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Flash arrived in 1996, and was initially planned to add animation and interactivity to otherwise mostly media free websites. It wasn’t long before developers started to recognize the potential of the software, and added functionality became available with each release.

To begin with, the focus was more on animation, as crude scripting allowed little in the way of interactivity. However, with the debut of ActionScript in version 5, Flash became a strong platform for developing simple web-based games. This conversion from basic animation and user interaction to full blown scripting was a huge step for developers, and allowed advanced web based applications and interactive games to be possible.

By 2001, free online flash games began appearing on websites everywhere, and although early attempts were primitive and tended to focus on remakes of arcade classics, they remained extremely popular among the online community. Despite their initial popularity, Flash games were known as little more than addictive time fillers, perfect to waste ten minutes at work.

However, even with the basic tools in place, developers were coming up with a wide variety of Flash based games. Platform remakes of favorites such as Sonic the Hedgehog and Mario Brothers were highly popular, and the improving graphic capabilities permitted much more immersing game play. Although PC and console games had little to worry about in terms of competition, Flash games were already an integral part of many online communities. The integration of Flash arcades into popular forum software led to vast competition between members of small and large communities alike. It wasn’t a case of wasting five or ten minutes anymore, it was about coming top on the scoreboard!

There were still problems though, particularly with performance on lower specification machines. As Flash was not designed to run games in particular, it was inevitably not that quick or smooth running on some machines, which inhibited many action games. That was all set to change significantly with the next version.

Since 2004, Flash games have come on in leaps and bounds, and are hardly recognizable from the slow, blocky titles released just a few short years ago. The level of sophistication continues to evolve, and whilst it will be a long while before something groundbreaking is released, there are already many classic Flash games already available on the web. Titles such as ‘Stick Cricket’, ‘Bejeweled’ and ‘Yeti Sports’ are all vastly popular, and attract thousands of visitors each day. The playability and execution of a simple idea make these Flash games some of the most popular ever released.

The sites that offer these free games are also changing; the public don’t have to visit individual sites to find new games, instead developers are positing their games to large “flash games” websites
What are the benefits to developers submitting their games to such massive collections of games? These arcade sites receive 1000’s of visitors a day, so the game get more hits and there’s always a link in the game back to the developers website if needed.

Perhaps Adobe/Macromedia will lean towards the game creation side in the future, or perhaps the focus will always be on animation and the development of web based applications. Either way, there’s no questioning that Flash games have become an integral part of the web and are set to stay for the foreseeable future. It will be interesting to see what the next generation of Flash games have in store.

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