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Is it just me or do the new generation of HTML5 based games fail to match the feel and engaging attributes of old Flash games. Maybe it’s just nostalgia blindin

Is it just me or do the new generation of HTML5 based games fail to match the feel and engaging attributes of old Flash games. Maybe it’s just nostalgia blinding me.

danbolt 6y ago
I think Flash's editor and scripting abilities had a more accessible "on-ramp" for creating interactive content. I think the technical knowhow and discipline is a little higher with JavaScript compared to Flash.
- codingdave 6y ago
  I was thinking the opposite - there are so many tutorials out there that people are whipping out simple games as their first attempt at coding. So we're seeing people's first projects they have ever done, which are naturally more simplistic.
- the_only_law 6y ago
  Most of the games I see now are more technically impressive, sure. Hell I remember years ago trying to find a decent client side first person shooter without much success. But a lot of what I find ends up feeling very generic and uninspired. Compared with a classic flash titled I can remember which were extremely primitive but were engaging, had fun characters, novel and comical stories, etc.
sien 6y ago
Perhaps people now make mobile games instead. They can possibly get more money out of that.
JansjoFromIkea 6y ago
I think flash was something you could kind of stumble forward and gradually figure out whereas html5 (along with the level of documentation available today) makes people far more aware of where they're going wrong. A lot of the vibrancy of old flash games that would doubtlessly have had horrifically messy code has been killed off by a greater awareness of best practices throughout the coding process. Very easy to destroy the fun of a novelty side project once you start focusing on making it maintainable or extensible
torginus 6y ago
I think the fact that Flash was an one-stop shop for graphics, animation and coding made it very accessible to creatives/artists, who might not have had a strong technical background who I suspect were behind most of these games.

Is it just me or do the new generation of HTML5 based games fail to match the feel and engaging attributes of old Flash games. Maybe it’s just nostalgia blinding me.

danbolt 6y ago

I think Flash's editor and scripting abilities had a more accessible "on-ramp" for creating interactive content. I think the technical knowhow and discipline is a little higher with JavaScript compared to Flash.

codingdave 6y ago
I was thinking the opposite - there are so many tutorials out there that people are whipping out simple games as their first attempt at coding. So we're seeing people's first projects they have ever done, which are naturally more simplistic.
the_only_law 6y ago
Most of the games I see now are more technically impressive, sure. Hell I remember years ago trying to find a decent client side first person shooter without much success. But a lot of what I find ends up feeling very generic and uninspired. Compared with a classic flash titled I can remember which were extremely primitive but were engaging, had fun characters, novel and comical stories, etc.

sien 6y ago

Perhaps people now make mobile games instead. They can possibly get more money out of that.

JansjoFromIkea 6y ago

I think flash was something you could kind of stumble forward and gradually figure out whereas html5 (along with the level of documentation available today) makes people far more aware of where they're going wrong. A lot of the vibrancy of old flash games that would doubtlessly have had horrifically messy code has been killed off by a greater awareness of best practices throughout the coding process. Very easy to destroy the fun of a novelty side project once you start focusing on making it maintainable or extensible

torginus 6y ago

I think the fact that Flash was an one-stop shop for graphics, animation and coding made it very accessible to creatives/artists, who might not have had a strong technical background who I suspect were behind most of these games.