If you grew up during the early 2000’s then you most likely knew about Flash and all the subsequent browser-based games that used the service. Many big titles started their life online as free flash games such as Alien Hominid, Super Meat Boy, I Wanna Be The Guy and many others who all owe their existence to this lovely piece of software. It’s with sad news then to say that one of the casualties of 2020 was indeed Flash as it was discontinued at the end of the year and thus brought to the end many exciting memories of browsing Newgrounds to see what violent and funny games we could find.
All is not lost however as Newgrounds and many individual creators are taking steps to keep the spirit of Flash games alive by documenting, preserving and archiving many games and projects in other places in order to ensure that this piece of gaming history is not lost forever. Will it be the same? Not at all, but at least we won’t lose our memories forever. So to all of you who still remember the fun of Linesurf or watching amateur Egoraptor videos why not check out some of the Flash preservation work? You might even shed a tear for years gone by.
That’s all for now, and as always. It’s not just a game, It’s a Life.