From Disease to Medicine: Flash Games in the History of Digital Games
Abstract
This article explores videogames created with Flash (1996-2017/20) or similar software and independently published on the early Web. We present the historical context of these artifacts and examine two cases, Molleindustria (Paolo Pedercini) and Alienmelon (Nathalie Lawhead), drawing on concepts such as Procedural rhetoric (Bogost), Critical play (Flanagan and Lotko), and Generation flash (Manovich). The conclusion is that the flash games ecosystem played a pivotal role in expanding and diversifying the videogame field.
Keywords:
flash, art game, online games, web history
References
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Adobe.(2008) “SWF File Format Specification Version 10.” [link]
Adobe.(2020) “Adobe Flash Player EOL General Information Page.” [link]
Alves, T. (2018) “Exploring Underrepresented Narratives: Social Anxiety in Games.” Master’s thesis in Informatics, University of Skövde, Sweden. [link]
Bahia, A. B. (2021). Art Flash Games: crônica de uma morte anunciada. Tropos, 10, n. 2, p. 1-22. [link]
Berners-Lee, T. (1999), Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web. Harper.
Bogost, I. (2007), Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames. MIT Press, Cambridge.
Browne, P. (2016). Breaking New Ground: Indie Community, Flash, and Newgrounds.com. DiGRA/FDG '16, 13, p. 1-2, [link]
Cawley, J. (2006). In a Flash: Animation Production in Flash Growing. AWN. [link]
Ferri, G. (2013). Rhetorics, Simulations and Games: the ludic and satirical discourse of Molleindustria. International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations, 5, n 1, p. 32-49. DOI: 10.4018/jgcms.2013010103
Fiadotau, M. (2020). Growing old on Newgrounds: The hopes and quandaries of Flash game preservation. First Monday, 25, n. 8. DOI: 10.5210/fm.v25i8.10306
Flanagan, M. e Lotko, A. (2009). Anxiety, Openness, and Activist Games: A Case Study for Critical Play. DiGRA’ 09, 5. [link]
Ford, R. (2019). Web Design: The Evolution of the Digital World 1990-Today. Taschen.
Garda, M., Nylund, N., Sivula, A. e Suominen, J. (2020). From Cultural Sustainability to Culture of Sustainability: Preservation of Games in the Context of Digital Materiality.DiGRA ’20, [link]
Gay, J.(2007) “The History of Flash”. [link] [link].
Ghoul, G.(2019) “Una elegía a los juegos en flash.” [link]
Internet Archive.(2020).“Software Library: Flash Games” [link]
Internet Live Stats [W3C]. (2023). [link]
Jobs, S. (2010) “Thoughts on Flash.” [link] [link]
Lawhead, N. (2015) “Tetrageddon Games”. IGF - Independent Games [link]
Lawhead, N.(2019a) “Announcing the Electric Zine Maker!” [link]
Lawhead, N. (2019b) “Walking sims and the joy of existing in a virtual space.” [link]
Lawhead, N. (2020a) “The Flash game movement, my early Flash work, and how Flash games informed what we have in indie games today.” [link]
Lawhead, N. (2020b) “A short history of Flash & the forgotten Flash Website movement” [link]
Lawhead, N. (2022a) “Tiny tools and the ephemeral nature of digital art.” [link]
Lawhead, N. (2022b) “Software is Art! (KhK Games class talk transcript).” [link]
Lawhead, N. (2022c) “Talk Transcript: Your uniqueness is your strength.” [link]
Lawhead, N.(2022) “Abusing you was by the book.” [link].
Manovich, L.(2002) “Generation Flash.” Whitneybiennial. [link]
Nielsen Norman Group.(2000) “Flash: 99% Bad.” [link]
Pearce, C. (2020). IndieCade: a history the interdependence of independents. ETC Press.
Pedercini, P. (2017) “Indiepocalypse Now. MadMaxing Attention Economies In the Age of Cultural Overproduction.” Molleindustria.. [link]
Pedercini, P. (2020) “Gone with a Flash (talk transcript)”. Molleindustria. [link]
Pedercini, P. (2023) “Molleindustria”. [link]
Penix-Tadsen, P. (2019). Video games and the Global South. ETC Press.
Reinhard, A. (2018). Archaeogaming: An introduction to archaeology in and of vídeo games. Berghahn Books.
Richner, J. (2020) “How Flash games shaped the video game industry”. [link].
Salter, J. 2021. Flash is dead, but South Africa didn't get the memo. Ars Technica. [link]
Salter, A., e Murray, J. (2014). Flash: Building the Interactive Web. MIT Press.
Soderman, B. (2021). Against flow: video games and the flowing subject. MIT Press.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge.
Wired.(2012) "Angry Birds Creator Has First Original Idea." [link] [link]
W3Techs. (2010) “Highlights of web technology surveys: Usage of Flash is starting to decline.” [link]
W3Techs. (2023) “Historical yearly trends in the usage statistics of client-side programming languages for websites.”. [link]
Young, C. J. (2018) “Game changers: everyday gamemakers and the development of the video game industry.” Doctoral thesis, Faculty of Information, University of Toronto, Canada.
Published
2023-11-06
How to Cite
BAHIA, Ana Beatriz.
From Disease to Medicine: Flash Games in the History of Digital Games. In: CULTURE TRACK – FULL PAPERS - BRAZILIAN SYMPOSIUM ON COMPUTER GAMES AND DIGITAL ENTERTAINMENT (SBGAMES), 22. , 2023, Rio Grande/RS.
Anais [...].
Porto Alegre: Sociedade Brasileira de Computação,
2023
.
p. 449-461.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5753/sbgames_estendido.2023.234232.
