Flash Friday?
August 25, 2017 9:27 AM Subscribe
GDC Vault- Flash Games Postmortem (SLYT) Kongregate's John Cooney summarizes the history of Flash games.
I miss jayisgames. I mean, they still occasionally post/host games, but it was great when there were frequent and good reviews of flash games and people spending the time to discuss them in the comments (and especially good walkthroughs of escape-the-room games). Heck, it was just about the only place outside of MeFi I could spend any time reading the comments without ragequitting my browser.
posted by solotoro at 9:53 AM on August 25, 2017 [13 favorites]
posted by solotoro at 9:53 AM on August 25, 2017 [13 favorites]
My two favorite Flash games were both done by a MeFite: Steamshovel Harry and Which Way Adventure. I was on a webinar yesterday, and the hold music reminded me of the game start music from WWA.
You will have to find other links to play these games, as the original links from the MeFi posts are dead.
posted by infinitewindow at 9:54 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
You will have to find other links to play these games, as the original links from the MeFi posts are dead.
posted by infinitewindow at 9:54 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
At one point Flash was probably the dominant video game platform in the world, though of course it's since been succeeded by cell phones.
I miss the endless tower defence variants most of all...
I remember one where you had historical cannons that you had to build palisades under, and the invading troops would march up and shoot at your walls and cannons. I think the top-end tower was a Puckle gun, even.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:07 AM on August 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
I miss the endless tower defence variants most of all...
I remember one where you had historical cannons that you had to build palisades under, and the invading troops would march up and shoot at your walls and cannons. I think the top-end tower was a Puckle gun, even.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:07 AM on August 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
There's still a ton of Flash games being done in Japan. It's like they're consciously resisting html5. I've seen a couple jump to html5 only to revert back to Flash after a period of time.
I just wish Crush the Castle would come to iOS. Including the builder.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:19 AM on August 25, 2017
I just wish Crush the Castle would come to iOS. Including the builder.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:19 AM on August 25, 2017
Mobile games are in a sorry state these days due to awful monetization models. You get the odd gem but it;s mostly pretty fallow.
posted by Artw at 10:19 AM on August 25, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by Artw at 10:19 AM on August 25, 2017 [4 favorites]
I've been looking for a new mobile game that is pleasant and passes the time but doesn't fall into the whole "pay for extra moves" like all the King.com/etc. games do. I've found a couple (ads are OK & I don't mind paying) but mostly I miss a lot of these fun Flash browser puzzle games that I filled so much time with over the years. They were comforting and pleasant.
I didn't realize Jay Is Games was back to posting, although not as frequently. Good to know!
posted by darksong at 10:30 AM on August 25, 2017
I didn't realize Jay Is Games was back to posting, although not as frequently. Good to know!
posted by darksong at 10:30 AM on August 25, 2017
I didn't realize Jay Is Games was back to posting, although not as frequently. Good to know!
As I understand it, it's a volunteer group of fans keeping the site alive. I think the focus is largely on escape games with other genres occasionally getting posted. It's definitely not at the same volume as it was when the owners ran the place.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:42 AM on August 25, 2017
As I understand it, it's a volunteer group of fans keeping the site alive. I think the focus is largely on escape games with other genres occasionally getting posted. It's definitely not at the same volume as it was when the owners ran the place.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:42 AM on August 25, 2017
My favorite Flash Tower Defense series was Bloons TD, especially Bloons TD 4 and 5, both of which got good Android ports. TD 4 doesn't seem to work on my phone, but TD 5 works great. They're a bit different from most TD games in that instead of wearing the hitpoints off of mobs, each mob is a balloon of a particular rank of color (possibly with a modifier like camo), and hitting a bloon causes it to pop and release a bloon of the next lower rank (which is usually somewhat slower).
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:53 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:53 AM on August 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
Kongregate is still going strong, although many games are built with Unity or HTML5 these days.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 12:12 PM on August 25, 2017
posted by escape from the potato planet at 12:12 PM on August 25, 2017
Kongregate is going strong but the pace is much slower. There's still some great stuff - I'm always watching for the next game from VasantJ - but without the constant flood of games it's a lot less engaging to visit the site regularly. They added "Kreds" for in-app purchases, but I'm not sure how much traction they actually got.
posted by allegedly at 5:39 PM on August 25, 2017
posted by allegedly at 5:39 PM on August 25, 2017
It's the elephant games guy! Only six minutes in, but this is wonderful. Thank you for posting.
posted by motty at 6:26 PM on August 25, 2017
posted by motty at 6:26 PM on August 25, 2017
There's still a ton of Flash games being done in Japan. It's like they're consciously resisting html5. I've seen a couple jump to html5 only to revert back to Flash after a period of time.
Do you have a link to a good roundup?
posted by sebastienbailard at 3:51 AM on August 26, 2017
Do you have a link to a good roundup?
posted by sebastienbailard at 3:51 AM on August 26, 2017
He mentions the slideshow is available online and I found a copy for those who prefer things that way.
posted by Sparx at 2:42 PM on August 28, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Sparx at 2:42 PM on August 28, 2017 [2 favorites]
Oh, thanks, Sparx. I should have tracked that down for the OP.
posted by RobotHero at 5:40 AM on August 30, 2017
posted by RobotHero at 5:40 AM on August 30, 2017
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posted by Artw at 9:38 AM on August 25, 2017 [12 favorites]