Flash Game Nostalgia

21 with the voice of a single father with 2 adult kids God damn

A 2 hour long video essay about something that a lot of people are nostalgic about? This video is guaranteed to get a crazy amount of views

I think I’m a bit older than Redlyne, but I was a young kid during the early 2000s boom of Flash games, and I was lucky enough to go to elementary and middle schools with computer labs and savvy computer teachers. I remember I had one computer teacher who was super tech savvy, and he made and maintained the school website himself, even adding a page full of Flash games links that he had collected himself for us. He would add new links for every new season like Halloween and Christmas, and he made sure all the sites were kid-safe and didn’t have any rated-R content using a firewall program he made. (But being the kids we were we always found sites that somehow go through the blocking haha). After the obligatory lessons about using MS Word and PowerPoint, then some Mavis Beacon typing practice, he would let us loose on the flash games page. Just the look and feel of these small window games with blocky hand drawn 2D sprites and super compressed sound effects bring back so many great memories. Rest in Peace Mr. Mabli.

Anyone remember those particle physics flash games? With the plants that grew with water, explosive gasses and real air physics with the “fans”. (All just diff colour particles/solid blobs) I remember playing those for hours just making crazy things happen with the airflow physics you could do Edit : found it. It’s called powder game

!!!MADNESS MENTIONED!!! Dude thanks for folding the cartoons and games into this nostalgic trip!!

I can't describe how fucking surreal it is hearing Jerma's voice coming out of a 2005 flash game lizard with anime hair

Checking in as one of the flash games dev, maaan, what a great time that was. Forget mobiles, or steam, with flash, as a dev, you had access to millions of people. So, unlike the modern "stores", anyone, and I mean anyone, could get at least some valuable exposure, like 10k plays or something, and that's a huge number that either kills you for sure (so you understand your game actually sucks), either lifts you up beyond your expectations. To put it in perspective, with Android, you'd probably hit 50-500 plays before making a desicion to just stop trying. What a shame. And that's why Flash was such a gem technology back in the days. Talking numbers, great flash games had millions upon millions of views, millions. Some of that from the returning players sure, but still, just think about that. I'd argue that some of those games outnumbered the so called AAA games from those corporate studios with strict rules and shit all creativity. Flash is a thing from the internet of old, it let people connect directly, heart to heart, dev to player, no authentication or credit card required. It is missed, and it just gets more and more boring as the corporations slowly absorb the player base around the world.

You forgot to mention the old flash games that Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network & Disney has made back then.. I remember being such a cartoons kid that I play those non stop on my old family computer.

Hearing you say that Stick RPG is 20 years old almost killed me on the spot.

Territory War dev checking in. Much love for the mention! The AI did not scale with difficulty, I'm just a bad programmer 😅 (I still make games btw! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSBcxlrPHKo)

So happy to see you talking about Super Mario 63 and the community! Runouw's forums and the level designing community was my first batch of internet friends ever. Runouw did an amazing thing creating not only a beautiful flash game, but also a supportive community who wanted to reprogram and experiment with the level design, or talk shop, or just chill out with each other. Mauro and Avo and Master1.0 were friends :) Still talk to a few from that bunch nowadays and call a couple some of my closest friends

Thank you for reminding me of about two dozen games I was convinced nobody else had ever played yet which I absolutely loved. Largely as games I could play in IT classes at school.

This era of the internet was so inspiring. It felt like the ultimate hub for aspiring artists. I guess the internet still is today, but I don’t know, places like newgrounds just don’t seem as popular as they used to be nowadays. Not to sound cliche, but the internet really is dominated by more “corporate” websites these days so it just feels different than it used to. I’m sure aspiring artists can still find ways to shine in this new landscape though. It just feels a lot less centralized now so it’s harder

Learning that jerma was just always like that rocked my world. Like i thought that a person couldnt be born like that.

This was a great video essay and you did a great job of showcasing a lot of influential flash games over the years. It's crazy how many of these I played back in the day and how many I didn't even know existed. I love the style you present everything in.....that said; The grab bag part absolutely killed my brain i love it lmao. good job.

Okay, sir. I have watched your entire catalogue several times, now. I understand that putting these together is an enormous task, but I still respectfully request that you release another video soon. I literally cannot get enough of your dulcet tones and editing/writing style. Don't rush, though. I don't want you wasting an ounce of that stimulating quality you make your videos with. I especially enjoy your Dead Games videos. I find it pleasantly eerie to go back in time and look at things that players created. It feels a lot like stumbling upon a dilapidated building in the woods to me.

Thank you so much for the mention in the video! I really appreciate it and I know the other Madness people do too! Much appreciated!

Great video overall. Only thing that hurt is omission of NotDoppler and Kongregate, especially Kongregate. Kongregate had forums, chatrooms, and was a site where the whole Idle game craze originated from thanks to Tukkun and many others. Nowadays its a shell of its former self, but back in the late era of flash games it was just as significant as the other giants mentioned.

The mixture of comedy and nostalgia got you an inevitable subscription, thank you!!

Oh my god. You just unlocked so many of my memories. 😢 this is a beautiful piece of work, definitely deserves a sub