Flash has been a huge part of many of our childhood memories and it's sad to see it go. I think it's awful how a plugin that significantly built the internet community to what it is today is not only leaving but is leaving in such an unceremonious way.
What made flash so important was that it gave regular people online a creative voice.
Before it, the only content that could be created and shared were only from the big guys at Hollywood who controlled film and television, or the game developers who worked on triple A titles. There was almost no such thing as "indie" back then.
But with flash, anyone could make an animation. Anyone could make a game. Anyone could go online and creatively express themselves and their ideas, and you didn't need to graduate from college and work in media or the game industry to do so. From a huge corporation to a kid in school, anyone can make anything on Flash and upload it to the internet. Flash and early websites like Newgrounds were the soil that helped build the foundation and culture of places like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tik Tok.
Flash was the Prometheus Fire, but now it's burning out.
I was introduced to Flash as early as 2004. I grew up playing Box Heads, Bloons, Incredibots, Thing Thing, Mausland games, Tactical Assassin, and other games. I even grew up playing the weird and crappy dress up and cooking games for girls. I spent a lot of my time going on Crazy Monkey Games, Newgrounds, Ninja Kiwi, Game Fudge, and other websites.
I started making my own Flash stuff in middle school. For 8 years, I would make a bunch of animations and games with them, and as you can clearly see on my YouTube and DeviantArt channel, I had a good time. We all had a great time. :)
I was getting ready for this day for more than a year. In 2019, I made a journal of possibly releasing some of my unfinished games, games that were either too unfinished or cringey to release. I asked people to vote on the ones that they wanted to see, so the votes were in and I went silent. I'm really sorry I didn't deliver on that day. I made that post on the last week I was going to go back to school, only to realize that I had to leave home earlier than I expected.
I just want to have one last Flash party before we have to move on to stuff like Toon Boom or Unity or something.
It's a big thank you to Flash for everything it's done.
My games are going to be up on the day this journal goes up, and they are going to stay up until Flash is gone.
I want to thank the people who played my games and the friends I met here who helped make my games by helping me code them. I couldn't have done anything without any of you.