Day 98 - Wallpaper 2.0 Collab
Immersive Sim, Point and Click, WTF ·
Skeeter’s Take:
This kind of stuff always intrigues me. When we come across something like Wallpaper 2.0 Collab, I try to put myself into the developer’s shoes and go through the thought process that led them to their creation.
I would guess that ElRandomGMD wanted to take some artists he likes from Newground and commission them to make a collection of wallpapers he can share with others. A pretty noble cause, all things considered. I like it. Seems like a good idea!
Here’s where I start to lose ElRandomGMD.
I understand that they most likely chose Newgrounds for the site to host these images as the wallpapers are all Newgrounds themed (or themed around games that were popular around the same time as Newgrounds) created by artists from Newgrounds.
Sam and I haven’t delved too far into Newgrounds in this project, so some of you may not know that Newgrounds actually has a whole section specifically for Art:
Despite having access to this feature, ElRandomGMD (I’ll just call him ERGMD for short) decided that the best format to share these wallpapers would be a video game slideshow… in the gaming section of Newgrounds.
Listen, I don’t know shit about uploading to Newgrounds, so maybe the art section doesn’t let you make albums and ERGMD wanted to keep all the art together, and the best way they could do that is to put it in a game?
Sure, for now, let’s proceed assuming this is true.
If one is looking specifically for a wallpaper, what is the one thing they would need to do for it to be usable?
Download it.
You cannot download any of the photos from the game, which begs the question - what is the point of this? To show off the cool wallpapers you can’t download?
I did a little more investigating and found some important information in the comments:
Ok, so I was way off. This isn’t some guy making a collab himself and posting it. This was a request from someone who actually directed the collaboration the art is from. Apparently ERGMD was asked to do this by someone named ejulia14 after seeing a virtual Art Gallery ERGMD did for Mexican Independence Day. This means it’s not technically ERGMD’s fault for the medium, but rather they were asked to do this by ejulia14 (this is all speculation, I feel like I need to keep reiterating that).
I followed the link to this Mexican Independence Day Collab, and it took me to a planning page. Look, we are writing one review a day and I don’t want to waste more time searching for the actual game, so here is some information from the planning page that I’m just going to assume ERGMD followed through on:
“Doing it in an Art Gallery in a game”. I think this sentence is very important. It seems his original idea had player characters that would move around an Art Gallery environment and look at art in a digital gallery. He even lays out some (very funny) pngs for examples of what the player character looks like. This is a cool idea. This would technically work as a “game” and makes sense since it seems like ERGMD is just showcasing Mexican Independence Day related art - you wouldn’t have to worry about downloading anything as it’s not Wallpaper themed.
But that still sort of begs the question - who’s really responsible for this game? The obvious choice is ERGMD as he is the one who created the game and didn’t put a download button, but perhaps some fault should fall to ejulie14 for choosing to commission this medium in the first place. Though, to be fair, it seems like a lot more work hypothetically went into ERGMD’s other project than this one. Was ejulia14 just as disappointed as I was playing through this? We may never know.
Alright, now that we know some backstory about this game, I am willing to spin a little story here of what might have happened. This is all speculation, probably not even close to correct, but my internet detective skills are telling me this is a timeline of how things played out:
ERGMD makes Mexican Independence Day Collab. It is well received, and has some time put into it. There are moving player characters that walk around a virtual art gallery and appreciate the art.
ejulia14 takes notice of this (assumedly) virtual art gallery, and has an upcoming wallpaper collab they would love to see put into a similar style game.
ejulia14 contacts ERGMD to make said game. ERGMD agrees.
ERGMD makes a slideshow. You cannot download the wallpapers from the slideshow.
ejulia14 sighs and says “looks great (she lies), but we can’t download the wallpapers which defeats the whole point of having wallpapers, can we do something about that?
ERGMD says “No problem, I’ve got you!” and adds the following to the about section:
ejulia14 states that’s not really what they meant, but that it will have to work for now.
ERGMD updates the list of participants to include themselves as one of the original collab organizers (reminder that this was ejulia14’s collab project. ERGMD only helped make the slideshow game we have today, as far as we know.)
This causes the tides of disagreement to start churning. This was ejulia14s collab! Not ERGMDs!
ejulia14 starts building up their war assets and demands that ERGMD have his name stricken from the records of ever helping organize the collab.
ERGMD refuses, saying they did just as much work putting together the slideshow (if not more) than ejulia14 did creating the collab and he deserves to be recognized for his contributions.
Tensions Rise between the two.
ERGMD takes Wallpaper 2.0 Collab to his science fair - it’s a special one since the President will be there to observe (that 100% is something that happens don’t google it).
President takes notice of the project and thinks “That MS Paint eyebleed wallpaper was pretty cool. I bet if I download that to my work laptop I’ll feel a lot better about logging in every day (man I hate my job)”.
President opens Wallpaper 2.0 Collab from his Oval Office when he gets home later that night. Upon realizing he can’t even download the image from the game (and no, the president doesn’t read the about sections), he gets so irate, he throws his laptop at the wall, but it swerves suddenly and smacks the giant red button sitting on a pedestal in the middle of the room labeled “Nuke - Press to Launch - Thank you!”
World War III breaks out.
I catch ass cancer.
Death.
Recommend: no
Replay Percentage Chance: Chance: no
Time Played: no
Sam’s Take:
I dug a little bit into the Mexican Independence Day Collab situation (a VERY little bit), and it hasn’t been released yet. ElRandomGMD has done a bunch of these virtual galleries and seems like they are pretty good at getting a bunch of people to submit. It definitely seems like a situation where the artists showcase their work to the other artists, but that’s cool, it gives these artists a deadline and forces everyone to get involved in the community, and honestly that’s what’s great about Newgrounds. Might be the only thing great about Newgrounds.
I took a tour of ElRandomGMD’s other collabs, and honestly it seems like they have much more work put into them. The Valentine’s Day one has an animated background and a heart box that gives a random message when clicked on, the KinitoPet one has a fake desktop aesthetic. Wallpaper 2.0 does seem the most barebones of the lot, and I wonder if it might have had something to do with switching his coding language/tools (something they alluded to in their Mexican Independence Day Collab blog post).
So Wallpaper 2.0 was a lesser gallery that was never meant for us in the first place, but I did at least get some use out of this image:
Recommend: No
Replay Percentage Chance: 0%
Time Played: Alt-F4
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