4 ms·

Flash with ActionScript 2/3 was incredible for this sort of thing as well.

nicetryguy 5y ago
People argue that Flash has been completely replaced with HTML5, but, there is no GUI / interface for designing games / animations for the web that even comes close to what Flash had. I miss me some movieclips =(
- VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
  I learned to program with Flash MX 2004. I had no idea what I was doing but within a day or so I had made some pretty cool stuff that I was proud of. Was hooked from then on.
- geswit2x 5y ago
  HaxeFlixel + FlashDevelop
- emehrkay 5y ago
  The Flash IDE was top notch. And the fact that it made a one-file executable was pretty cool too. And their version of javascript with classes was damn cool (was it es6?). Flash had a nice dev-to-executable experience, too bad it was soured by its browser inclusion. It could've been a great alternative to Java/Electron as the build once run anywhere lang. Adobe was a bit too early with Air
  - ronyeh 5y ago
    AS 3.0 was ecmascript and similar to typescript! I loved actionscript 3.
    - fiddlerwoaroof 5y ago
      AS 3.0 was the closest we got to an ECMAScript 4 implementation.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- sumnole 5y ago
  Flash Player can be emulated with https://ruffle.rs/ https://ruffle.rs/ but there's still no viable replacement afaik for Flash IDE.
- cmrdsprklpny 5y ago
  wickeditor.com is trying to fill this niche, still pretty young but under active development.
- derefr 5y ago
  Flash-the-format is gone, but Flash-the-editor never went away. It's just called Adobe Animate now. It now exports projects (incl. arbitrarily-complex ActionScript-based games) to HTML5 rather than SWF, with literally no loss of functionality (and in fact gains in functionality instead) compared to the SWF days. Animate also exports to Adobe's AIR runtime — which isn't just "that weird Adobe thing you had to install on your PC once to run a business presentation", but much more importantly translates to the ability to export a project to a native mobile app for iOS/Android, since these platforms have AIR-runtime implementation as libraries you can link into an app project. Not sure why everyone seems to have forgotten it existed. It's not like it went unmaintained or anything, the way Fireworks was for a while before its death. Animate is still a great and modern tool, with new features being added all the time. It's become a first-in-class tool for animation studios to produce cartoons with — thus the updated name/branding. People just seem to have lost, in the process of that rebrand, all awareness of the fact that it can still be used to make games/interactive experiences. Which is a shame.
  - WorldMaker 5y ago
    I believe what went away was the ability to get Animate for cheap. Flash was extremely highly pirated and that served as an entryway for young would be web devs/game makers. In the Creative Cloud era, pirating Animate has become a lot harder to do. So fewer people know of what it can do after the easier to pirate eras, and in turn fewer people see it as an on ramp to web animation and/or game development. Not that pirating is the right solution nor that Adobe doesn't have a right to make money from their software, but that Adobe is missing a possibly huge audience they could attract with more "middle options" than super locked down Creative Cloud accounts such as for kids without access to the family's purse strings, for lower income and education use, for try before you buy needs, etc.

People argue that Flash has been completely replaced with HTML5, but, there is no GUI / interface for designing games / animations for the web that even comes close to what Flash had. I miss me some movieclips =(

VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
I learned to program with Flash MX 2004. I had no idea what I was doing but within a day or so I had made some pretty cool stuff that I was proud of. Was hooked from then on.
geswit2x 5y ago
HaxeFlixel + FlashDevelop
emehrkay 5y ago
The Flash IDE was top notch. And the fact that it made a one-file executable was pretty cool too. And their version of javascript with classes was damn cool (was it es6?). Flash had a nice dev-to-executable experience, too bad it was soured by its browser inclusion. It could've been a great alternative to Java/Electron as the build once run anywhere lang. Adobe was a bit too early with Air
- ronyeh 5y ago
  AS 3.0 was ecmascript and similar to typescript! I loved actionscript 3.
  - fiddlerwoaroof 5y ago
    AS 3.0 was the closest we got to an ECMAScript 4 implementation.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
sumnole 5y ago
Flash Player can be emulated with https://ruffle.rs/ https://ruffle.rs/ but there's still no viable replacement afaik for Flash IDE.
cmrdsprklpny 5y ago
wickeditor.com is trying to fill this niche, still pretty young but under active development.
derefr 5y ago
Flash-the-format is gone, but Flash-the-editor never went away. It's just called Adobe Animate now. It now exports projects (incl. arbitrarily-complex ActionScript-based games) to HTML5 rather than SWF, with literally no loss of functionality (and in fact gains in functionality instead) compared to the SWF days. Animate also exports to Adobe's AIR runtime — which isn't just "that weird Adobe thing you had to install on your PC once to run a business presentation", but much more importantly translates to the ability to export a project to a native mobile app for iOS/Android, since these platforms have AIR-runtime implementation as libraries you can link into an app project. Not sure why everyone seems to have forgotten it existed. It's not like it went unmaintained or anything, the way Fireworks was for a while before its death. Animate is still a great and modern tool, with new features being added all the time. It's become a first-in-class tool for animation studios to produce cartoons with — thus the updated name/branding. People just seem to have lost, in the process of that rebrand, all awareness of the fact that it can still be used to make games/interactive experiences. Which is a shame.
- WorldMaker 5y ago
  I believe what went away was the ability to get Animate for cheap. Flash was extremely highly pirated and that served as an entryway for young would be web devs/game makers. In the Creative Cloud era, pirating Animate has become a lot harder to do. So fewer people know of what it can do after the easier to pirate eras, and in turn fewer people see it as an on ramp to web animation and/or game development. Not that pirating is the right solution nor that Adobe doesn't have a right to make money from their software, but that Adobe is missing a possibly huge audience they could attract with more "middle options" than super locked down Creative Cloud accounts such as for kids without access to the family's purse strings, for lower income and education use, for try before you buy needs, etc.