Flash (and the Actionscript 2 language that came with it) was the convenience that finally got my middling mind wrapped around making games. And that is true of many game devs who in earlier times might have drifted off to less ideal media for their work. "Flash is dead," writes Jonas Richter, "but the influence of Flash on modern gameplay is inescapable."
Flash games were the gateway for many developers in the games industry, and served as an experimental playground for distilling games down to their most pure and engaging elements. The end-of-life of Flash in December 2020 marks the end of one of the most creative periods in the history of gaming. It all started in 1996, when the Flash player was first released. Originally it was intended for Web graphics and animations, but when it got its own programming language in 2000, developers started to use it to make games. That was the same year we saw the rise of the first automated Flash games website, Newgrounds. Anyone could upload their games and they were published immediately.
It's an incredible presentation, you should definitely experience it.
Previously:
• Adobe Flash was good, actually
• RIP Adobe Flash
• Death of Adobe Flash eagerly anticipated
• Adobe to (finally) pull plug on Flash, for real this time
• Adobe DMCAs third-party project that provides security improvement to Flash
• Internet Archive turns on Flash emulation, already has 1000 items to check out
