In the week where Flash has met it’s maker I’ve gotten somewhat nostalgic about the quote-unquote “simpler” times of the web, where Flash was king of interactivity.
Now we’re in an age of HTML5, CSS3 and JS being updated quicker than I can keep up with it all, Flash has fallen by the wayside. But while we’ve got our new fancy toys to play with we can’t forget how Flash got us there in the first place.
What Flash did for us
It’s hard to deny Flash that was a momumental step up on the web. Born from a time of slow, static websites, Flash gave us a neat little platform to work on the swish and exciting things, like animation and video content.
If you think about it, asking the user to pre-download a set of standard bits of code in the form of the Flash plugin makes a lot of sense, especially in the wonder-years AOL dial-up. By making things quicker to both develop and download is a great experience for everyone. It’s something people hadn’t seen before and it’s awesome!
It left a legacy. Sites like Newgrounds had fostered a community around people making games in Flash. Sites like BBC iPlayer came from the increasing need for interactive content and naturally gravitated to Flash as the only real option. Heck, I remember Line Rider blowing my mind at school, back when it ran on Flash.
But what changed?
There’s something in common with all three of those examples, though. They all have since switched over to HTML5. Yeah. It happens to us all.
I guess the first nail in it’s coffin was the iPhone. The now-famous Thoughts on Flash by Jobs himself essentially outlines all the reasons why Flash doesn’t have a place in the world today. It’s lack of openness, poor performance and security issues ultimately became its downfall.
Browser vendors also picked up their game. Flash plugins provided a standardised way for interactive content to show cross-browser in a time where IE was king and everyone else was just kind of making it up as they go along. Now we have standardised content and regular meetings between the different companies, issues like that become a thing of the past.
My Flash and Me
To be honest, I had a long and lovely affair with Flash. I don’t think I would go so far as to say it ignited my love for the web, it certainly got me closer to the industry that would eventually become my profession.
One of my favourite Flash projects was definitely Kalium Echo - a little-known but ambitious project I took on for TheDailyNeopets, which, yes, is a Neopets fansite. Call it another sign of the times.
I was a big fan of the Vanishing Point Game at the time. We had the idea to create a similar meta-game for the site and had a lot of fun with it.
Visitors had the chance to get themselves a shout-out on the homepage if they were the first to crack Gerald’s safe and free Jerry, the site’s mascot, from a life of horror.
Essentially, this was a collection of 15 interactive mini-games with passwords as prizes. But it was a great game for a thriving and enthusiatic community and I loved every second of it. Even looking through the support forums and the community come together and try to complete the puzzles gives me a lovely sense of pride.
I also had the opportunity to work with the Dorset NHS team on promoting healthy eating with kids. They wanted to track what kids were choosing to eat at lunch and whether promoting healthier alternatives had any impact.
As a result we created the Central Office of Lunches - also known as the C.O.O.L. The mission, if the kids chose to accept it, was to make sure everybody had a healthy lunch.
Kids were given secret spy logins and were tasked with logging their food for the day. If food groups were imalanced, we would supply them with a healthier alternative they could choose. If they were eating from the school canteen, they could print out a placemat to help the dinnerladies give them the right mix of food.
I think it went alright. It was certainly fun to make at least.
But one of my most documented Flash projects has to be Popferret - an interactive storyboard animation based around the lives of two floating ferret heads. Yep.
Helen and Steve both presented a kid’s TV show called Popferret. In a classic move, Steve really wants to be Helen’s boyfriend, but is having a hard time making it work. It’s the players job to make sure they stay together and have a lovely time having a picnic in the park.
Yep. It’s about as weird as you could imagine.
But it was great fun to make. From learning about lip syncing in Flash to animating their hovering state with ActionScript, it was very much all part of the learning experience.
If you’re so inclined, you could read about making the main character, the storyboard process and a dip into how all the Flash worked in the (much older) part of my blog.
All in all I had a lovely time working with Flash about a decade ago, but it’s time to move on. There’s never been a better time on the web for the things Flash did so well, so if you’re still riding the SWF train, go check it out.
Anyway. I better finish writing this post as all the Flash running while writing this has definitely drained my battery…