A Flash in a pan

We all heard a while back that Adobe was going to kill famed Internet animation and game tool Flash at the end of 2020 (and this time they, really, really, really mean it). But most of us either forgot about it in the time since the announcement, or wrote it off as another empty threat. But now it’s autumn, and Adobe hasn’t blinked yet.

And just this week, things got real.

Multi-billion-dollar company you also forgot about Zynga announced yesterday they were putting out to pasture one of their best-known games: Farmville, a pioneer of the click-or-die (or-pay-or-post-harrasing-spam-on-the-walls-of-all-your-friends-family-and-coworkers) genre. With the original edition of the game that made its debut almost 17 years ago was deemed too big to rebuild in not Flash, it’s simply the end of the line for it.

It was a much-needed reminder in a year full of cognitive overload. While you, personally, might not care much about Farmville specifically, this news is the herald that an entire generation of the Internet’s content is months away from starting a fast slide to unviewable and unpreserved. Without any updates from Adobe, the already dubious security of Flash will vanish pretty darn quick, and operating system updates will eventually break compatibility. Heck, the only reason it didn’t die on Macs in 2018 is because Adobe bizarrely converted Flash to 64-bit almost a decade ahead of the rest of the Creative Suite.

I took a tour around some of my old, Flashy haunts to see how each was handling the imminent danger.

#NotSponsored

But first, a name drop for an international effort to collect and preserve Flash games and animations in a standalone app with a massive library of more than 50,000 Flash games and 6,000 animations… and they’re just getting started.

Flashpoint is still under active development to support as many game- and animation-enabling plugins as possible, as Flash is not the Web’s only evolutionary dead end for such things.

So whether you get an itch for Snowcraft, Adult Swim Games, or you favorite time-wasters at Shockwave.com or Candystand, they’ll all be just a click away.

Newgrounds

The biggest of Big Daddies of Flash sites is as active today as it ever was. And it has not been taking the threat lying down. Do you seriously think I’d explain their master-stroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting its outcome? They saved Flash more than a year ago.

Newgrounds debuted the Newgrounds Flash Player (for Windows) a whole year ago. The Player’s job is dead simple: when you open a game or animation on Newgrounds (specifically) that still requires Flash, your Web browser will seamlessly pass it along to the player instead of trying to run it itself.

And if you think that’s all fine and dandy, you’re quitting too soon. It’s only a stepping stone to something better: Ruffle, a Web-native emulator that’ll just run Flash files with absolutely no work on your part (unless you’re contributing to the open-source project on GitHub. In which case, please continue to work).

Muffin Films

It’s a single, independent collection of content, but a very widely seen one. And it’s a small wonder considering the pedigree; Amy Winfrey has animated South Park (including the movie and “The Spirit of Christmas”), expanded one of her other Web series into a show on Nickelodeon, and has lately been keeping the lights on by directing a little Netflix series by the name of Brojack Horseman.

All but one Muffin Film has been preserved on YouTube (save for the loading animations). The one requiring interaction remains in Flash, so you sadists better get your jollies in while you still can.

I was delighted to discover upon my return to the website that Amy has added 8 more episodes, with “Mini Muffins” easily showing she hasn’t lost her touch.

Homestar Runner

Homestar Runner has been steadily remastering its content into video files since the last time Adobe threatened to kill Flash (or was that two times ago?) and has left few, if any, stones unturned. The Flash version of the site remains up (for now) for those who dare wade into it, and you instantly get struck by what was lost going to video. The Brothers Chaps packed so much interactivity into their content; the constant scanning for Easter eggs meant taking in a Strong Bad email was never just a passive experience. When Flash goes, that part of the experience goes, too.

Weebl’s Stuff

Oh, poor Weebl. Having gone from creator of the Internet’s most beloved animation and song to having their voice removed from an episode of “Did You Know Gaming Extra” because nobody knew him and didn’t know why he was using a weird voice.

Well, nobody’s removing Weebl’s own website. He built this. Down here, he’s God.

Weebl’s entire library has made the jump to YouTube videos, as seems to be custom. However, the classic content made for those 600×800 standard definition monitors does not look great there. One of Flash’s strengths was its use of vector graphics, which allowed animations to scale seamlessly to any resolution and look perfectly sharp.

…I also can’t desync the audio and video by hiding the window anymore.

Armor Games

Unlike Newgrounds, Armor Games has taken a very hands-off approach to the whole situation. Some game devs will or have already bothered to port their games to HTML5/javascript/Unity/WebGL/anything, but most of the legacy content will be left to rot on the vine. Some of those games have made the jump to Flashpoint, so hope the ones you get nostalgic for end up there.

Albino Blacksheep

Don’t let that copyright notice ending in 2019 worry you. Nor the RSS feed that’s been broken since 2018. Albino Blacksheep is still alive, though certainly not as kicking as it used to be.

The newer games have drifted away from using Flash in favor of HTML 5, mostly to provide smartphone compatibility.

But legacy content isn’t the subject of a centralized effort on ABS’s part. Like Armor Games, it’s all about having the creator update their work or having a good Samaritan make the effort to get a fully functional copy over to Flashpoint.

Kit Kat of the week: Birthday Cake

Editor’s note: This post started as a Semantic Nonsense and then grew away from it, but I already dropped the Kit Kat part in here, so screw it, it’s staying.

The fourth installment in U.S. producer Hershey catching up to the vast gulf of flavor between their Kit Kats and the rest of the world.

While the subject is perhaps less inspired than the fruit/tea/pastry flavorings across the other pond, Hershey is getting points this time for the sort of flavor accuracy we’ve come to expect from Nestle.

While the wafers make the cake itself, the coating is a pitch-perfect recreation of that classic “confetti” frosting often seen (and tasted) on American birthday cakes.