They're not lost, most of them are archived via Flashpoint. The most notable ones have also been exported as regular videos on sites like Newgrounds. But yeah, I miss that Flash era where people made fun animations and games for whatever was on their mind.
this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2024
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The thing I find that is lost is the blurring of the line between video game and animation. Homestar Runner cartoons were often interactive, they made several outright games but also the things that were closer to animations often had easter eggs in them, from (in Strong Bad's words) dumb stuff that would pop up to entire extra scenes.
Early Youtube had a thriving animation community, but given the limitations of video-based content they really couldn't do those interactive elements, then Flash died, and now that culture is basically gone.
Homestar Runner cartoons were often interactive
I got fond memories of hunting for the clickies at the end of the videos.
And, usually, throughout.
Fortunately, you can still do almost all of them.
Guys, homestarrunner literally works again thanks to something called the Ruffle Project (just from reading the website). Enjoy the vector graphics and Easter eggs again
I use Ruffle on my personal domain to host my college flash web page again. I made the super Mario world map into a web page for an internet gaming group on campus and spent way too much time doing it. I was delighted I could host it again.
For creators that were still active some jumped ship to pre rendered videos, for example Salad Fingers lives on here:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9383CC2C6DBD902F
A major archival project for the whole flash era is Flashpoint Archive (formally known as BlueMaxima):
People jumped ship to prerendered videos even before the death or Flash, using Flash as the video player.
It's been over a decade since I learned this, but if I recall correctly, SWF animations that were large enough had desync issues with the audio and frames. The solution was to export the animation as an actual video file and play that back.
There are in-browser emulators written in JavaScript. Like any old content, I’m more worried about sources going down rather than not being able to run the flash.
The biggest one (also adopted by the wayback machine) is actually written in Rust (compiled to WASM).
If they were popular enough (like all the examples you've named), they probably have been converted to a more modern format already (like all the examples you've named).
You could also download the files and still watch them on a local machine using flash player to enjoy them in the original format, assuming the .FLVs themselves are still available. Makes me wonder if Newgrounds still has any of that somewhere, even if not accessible by the public. They're still around, but they're modern videos now.
I'm a little surprised nothing came to take the place of flash.
There are lots of animation tools that export to video, and there are WYSIWYG web editors that allow for interaction and movement.
But nothing really came out, built on html5, that let you easily create interactive motion narratives or games, so that you could just upload them somewhere.
Newgrounds
There are huge archives of flash animations and you can install a safe "emulator" for playing flash that even runs in your browser. Look up Ruffle. I can't remember the name of the big archive site I used, but it didn't take much googling. I know I was able to find Homestar, Larry Carlson, Adam Phillips (bitey), joe cartoon and salad fingers as well as a ton of games from back in the day.
I too have nostalgia for the animations of that era, but I do think a lot of those have been exported as videos and uploaded to YouTube. It’s not 100% the same but it’s better than nothing.
Hey, the badger is still alive and badgering!
So is Homestarrunner. Most of their flash stuff still works, too.
They're still making videos on YouTube at least once a year too! One of the two brother chaps who created it went on to work on the animated show Gravity Falls too.
They both also worked on Yo Gabba Gabba, though one (Matt) has definitely appeared to do a lot more writing/production work (and a good bit of voice work)
Flash still got it good.
Consider the entire generation of 1970s and 1980s Betamax footage that is basically lost today.
When format wars snap to one side: VHS vs Betamax, HD-DVD vs BluRay, Flash vs HTML5, QuickTime vs DivX... The losing side basically loses a ton of footage.
For the most part, we know how to play Flash right now and mostly how to upconvert it or otherwise archive it. That's not true of all formats.
What content was released on beta that wasn't released on vhs or later on DVD or something else?
I don't think it's comparable at all.
First hit on Google was this list made by some Redditor: https://www.reddit.com/r/Betamax/comments/z8cun4/films_that_only_exist_on_betamax_or_alt_editions/
In any case: the big advantage of Betamax (and VHS) was how easy it was to get home-recordings done. An entire generation of family photos / family events (birthday parties, etc. etc.) are on Betamax and likely lost.
Does anyone remember Xiao Xiao?
Certainly. I don't think I ever watched or played it, but I remember young me pronouncing it "zack-see-oh zack-see-oh" every time it came up, which was a lot because I lived on Flash games.
We have emulators for it, dude.
Salad Fingers is on YouTube and it's as creepy as ever. Maybe creepier as I get older.
Might I enquire about your spooooons?
They're a pleasure for the TIPS!
Salad fingers is still coming put with new ones lol
I remember some great flash games I used to play, and I know they are lost media now. But there are people archiving tons of flash stuff at “Flashpoint Archive”
Yeah it is sad that we don't have flash. But today I saw there's a program Ruffle (written in Rust) that can run flash, and add support to browser through extensions or something.
Is the tech no longer possible? I have a feeling of no current browser support and security issues, but could one just have a private server for hobbyists?
Ruffle is a Rust-based implementation of a SWF player. It's not 100% compatible, but it has decent AVM1 (ActionScript 1/2) and AVM2 (ActionScript 3) support already.
It also can be compiled to WebAssembly, making it possible to run Flash in the browser again.
I've spent a lot of time looking for old stuff from Stick Figure Death Theatre to no avail. It really is quite sad.
Many of the pure animations were done on newgro and they still work.
But the games and interactive videos don't work anymore. 🤔 I wonder what that means for animations that had a loading screen (even i made one of those, back in the day)
hBomberGuy did a long video on Newgrounds! It’s amazing, but I think it might only be on his Patreon.
Most of this stuff has migrated to YouTube.
We as a society should be madder about this
A lot of it was lightweight enough that archival sites etc might not have specifically ruled them out, aside from specific efforts to preserve Flash material. There are also modded versions of Flash Player and emulators that can still play SWFs, and FLV remains supported fairly commonly.
I miss Romp.com it was all adult themed videos.
Who remembers diseased productions?
Thing Thing
Endless Zombie Rampage
And the stinky bean series
Miss that stuff!
Frogapult!