37 ms·

Flashpoint: a webgame preservation project

241 points by aresant 7y ago

Animats 7y ago
Next, Flash emulation running under WebAsm?
- the_duke 7y ago
  I don't think Adobe ever open-sourced the Flash codebase, right? The attempts at building something compatible like shumway have all been rather unsuccessful. Even if the code was available, porting it to WASM would probably be a pretty big task. It would be great to retain access to the huge amount of flash content out there though.
  - cornedor 7y ago
    The opcode’s were documented, and tools like Haxe do compile to swf. There is a lot of information available about the scripting part, but indeed it would be a great task. However I can’t wait to compile some C++ code using FlasCC [1] and run that in a wasm player. [1] https://labs.adobe.com/technologies/alchemy/ https://labs.adobe.com/technologies/alchemy/
  - Ace17 7y ago
    Not having the source code sucks, but it's not a showstopper ; some videogame preservation websites have managed to workaround this issue. It's possible to play "Prince of Persia" in the browser (through DOSBOX recompiled to Javascript). It's even possible to play the original Windows 95 (!) Pinball in the browser. Seeing the Windows 95 cloudy boot sequence in a Javascript canvas is disturbing. The game isn't as smooth as native, but it's definitely playable. ( https://classicreload.com/win9x-3d-pinball-space-cadet.html https://classicreload.com/win9x-3d-pinball-space-cadet.html )
  - miedpo 7y ago
    Yeah, if I remember right they couldn't open source parts of it because some parts had other licenses in it. I'm recalling (but I could be wrong) that they wanted to in 2011 or so... but couldn't because of that. Don't remember the source though.
  - Cthulhu_ 7y ago
    I wish Adobe would start making publications though, they know Flash has been end-of-life for ages yet there's a lot of earlier internet media still in that format.
    - pjmlp 7y ago
      Flash is now Animate.
  - SXX 7y ago
    > The attempts at building something compatible like shumway have all been rather unsuccessful. Alternative proprietary implementation was rather successful for game development. Sadly Scaleform GFx is now discontinued too and obviously we'll never see Autodesk publish anything under open source license.
  - amelius 7y ago
    > I don't think Adobe ever open-sourced the Flash codebase, right? This shows we should only allow technologies on the web if they have a clear path to preservation. I think a similar thing should hold for DRM'ed video. Such videos may be supported on the web, but we should demand they lose their DRM when their copyright expires.
- wesleyhill 7y ago
  That is already under way, check out Ruffle [0] [1] a Flash player emulator written in Rust with WebAssembly. Newgrounds (sponsoring development of Ruffle) are already using Ruffle on some of their flash content. [0] https://ruffle.rs https://ruffle.rs [1] https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle
- j-james 7y ago
  This exists as Ruffle [1] and is coming along quite well. The lead developer is a Newgrounds employee (Mike Welsh) and is the author of Swivel [2], a Flash to video converter already in use on Newgrounds. They're targeting both browsers and the desktop with Rust and WebAssembly, and it can already run most basic Flash animations I've tested. I personally am very excited, having grown up in the Flash era of the Internet, where everything from online coding languages (Scratch) to authors' websites (J.K. Rowling, others) to games and webcomics (take your pick) were made in Flash. Flash was such a universal medium that there's still significant amounts of our Internet history that nobody's converted - or been able to convert - to HTML + JS. And even then, many conversions are buggy and lacking in functionality. Having something like Ruffle available as an extension or a wrapper for legacy websites would be incredible. If anyone's interested in Ruffle's roadmap, it's available here [3]. [1] https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle [2] https://github.com/Herschel/Swivel https://github.com/Herschel/Swivel [3] https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle/wiki/Roadmap https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle/wiki/Roadmap
- pjmlp 7y ago
  Yes, Flash's revenge, WebAssembly + WebGL/WebGPU.
- apignotti 7y ago
  We are working on that: https://medium.com/leaningtech/preserving-flash-content-with-webassembly-done-right-eb6838b7e36f https://medium.com/leaningtech/preserving-flash-content-with...
  - OmarShehata 7y ago
    This sounds like a fascinating approach. How old is your company? Do you already have clients who you've ported stuff to the web for this way that you can share?
    - apignotti 7y ago
      The company (Leaning Technologies) exists from 2012. This specific technology is new and we have multiple commercial early adopters already signed up. We also provide porting tools from C++/Java to Javascript/WebAssembly which are mature and used by many customers.
- gioele 7y ago
  Or just Flash running under a FLOSS implementation of Flash in the browser? Between GNU Gnash [1] and Lightspark [2] one should be able to run quite a few of those (non v10) Flash programs. [1] https://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/ https://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/ [2] https://lightspark.github.io/ https://lightspark.github.io/
samstave 7y ago
So they ONLY provide a ~275GB torrent zip file??? Lame. Why not allow the DL of only certain games? I don't need 38,000 flash games... nor does my laptop have 500++ GB free to fiddle with this. Poor delivery decision IMO.
- miedpo 7y ago
  Check the Downloads Page and download the Infinity version, which allows you to download games as you play them rather than the whole lot at once.
  - samstave 7y ago
    Thanks - regardless though - really really poor explanation on whats going on here, on their part. Of course I know how torrents work, but to have a single zip is just stupid practice.
    - miedpo 7y ago
      No worries. Yeah that was the first thing I looked for when I first looked at too. In any case... if you did download it... I'll recommend two of my favorites. If you like tower defense style games, try out Ghost Hacker. If you like strategy a bit better, try out Pixel Legions. Both are really fun.
      - samstave 7y ago
        hehe tower defense was the reason i wanted this! Can you dropbox just those recommendations to me?
        miedpo 7y ago
        I can't unfortunately because of sitelocks... part of what Flashpoint does is in Man In The Middles the Flash Player so it thinks it's on a certain website, which allows the games to be played offline. You can play these games on Kongregate and Newgrounds if you have a flash enabled browser though. Sorry about that :/ In terms of tower defense, here's some recommendations: Ghost Hacker (the original one, which is better than the 2nd one) Defender's Quest (trial version, complete game on steam) Kingdom Rush (also available on your phone) Cursed Treasure Demons v Fairyland (feels very much like Kimgdom Rush) Onslaught2 Dungeon Defender
sagark1992 7y ago
I downloaded it last month. There are a lot of addictive puzzle games that have the potential of being huge on mobile if someone remakes it for android/ios.
- dizzy3gg 7y ago
  I'm keen to learn game development. I have experience with web & react native but would be willing to go canvas/unity if required. Any ones that stand out that you think would be a good starter game project?
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    Cocos2d-X might be a better option.
  - slazaro 7y ago
    Phaser[0] is Javascript based (you can also use TypeScript), and has a ton of documentation and community. [0] phaser.io
  - NortySpock 7y ago
    p5.js and p5.play where what I used to make a SHMUP. https://nortyspock.github.io/Viktor/ https://nortyspock.github.io/Viktor/ Before that I made asteroids. https://nortyspock.github.io/asteroids-p5/ https://nortyspock.github.io/asteroids-p5/
  - lewispollard 7y ago
    Godot[1] is free and open source, similar to Unity, builds to mobile, desktop and web. It supports 2D and 3D, as well as VR through some addons. It has a built in python-like scripting language called GDScript that's easy to pick up and understand, and you can also use C#, C++ or many other languages through bindings (even Javascript[2]). It's a really impressive effort for an open source project. There's a channel on YouTube called KidsCanCode[3] (not just for kids!) which has a load of project-based tutorials to build lots of types of games. [1] https://godotengine.org/ https://godotengine.org/ [2] https://github.com/Geequlim/ECMAScript https://github.com/Geequlim/ECMAScript [3] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNaPQ5uLX5iIEHUCLmfAgKg/playlists https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNaPQ5uLX5iIEHUCLmfAgKg/pla...
andrepd 7y ago
Ah, Backlot. Many hours spend faffing around in it.
dpfu 7y ago
For Linux and Mac, there some experimental builds available as well [0, 1]. And they are looking for Mac and Linux testers (and developers). [0] https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/datahub/Mac_Support https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/datahub/Mac_Support [1] https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/datahub/Linux_Support https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/datahub/Linux_Support
stared 7y ago
I saw somewhere "As a frontend developer, I cannot be happier that the Flash is going to die. As a person raised on Newgrounds, there are tears of nostalgia." Speaking of Flash, I miss the most this game... or rather, meme-focused experience (IMHO it is a true masterpiece): "Reimagine :The Game:" by Nicky Case: (https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/569281 https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/569281, video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tG1gh5l1YLM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tG1gh5l1YLM). Two other things I really liked were ported by their developer: GemCraft (turret defense) and Velocity Raptor (a special relativity game, https://testtubegames.com/velocityraptor.html https://testtubegames.com/velocityraptor.html). And you, what do like the most to see back?
- mr-ron 7y ago
  Well I never played these games before, what I miss the most is exactly that. A plethora of games that had no monetary reason to make them. Simply because it was possible for a solo non-skilled person to put a inspired idea in Flash in a relatively quick amount of time. I don't think we have any equivalent in the web today
  - dwild 7y ago
    > A plethora of games that had no monetary reason to make them. I don't know for Newgrounds but actually many website paid quite a bit of money to sponsor games. Gemcraft for example was sponsored by Armor Games and I believe they were in the 10k ranges. The ECPM was also not bad, I believe some were able to reach 10$ because of video ads. MochiAds, which was one of the most used ads provider also had a distribution platform which was quite useful. Once I made a game during a boring math class, I was able to get 500k views out of it (sadly mostly from China which had an ecpm of like 0.01$, it wasn't a market that MochiMedia was developing much for ads, they tried later on but Flash killed them before they were able to increase it enough). I made a bit over 100$ over that game made in an few hours. I was able to reproduce the experiment a second time, with similar result, less views, 300k I think, but much more in the US, a bit under 100$ that time. I was hoping that Unity would bring that back, because they came during the crash of Flash, but while they still push toward faster development, they were going toward a different market.
Pxtl 7y ago
The trajectory of Flash has been one of the great disappointments of the 21st century. Initially it democratized animation and gaming for a whole generation... Then Adobe bought it and moved it higher and higher up the shelf out of reach of young artists through cost and anti-piracy measures. At the same time, its nimble little plug-in became worse and worse, becoming synonymous with security problems and endless patching... And ultimately they failed to port it to mobile and that was its dead end. For indie game development, unity is a worthy successor Flash... But we never really saw anything win out for animation. Who is the new Homestar Runner?
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  > And ultimately they failed to port it to mobile and that was its dead end. I don't think they failed to port it - I think they were not invited to do so by the people building the mobile platforms.
  - janci 7y ago
    > I don't think they failed to port it - I think they were not invited to do so by the people building the mobile platforms. I don't think they were not invited to do so - I think they were not paid for the work or licenses
    - chrisseaton 7y ago
      I'm not really sure what difference you're trying to highlight there. The point is that the people building the platforms didn't want Flash, so they didn't invite Adobe/Macromedia or whoever it was at the time to port them across, and yes since they didn't invite them to do the work they obviously also weren't going to to pay for it. Saying they weren't paid for it makes it sound like they were asked to do it but not paid or something like that. I think the reality is it was never wanted.
      - benologist 7y ago
        Didn't invite is a silly way of putting it. Jobs went to war with Flash, and at the time Adobe was making progress integrating iOS as publishing targets, and today it would have been a moot point as iOS hardware is surely powerful enough. Creative Cloud is heading to the iPad Pro and it is a real shame that Flash isn't part of that.
skuthus 7y ago
Dagobah.biz was an amazing collection of flash based games, videos, and tools. Highly recommend archiving from there
azhenley 7y ago
I made 8 flash games back around 2009 that were profitable. Sadly, they’re completely broken now because all of the web services they depend on are gone. Although the main game play is uneffected, it still attempts to load leaderboards and ads, which make them look horrible. :(
- jermaustin1 7y ago
  What is considered profitable? How long did the games take to make, how much did they cost to make, how much did they make? Are free-to-play browser games still possible in this day and age? Or has it all moved to mobile?
codeulike 7y ago
I wonder about iOS game preservation, I guess thats going to be a lot harder than old 8-bit games or PC games etc.
- egypturnash 7y ago
  It’s already happening, there’s a ton of games that aren’t on the App Store any more because their creators stopped paying a hundred bucks a year. A lot of them won’t work on newer versions of iOS even if you still have a copy.
  - smacktoward 7y ago
    Or they were written as 32-bit apps, which became verboten on iOS not long ago. I had a bunch of games I had paid for and enjoyed for a long time vanish suddenly because their creators didn't deem it worthwhile to go back and recompile them as 64-bit.
- mcphage 7y ago
  There's a few apps that I liked that were completely pulled—not just unable to be purchased, but also, you can't re-download them if you had already bought them. One got pulled because the developer was hired by Apple, and one got pulled because the developer was bought by Facebook. And certainly a whole ton more that just... don't exist anymore, so I can't see them to be reminded of them. Another thing that happens is apps that get steadily worse over time. Bad Piggies was one of the best iOS games I've ever played, but it got stuffed with obnoxious ads, and the experience of playing it is considerably worse than it was just after release.
ogre_codes 7y ago
I don't care about flash games, but I really hope the "Badgers Badgers Badgers" and the "I'm a Cow" animations are preserved for posterity. (I'm sure they are on YouTube but it's just not the same)
- klondike_klive 7y ago
  I got my start in animation releasing stuff at the same time as Mr Weebl, Joel Veitch and others. In fact my first ever animation was in a Joel Veitch cartoon on his website. I remember releasing stuff onto Newgrounds and seeing the view counter tick up. It was super exciting.

241 points by aresant 7y ago

Animats 7y ago

Next, Flash emulation running under WebAsm?

the_duke 7y ago
I don't think Adobe ever open-sourced the Flash codebase, right? The attempts at building something compatible like shumway have all been rather unsuccessful. Even if the code was available, porting it to WASM would probably be a pretty big task. It would be great to retain access to the huge amount of flash content out there though.
- cornedor 7y ago
  The opcode’s were documented, and tools like Haxe do compile to swf. There is a lot of information available about the scripting part, but indeed it would be a great task. However I can’t wait to compile some C++ code using FlasCC [1] and run that in a wasm player. [1] https://labs.adobe.com/technologies/alchemy/ https://labs.adobe.com/technologies/alchemy/
- Ace17 7y ago
  Not having the source code sucks, but it's not a showstopper ; some videogame preservation websites have managed to workaround this issue. It's possible to play "Prince of Persia" in the browser (through DOSBOX recompiled to Javascript). It's even possible to play the original Windows 95 (!) Pinball in the browser. Seeing the Windows 95 cloudy boot sequence in a Javascript canvas is disturbing. The game isn't as smooth as native, but it's definitely playable. ( https://classicreload.com/win9x-3d-pinball-space-cadet.html https://classicreload.com/win9x-3d-pinball-space-cadet.html )
- miedpo 7y ago
  Yeah, if I remember right they couldn't open source parts of it because some parts had other licenses in it. I'm recalling (but I could be wrong) that they wanted to in 2011 or so... but couldn't because of that. Don't remember the source though.
- Cthulhu_ 7y ago
  I wish Adobe would start making publications though, they know Flash has been end-of-life for ages yet there's a lot of earlier internet media still in that format.
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    Flash is now Animate.
- SXX 7y ago
  > The attempts at building something compatible like shumway have all been rather unsuccessful. Alternative proprietary implementation was rather successful for game development. Sadly Scaleform GFx is now discontinued too and obviously we'll never see Autodesk publish anything under open source license.
- amelius 7y ago
  > I don't think Adobe ever open-sourced the Flash codebase, right? This shows we should only allow technologies on the web if they have a clear path to preservation. I think a similar thing should hold for DRM'ed video. Such videos may be supported on the web, but we should demand they lose their DRM when their copyright expires.
wesleyhill 7y ago
That is already under way, check out Ruffle [0] [1] a Flash player emulator written in Rust with WebAssembly. Newgrounds (sponsoring development of Ruffle) are already using Ruffle on some of their flash content. [0] https://ruffle.rs https://ruffle.rs [1] https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle
j-james 7y ago
This exists as Ruffle [1] and is coming along quite well. The lead developer is a Newgrounds employee (Mike Welsh) and is the author of Swivel [2], a Flash to video converter already in use on Newgrounds. They're targeting both browsers and the desktop with Rust and WebAssembly, and it can already run most basic Flash animations I've tested. I personally am very excited, having grown up in the Flash era of the Internet, where everything from online coding languages (Scratch) to authors' websites (J.K. Rowling, others) to games and webcomics (take your pick) were made in Flash. Flash was such a universal medium that there's still significant amounts of our Internet history that nobody's converted - or been able to convert - to HTML + JS. And even then, many conversions are buggy and lacking in functionality. Having something like Ruffle available as an extension or a wrapper for legacy websites would be incredible. If anyone's interested in Ruffle's roadmap, it's available here [3]. [1] https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle [2] https://github.com/Herschel/Swivel https://github.com/Herschel/Swivel [3] https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle/wiki/Roadmap https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle/wiki/Roadmap
pjmlp 7y ago
Yes, Flash's revenge, WebAssembly + WebGL/WebGPU.
apignotti 7y ago
We are working on that: https://medium.com/leaningtech/preserving-flash-content-with-webassembly-done-right-eb6838b7e36f https://medium.com/leaningtech/preserving-flash-content-with...
- OmarShehata 7y ago
  This sounds like a fascinating approach. How old is your company? Do you already have clients who you've ported stuff to the web for this way that you can share?
  - apignotti 7y ago
    The company (Leaning Technologies) exists from 2012. This specific technology is new and we have multiple commercial early adopters already signed up. We also provide porting tools from C++/Java to Javascript/WebAssembly which are mature and used by many customers.
gioele 7y ago
Or just Flash running under a FLOSS implementation of Flash in the browser? Between GNU Gnash [1] and Lightspark [2] one should be able to run quite a few of those (non v10) Flash programs. [1] https://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/ https://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/ [2] https://lightspark.github.io/ https://lightspark.github.io/

samstave 7y ago

So they ONLY provide a ~275GB torrent zip file??? Lame. Why not allow the DL of only certain games? I don't need 38,000 flash games... nor does my laptop have 500++ GB free to fiddle with this. Poor delivery decision IMO.

miedpo 7y ago
Check the Downloads Page and download the Infinity version, which allows you to download games as you play them rather than the whole lot at once.
- samstave 7y ago
  Thanks - regardless though - really really poor explanation on whats going on here, on their part. Of course I know how torrents work, but to have a single zip is just stupid practice.
  - miedpo 7y ago
    No worries. Yeah that was the first thing I looked for when I first looked at too. In any case... if you did download it... I'll recommend two of my favorites. If you like tower defense style games, try out Ghost Hacker. If you like strategy a bit better, try out Pixel Legions. Both are really fun.
    - samstave 7y ago
      hehe tower defense was the reason i wanted this! Can you dropbox just those recommendations to me?
      - miedpo 7y ago
        I can't unfortunately because of sitelocks... part of what Flashpoint does is in Man In The Middles the Flash Player so it thinks it's on a certain website, which allows the games to be played offline. You can play these games on Kongregate and Newgrounds if you have a flash enabled browser though. Sorry about that :/ In terms of tower defense, here's some recommendations: Ghost Hacker (the original one, which is better than the 2nd one) Defender's Quest (trial version, complete game on steam) Kingdom Rush (also available on your phone) Cursed Treasure Demons v Fairyland (feels very much like Kimgdom Rush) Onslaught2 Dungeon Defender

sagark1992 7y ago

I downloaded it last month. There are a lot of addictive puzzle games that have the potential of being huge on mobile if someone remakes it for android/ios.

dizzy3gg 7y ago
I'm keen to learn game development. I have experience with web & react native but would be willing to go canvas/unity if required. Any ones that stand out that you think would be a good starter game project?
- pjmlp 7y ago
  Cocos2d-X might be a better option.
- slazaro 7y ago
  Phaser[0] is Javascript based (you can also use TypeScript), and has a ton of documentation and community. [0] phaser.io
- NortySpock 7y ago
  p5.js and p5.play where what I used to make a SHMUP. https://nortyspock.github.io/Viktor/ https://nortyspock.github.io/Viktor/ Before that I made asteroids. https://nortyspock.github.io/asteroids-p5/ https://nortyspock.github.io/asteroids-p5/
- lewispollard 7y ago
  Godot[1] is free and open source, similar to Unity, builds to mobile, desktop and web. It supports 2D and 3D, as well as VR through some addons. It has a built in python-like scripting language called GDScript that's easy to pick up and understand, and you can also use C#, C++ or many other languages through bindings (even Javascript[2]). It's a really impressive effort for an open source project. There's a channel on YouTube called KidsCanCode[3] (not just for kids!) which has a load of project-based tutorials to build lots of types of games. [1] https://godotengine.org/ https://godotengine.org/ [2] https://github.com/Geequlim/ECMAScript https://github.com/Geequlim/ECMAScript [3] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNaPQ5uLX5iIEHUCLmfAgKg/playlists https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNaPQ5uLX5iIEHUCLmfAgKg/pla...

andrepd 7y ago

Ah, Backlot. Many hours spend faffing around in it.

dpfu 7y ago

For Linux and Mac, there some experimental builds available as well [0, 1]. And they are looking for Mac and Linux testers (and developers). [0] https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/datahub/Mac_Support https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/datahub/Mac_Support [1] https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/datahub/Linux_Support https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/datahub/Linux_Support

stared 7y ago

I saw somewhere "As a frontend developer, I cannot be happier that the Flash is going to die. As a person raised on Newgrounds, there are tears of nostalgia." Speaking of Flash, I miss the most this game... or rather, meme-focused experience (IMHO it is a true masterpiece): "Reimagine :The Game:" by Nicky Case: (https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/569281 https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/569281, video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tG1gh5l1YLM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tG1gh5l1YLM). Two other things I really liked were ported by their developer: GemCraft (turret defense) and Velocity Raptor (a special relativity game, https://testtubegames.com/velocityraptor.html https://testtubegames.com/velocityraptor.html). And you, what do like the most to see back?

mr-ron 7y ago
Well I never played these games before, what I miss the most is exactly that. A plethora of games that had no monetary reason to make them. Simply because it was possible for a solo non-skilled person to put a inspired idea in Flash in a relatively quick amount of time. I don't think we have any equivalent in the web today
- dwild 7y ago
  > A plethora of games that had no monetary reason to make them. I don't know for Newgrounds but actually many website paid quite a bit of money to sponsor games. Gemcraft for example was sponsored by Armor Games and I believe they were in the 10k ranges. The ECPM was also not bad, I believe some were able to reach 10$ because of video ads. MochiAds, which was one of the most used ads provider also had a distribution platform which was quite useful. Once I made a game during a boring math class, I was able to get 500k views out of it (sadly mostly from China which had an ecpm of like 0.01$, it wasn't a market that MochiMedia was developing much for ads, they tried later on but Flash killed them before they were able to increase it enough). I made a bit over 100$ over that game made in an few hours. I was able to reproduce the experiment a second time, with similar result, less views, 300k I think, but much more in the US, a bit under 100$ that time. I was hoping that Unity would bring that back, because they came during the crash of Flash, but while they still push toward faster development, they were going toward a different market.

Pxtl 7y ago

The trajectory of Flash has been one of the great disappointments of the 21st century. Initially it democratized animation and gaming for a whole generation... Then Adobe bought it and moved it higher and higher up the shelf out of reach of young artists through cost and anti-piracy measures. At the same time, its nimble little plug-in became worse and worse, becoming synonymous with security problems and endless patching... And ultimately they failed to port it to mobile and that was its dead end. For indie game development, unity is a worthy successor Flash... But we never really saw anything win out for animation. Who is the new Homestar Runner?

chrisseaton 7y ago
> And ultimately they failed to port it to mobile and that was its dead end. I don't think they failed to port it - I think they were not invited to do so by the people building the mobile platforms.
- janci 7y ago
  > I don't think they failed to port it - I think they were not invited to do so by the people building the mobile platforms. I don't think they were not invited to do so - I think they were not paid for the work or licenses
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    I'm not really sure what difference you're trying to highlight there. The point is that the people building the platforms didn't want Flash, so they didn't invite Adobe/Macromedia or whoever it was at the time to port them across, and yes since they didn't invite them to do the work they obviously also weren't going to to pay for it. Saying they weren't paid for it makes it sound like they were asked to do it but not paid or something like that. I think the reality is it was never wanted.
    - benologist 7y ago
      Didn't invite is a silly way of putting it. Jobs went to war with Flash, and at the time Adobe was making progress integrating iOS as publishing targets, and today it would have been a moot point as iOS hardware is surely powerful enough. Creative Cloud is heading to the iPad Pro and it is a real shame that Flash isn't part of that.

skuthus 7y ago

Dagobah.biz was an amazing collection of flash based games, videos, and tools. Highly recommend archiving from there

azhenley 7y ago

I made 8 flash games back around 2009 that were profitable. Sadly, they’re completely broken now because all of the web services they depend on are gone. Although the main game play is uneffected, it still attempts to load leaderboards and ads, which make them look horrible. :(

jermaustin1 7y ago
What is considered profitable? How long did the games take to make, how much did they cost to make, how much did they make? Are free-to-play browser games still possible in this day and age? Or has it all moved to mobile?

codeulike 7y ago

I wonder about iOS game preservation, I guess thats going to be a lot harder than old 8-bit games or PC games etc.

egypturnash 7y ago
It’s already happening, there’s a ton of games that aren’t on the App Store any more because their creators stopped paying a hundred bucks a year. A lot of them won’t work on newer versions of iOS even if you still have a copy.
- smacktoward 7y ago
  Or they were written as 32-bit apps, which became verboten on iOS not long ago. I had a bunch of games I had paid for and enjoyed for a long time vanish suddenly because their creators didn't deem it worthwhile to go back and recompile them as 64-bit.
mcphage 7y ago
There's a few apps that I liked that were completely pulled—not just unable to be purchased, but also, you can't re-download them if you had already bought them. One got pulled because the developer was hired by Apple, and one got pulled because the developer was bought by Facebook. And certainly a whole ton more that just... don't exist anymore, so I can't see them to be reminded of them. Another thing that happens is apps that get steadily worse over time. Bad Piggies was one of the best iOS games I've ever played, but it got stuffed with obnoxious ads, and the experience of playing it is considerably worse than it was just after release.

ogre_codes 7y ago

I don't care about flash games, but I really hope the "Badgers Badgers Badgers" and the "I'm a Cow" animations are preserved for posterity. (I'm sure they are on YouTube but it's just not the same)

klondike_klive 7y ago
I got my start in animation releasing stuff at the same time as Mr Weebl, Joel Veitch and others. In fact my first ever animation was in a Joel Veitch cartoon on his website. I remember releasing stuff onto Newgrounds and seeing the view counter tick up. It was super exciting.