Flash-SWF Games.

[Aswald]

Hopefully the late Steve Jobs and the moron media did not utterly ruin Flash gaming.

It is all but impossible to list the really good Flash games. From "Bejeweled" (I have the XML file) to "Armadillo Knight" to the "JollyJong" games to the "Kveendolnitza" games to the "Taptiles" games the list is endless.

I managed to download and play offline many such games. This includes the fantastic tower defense games like the "Gem Craft" games. They are literally as good as games you'd buy on Steam or GOG, and since it's not hard knowing how to find and save the Flash files used to save games in progress you have that as well.


An obvious advantage Flash had over HTML5 is that a single standard was followed. Even the crummy netbook's Flashlite did this, it just cannot play as many SWF games as a "real" computer can. With HTML5 you cannot be certain if a particular browser can handle the game, and any update could cause it to malfunction. Unless the game needs much too much power (e.g. "Cubis Creatures" even offline for the old 256MB RAM Sony and Dell) Flash even works years later on new and antique hardware.

Does anyone else here still play these games? If so, which are your favorites?

[gbpxl]

I used to play a game called Fat Boy Raids the Cookie Factory a lot. I dont remember what website that was on. shockwave or something

[Ed Oscuro]

Up to the top! In case you were interested:
https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/ is trying to meet just this need. I think it even has some version of the classic Shockwave site/application.
There's also Archive.org's Flash Software library: https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_flash
and http://www.flashgamearchive.com/ but I don't know much about it.

[Jorpho]

I don't know why I suddenly thought of this, but does anyone remember that weird little game where you had to activate a bunch of switches to activate a Stargate-style thing? A little Googling turns up this Reddit query that describes it rather better than I can recall – but that query never got an answer either.

This is going to drive me nuts.

EDIT: Riddle solved! The game is Hapland. Coming soon to Steam!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1...pland_Trilogy/

I will also leave a link to this list I stumbled upon in case I need it again.
https://techcult.com/the-150-best-online-flash-games/

[Zap!]

Fly the Copter was a favorite of mine back in the mid-2000's. Really loved that flash game.

[Gametrek]

I have been meaning to compile a list of many games but flashes as well. I have tons of flash games ( etc ) on my machine. Most of it is "X-rated" stuff but beyond that I have seen some creative stuff. The nice part about Flash is that you do not need so much knowledge to make a game. However nowadays they have some a couple of tools. Some of them was flash tools as well.


I think the most best flash programmer in terms of original content was Horbart Star. However he might be using a game maker type tool. He even made a 3d browser in flash. Amazing. Yes their are so many great flashes out there. Just to list the flash programmers I know of.


1. PETA - Cooking Mama makes turkey / SUper Tanooki Skin 2D - which are both PETA made games.
2. Hobart Starr - Fifi's Fury - Uptown Brothel ( which has 3d, and a 2d shooter mini-game ) actually one of Horbart Starr works got turned into a clone of a well known recent Manga/Anime. That being said he made his own clone of the PCE game known as "Wonder Momo" ( which many of his works is based off ).
3. HumBird0 - Pokemon Hentai Version ( it is a full feature RPG that could be edited further ) . Like the PCE Body Quest II but it is Pokemon. This is pure programming with flash coding.
4. Super Smash Flash ( omgsh omgsh omgsh omgsh omgsh omsgh omgsh ) II demo with online play omgsh. Many flash programmers involved.
5. Alien Hominid - Which essentially is just a "Metal Slug" clone. I own the console but the FLASH itself is different but worth playing. Newgrounds has so many "Israeli" users ( just to note this fact )
6. Auther Lee Podunkian - "Escape from Puppy Death Factory" - "Merry Gear Solid" series. He is a Californian Korean related game maker. He worked with Adult Swim games to make EFPdeathfactory ( which is really a Metroid type game BUT IS ORIGINAL and "inspires" from 8. and 7. ).
7.Anna Anthropy - "Redder" - which is a dramatic Metroid action stylistic game. It is nothing but pixel-glory ( I MEAN OMGSH YOU MUST PLAY THIS GAME IF YOU LOVE PIXELS ).
8.Glen Forrester "sshifty" - which is teleporter platformer, made with Games Factory II ( Click Stream Fusion ) most likely as with the above.
9. Pornoid - This is one of the earliest Active X games. I found this back on AOL4.0 I might have it on my older computers but I doubt it. If I had the HTML I would be able to play. It is a clone of "Breakout".
10. Animator v. Animation series / Xiao Xiao series - a bunch of stick-figure games and animation that is funny.
11. Kill Bunny Kill - I Know this is an animation but I think their is a game or demo to this ? Based off "Kill Bill". That being said Kill Bill also have their own Flash mini game you could look up.
12. Bukkake Classroom. It is basically shoot the goo across the room and avoid targets you should not fire upon.
13. Susage game - ( like the PC DOS game "The Roach" but your a piece of meat inside an outdoor drive in theater ).
14. Damn Birds - is basically statue that shoots downs birds using the bathroom on it.
15. Lut - which made tons of original interactive Flash programmed games, of horror and mystery genre. "Darkness", "Tomb of Doom" "Straw Hat Samurai" and more
16. A blast Shockwave - Vertical shooter

Might be a couple of more but I am going hold back. Tons of little things I miss from the AOL4.0 days.


.................................................. ............................

1. What ruined Flash was that phone systems in order to use flash requires more processing power. Which means less battery life. Because everything on the phone is running in the background the flash would also be running. Again you could install official flash on phone.

2. Flash while it says 64-bit most ran in 32-bit mode, and thus would only access a chunk of processing power.

3. HTML5 you can not block it. Unlike flash where everything could be in one package with HTML5 you have a bunch of files listed. Try making something in HTML5 and it is literally like making a webpage with all the parts exposed.

4. We talk about privacy HTML5 is completely exposed. Like to other applications and apps. Those apps also uses HTML5 type resources ( Java ) and communicate with each other. Like if you have your messages on your phone open another app could read those, among other information ( files it looks for ).

5. Flash does have a huge security flaw. If you have a flash uploaded where you could write your name, etc information. That same box could be used to inject code. Meaning any system using anything related to flash could make a command from the system. A person hacked V-tech for all the children photos, email, phone numbers via their sharing devices just to show their system using flash could be hacked. V-tech can not make those changes even if they recall the products.

6. Again if you know how to code with Chrome Browsers they have the console.....where you could alter code to make things look different where you would write down information. Again the flash could not be change but HTML5 you can make those changes ( if you know how to code ).

............

Also you want to use Flash in a browser still that is up to date via windows ? You have PaleMoon release of Basilisk floating around out their along with some other unofficial makes of FLASH you could also install.

You could also swap out the flashes folders ( there are two ) in the SYSTEM32 and WOW64 folders. By swap I mean get older files from another version of windows and move them over. A bit crude but I can use flash in my Ifranview now.


.......

Also just to let people know the NANI and PAPI flashes are problematic. I would just install up to Flash 10 ( or 10.3 if you could ). Even unofficial flashes. It gets kind of confusing because you should have a backup of your original copy of flash to install. The problem I am having with the PAPI and NAN flash is that both are limited and do not run all flash content. Even my Windows 11 ( which I installed via Virtual BoX as Windows 10 ) is able to run Flash.exe without any install. This is earlier flash before AS3

[Aswald]

Flash was a superb technology, especially for people unable to afford "upgraded" hardware.

That ancient 2001 Sony VAIO cannot handle games like Steam's "Catch a Duck," or Playrix's "Gardenscapes 2." But it CAN handle the SWF versions. By pure chance I discovered it can handle Steam "Gemcraft: Chasing Shadows" but even if it couldn't the Full SWF version (I figured out how to unlock the Demo for Full offline play, especially as Armor Games no longer supports Flash) is just as good. The two "Glean" games and "Ion Drift Epsilon" are as good as anything WebGL can do, Steam quality. That Sony cannot handle "Panda Chunky" but yes SWF "Norby." Likewise "Breezeblox"/"Dublox."

In other words if SWF versions of even pretty intense games, especially with speed adjustments, came out then with a standalone Flash player almost any computer can play them.

Phooey on the late Steve Jobs.

As for HTML5- it is browser-based. There is not and will not be a single standard for browsers so cross-browser compatibility will always be a nightmare and any upgrade to a given browser can cause HTML5 to stop working. "Bejeweled" works to this day because Flash followed a single standard.

Power- ever try playing a WebGL game even offline?

Security- really? The biggest security breach took place because of politically-correct hiring. Ad-script, intrusive Javascript, believe me "they" know everything about you. Computer security is a joke and ending Flash has done 0% against it.

[Zap!]

I have many flash games on my forums and they automatically convert to let you play. Feel free to check them out, I'm adding more daily (recommendations are always accepted). Just click "Arcade" at the top.

https://www.zaponline.org/forums/

[SparTonberry]

It was annoying that Flash would ask you to update seemingly every couple days.
It wouldn't let you watch like Twitch or Youtube without updating.
Sometimes the update network got so congested with downloads, you couldn't update, and thus couldn't use some services depending on it.

[Gametrek]

It was annoying that Flash would ask you to update seemingly every couple days.
It wouldn't let you watch like Twitch or Youtube without updating.
Sometimes the update network got so congested with downloads, you couldn't update, and thus couldn't use some services depending on it.

You could turn off updates but you might have to go into the services, and startup
list. IDK about OSX/Mac machines.

Lets say you have the time-bomb flash install this is what you could do.

A. Find another machine with the installed Flash and use a WindowsPE ( or linux )
to move those files from that working computer to the computer that does not
work at all. Most cases you need to delete everything in the folder you are replacing.

B. There is something called "Clean Flash" that will continue to update from the Chinese flash
without the anti-privacy stuff. Clean Flash usually have a blue icon. I have not tried it yet
but maybe I could on my Windows 11 install.

C. Flash died around 10 or 10.3. This indicated by the colors of the release. Same with
Air ( the reason many Air apps have to be recompiled ) and Director ( around 10 as well ??? )
There are two flash install you need. Remember Nani and Papi flash is the continuation of
flash cross Mozilla clients. So you want the install that is neither and will install cross all
browsers. Even so you will have to do A. at some point.

Flash was a superb technology, especially for people unable to afford "upgraded" hardware.

That is not true. FLASH supported vector graphics seeminglessly. Many games running on Android
with vector graphics is really Flash via "Flash Builder" or some other method to convert flash to Android.

What is great about flash is that with limited programming knowledge you could make a fully functioning game, website, or anything and make it perform better then anything ( even nowadays ).

Flash is still used in animating 2d properties, while it might be .PNG or .MP4 format.

That ancient 2001 Sony VAIO cannot handle games like Steam's "Catch a Duck," or Playrix's "Gardenscapes 2." But it CAN handle the SWF versions. By pure chance I discovered it can handle Steam "Gemcraft: Chasing Shadows" but even if it couldn't the Full SWF version (I figured out how to unlock the Demo for Full offline play, especially as Armor Games no longer supports Flash) is just as good. The two "Glean" games and "Ion Drift Epsilon" are as good as anything WebGL can do, Steam quality. That Sony cannot handle "Panda Chunky" but yes SWF "Norby." Likewise "Breezeblox"/"Dublox."

It is because of the programming method that is being used.

In other words if SWF versions of even pretty intense games, especially with speed adjustments, came out then with a standalone Flash player almost any computer can play them.

The only limitations of flash is later versions and then "Memory managment", when you make something everything loads at once. If that happens then you have a memory being mapped
not being used.

The second limitation is with vector objects. With a higher resolution, vector graphics will need more processing power.

Put the two together and you will have a battery draining hog app.

As for HTML5- it is browser-based. There is not and will not be a single standard for browsers so cross-browser compatibility will always be a nightmare and any upgrade to a given browser can cause HTML5 to stop working. "Bejeweled" works to this day because Flash followed a single standard.

Yes we could have a HTML5 based flash maker type tool, with the timeline. That is doable and in fact many XXX sites have such creations. The problem is the ease of creativity, and backwards compadibility with flash. With Adobe Animate you could do just about the same thing in HTML5 as with Flash but you can not compile as flash,

Director on the other hand is able to pull off this move, as well 3d ( Physics ).

The problem is within the next persons quote.

Power- ever try playing a WebGL game even offline?

How many people are going to install WebGL without having to answer a yes or no question. The reason why....

Security- really? The biggest security breach took place because of politically-correct hiring. Ad-script, intrusive Javascript, believe me "they" know everything about you. Computer security is a joke and ending Flash has done 0% against it.

In order for any HTML5 ( if not most ) pages to work then you must allow scripts to run. HTML5 is literally Java 64-bits ( rather then 32 ). As you know scripts being blocked includes anything Java as well.

With SWF you can block it, because it is one whole. Not the entire page. The webpage could be regular HTML4 standard ( or whatever could run on your Dreamcast ), and function.

The fear about flash is the fill-out form. AKA input your name/credentials. Flash is a programming language with various commands and those inputs ( fill out forms ) you could write get, delete, and
pull commands, simular to a scraper. That is the problem with Flash. However with good programming
and a few lines of code this could be corrected.

So an idiot ( most Phone users who carry everything in a purse ) could load a page with scripts running.
If that flash was running then a person on the otherside could exploit that person who is running flash.

However again you could have "No-scripts" and turn off flash. However "No-scripts" also can turn off all Java-script. That idiot ( that person carrying everything in a purse ) who is uneducated in anything computer may or may not able able to understand anything I just wrote at all.

Now various organizations do not want you to use your brain and turn of scripts. They want you to use HTML5 and let communications between applications proceed. Even now Android 12 and up do not read the HOST file ( the built in Firewall ) and various applications and marketing advertisments will continue to send ads to you.

But with flash this ability does not have to be. In fact Action-Script-3 is where flash went wrong. It was Adobes input on Flash after they brought it from Macromedia