The future of Flash
3 years ago
England

I was going to post a topic about this closer to Dec 31st, but a recent Armor Games announcement has forced my hand.

https://armorgames.com/news/the-future-of-flash-on-armor-games

tl;dr: Some games on AG will still work using Ruffle (no download required), and those that don't will be temporarily disabled on Jan 12th until they can be made to work without needing third-party software (e.g. Newgrounds Player)

I know that a couple of us have expressed concerns that the Sonny games will be unplayable following Dec 31st, but if this initiative succeeds, that doesn't have to be the case. The best-case scenario is that both games work on Ruffle and will continue to be playable on Jan 1st.

The middle-case scenario is that the games will be unplayable via Ruffle throughout January, but will eventually be made to work at some point. In this case, speedrunning should be able to continue.

The worst-case scenario is that the Sonny games don't work at all using Ruffle, which will no doubt hinder speedruns. HOWEVER, that doesn't necessarily mean doom and gloom. Being able to go to a website and click on the game's icon to open it within the browser without any need for special software will no longer be possible if this scenario comes to pass, but there are a couple of alternatives.

Firstly, the Newgrounds Player. It can run downloaded Flash files (I've actually used it to run a Sonny 2 mod which a wiki user published earlier this year), as well as Flash games on Newgrounds. The only catch is that you have to install it, but once you do, provided that you're using Newgrounds to run the game, Sonny should still be playable simply by opening its Newgrounds page. Sonny 2 should also be playable, though the Hydraulic class may be locked (I haven't tested it out yet).

Secondly, if things get really desperate, there's BlueMaxima's Flashpoint. This is basically a massive archive of many, MANY Flash games, which includes the two Sonny games. I haven't tested it yet, so I can't confirm if it works. The downside is that you have to open the game within the Flashpoint program instead of being able to do so via your web browser, and once again, the Hydraulic class may be locked (though I'll have to check this).

Obviously, I hope that the games will still be playable on Armor Games. This will not only ensure that nothing will have to change on the player's end but it should also mean that the Hydraulic class is still playable on Sonny 2. Nonetheless, it seems to me that Sonny speedrunning doesn't have to end after Dec 31st. which is obviously great news.

IschmarVI, AzureStar and 2 others like this
Ukraine

I'm also aware of a Chrome extension called Supernova SWF player, which also may help run Flash games via a browser.

Information comes from a different game (Platform Racing 2) Information gets shared here

England

https://www.kongregate.com/forums/1-kongregate/topics/1932722-the-future-of-flash-games-on-kongregate

Is this what you're referring to, Luni? Looking at the reviews on the Chrome store, it doesn't seem to work all that well (if at all). Looks like I might finally have to move away from Kongregate after stubbornly sticking to it all these years (Newgrounds, Armor Games and Flashpoint should all still work).

England

Hmm...Flash games still seem to work for me so far. Looks as if Chrome isn't ditching it until the 'kill switch' on the 12th of January. Anyone have a different experience so far?

England

So here's the state of play at the minute.

Right now, the two Sonny games don't work on Ruffle yet. They've also been temporarily removed from Armor Games (they're still up on Kongregate and Newgrounds, not that they're playable). This may change in the future, but for now, that's a dead end.

Reports are that Supernova doesn't work. Looking at the reviews, I expected this. Unless that changes, the games are no longer playable on Kongregate.

Unexpectedly, the Newgrounds Player also doesn't work. It was ready for Adobe's kill switch, but it turns out that Microsoft included their own kill switch into Windows, and the devs weren't ready for that. For now, the Newgrounds Player doesn't work. There are a couple of workarounds, though:

https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1462656

So, what does this mean? Are the games unplayable without the workaround? Well, not quite. There's still BlueMaxima's Flashpoint, and having tested it out, it works! Both the Sonny games are playable, and Sonny 2 even includes the Hydraulic class. For now, this is the best option for speedrunning, but I'm personally considering this a temporary solution until the games work on Ruffle. Still, thanks to the efforts of archivists, Sonny speedrunning isn't dead; it just requires a couple of downloads for the time being.

https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/downloads/

It might be worth adding this to the 'Resources' tab.

New Zealand

Just to add onto the consequences of Flash being terminated on Windows, it's put a halt on any progress I can make into looking at the games code. To be precise, I can still LOOK at the code, but it's now impossible to check how any changes I make affect the game (not that I was actively making any progress, but hey lol)

Germany

whats also nice, using flashpoint actually downloads the games onto your system which means you also have them safe in case something haoppens to flashpoint. Other than that, there are still other applications that can execute flash (WinAmp is one of them actually, kek)