: 3,633 at the moment (final result coming on 31 December)
Bragging rights earned: 322 at the moment (final result coming on 31 December)
Points earned: 66,905 at the moment, 71,440 excluding losses (final result coming on 31 December)
Earliest first medal of the day at 05:45. Latest first medal at 15:34 (3:34PM). Average at around 12:18.
Medal points total after each month:
January: ........................ 441,000 (+5,740)
February: ...................... 446,600 (+5,600)
March: ........................... 453,165 (+6,565)
April: ............................. 458,595 (+5,430)
May: .............................. 464,210 (+5,615)
June: ............................ 469,285 (+5,075)
July: ............................. 475,670 (+6,385)
August: ....................... 481,400 (+5,730)
September: ................. 488,065 (+6,665)
October: ...................... 493,335 (+5,270)
November: .................. 496,695 (+3,360)
December: .................. ?????? (+ ???)
