6 min read · Apr 19, 2020
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In my previous article, I have talked about the impending death of the Flash games, set for December 2020. I have also talked about the initiatives to preserve them, but we cannot say if that would be enough to save the entirety of Flash history. But we can be sure of one thing: we won’t be able to play them as we used to.
We only have a few months to enjoy Flash games in their original format, so I propose you to (re) discover ten of them. They might not be “hidden gems”, but they are great and deserve some appreciation before the definitive end of Flash.
This 2D adventure game is a time capsule of how we perceived the Internet in the late 90s. It tells the story of Micky, a lazy “internôte” living in the website Al Homepage. He isn’t interested in anything in his life, but discover his world is on the verge of destruction. He is taken on an adventure across the Internet, travelling from website to website in order to save the whole Internet.
Obviously, I’m not neutral here. I have talked at length about this game in the past, but I cannot make a list of Flash games without mentioning it. It is entirely in French, but if you can pass the language barrier, you’re in for quite the adventure.
Are you tired of being nice? Don’t you just want to be a giant shark causing death and destruction on your path? Well, in Miami Shark, nothing can get in your way: dolphins, divers, boats, helicopters and even planes. There are no other objectives than eating and destroying as much things as possible, before you reach the end of the beach.
Miami Shark has many sequels with the same premise and gameplay, but with different places. In any case, it’s a blast of mindless fun.
A while ago, Adult Swim published several Flash games on their website. Since then, they are deleted, but some of them are still available on other websites. One of my favorite one is Corporate Climber, a very silly platformer full of creative (or dumb depending of your preferences) ideas. You play as an employee of a company, starting naked in the cellar of the office building. As the name suggests, your goal is to climb the hierarchy by making your way to the upper floors, taking new jobs and gaining money, until you reach the top and… Well, you’ll see. The game is quite challenging, each levels are packed with secrets and new gameplay ideas.
A high school student finds a letter in his locker. What does it say ? You need to read it entirely before the end of the break, but watch out! Make sure nobody sees you reading it.
Sometimes, Flash games are big, full of surprises and secrets. But sometimes, it is just this: A small and cute little game with a great original idea and low stakes. It only lasts five minutes, but theses five minutes are definitely worth it.
Do you remember all the jokes we made back in the 2000s about achievements in video games? How they were overused and meaningless, rewarding players for doing random things? Here, in Achievement Unlocked, the sole purpose of the game is to… Well, unlock achievements. Unlock an achievement by dying over and over, another one by jumping in place for five seconds, one by collecting every coin of every floor, or even one by just doing nothing… Achievement Unlocked 2 is for me the best one, most elaborated and ludicrous. There are 250 achievements to unlock, from the most simple to the most farfetched, and many levels to explore and secrets to discover.
Ouverture Facile is an odd mix between a puzzle game and an ARG. It is not technically a Flash game, but it widely use the Flash format. The goal is simple: On each page of the website, you have to solve a puzzle in order to obtain a password and progress to the next page. If the first few puzzles are quite simples, the difficulty ramps up quickly. The puzzles become increasingly more complex and push you to think outside the box. Most of them are very computer oriented and can possibly discourage some players. Nonetheless, the game deserves a try, because of the challenge it has to offer.
I don’t think I ever encountered a game like this one before. There is no enemy, no threat whatsoever. In fact, you are alone. You start in a very small room, with no direction or instruction. As you start to explore the place you’re standing in, the screen slowly zoom unzoom, uncovering more and more of the map you’re in. It appears the challenge is not to know where you must go, but to uncover as much as possible of the map, displaying some beautiful pixel art compositions.
As the name suggest, the game is short (about 15 minutes) but accomplish so much with very little. It is a melancholic experience like no other.
One colored plumber, an end flag, some coins and enemies. It sounds familiar, right? Here is the catch: Every time your character collects a coin, it create a clone of itself, turning this cute platformer into an unique puzzle game where you command an army of blue plumbers, and you move all of them at once. Don’t try to save them all, all you need to do is to make sure at least one of them reach the end of the level. This game is very fun and offers quite the challenge, with a very polished retro presentation.
The concept is very simple: You are given an empty island and several items. All you can do is choose on each turn which item to deploy. When they’re on the island, they ‘grow’ over time and interact with the environment or the other items, creating new structures and revealing new characters. Your goal is to find the correct order to unlock the max level for every item, developing your island to its final state.
Everything in this game is charming, all the littles animations, all the cute characters running around in the colorful environment. It feels so relaxing to see this island grow and evolve, making you discover new interactions with the items.
Let’s close this list with a guilty pleasure of mine. This serie of Flash games can be described like “a Lemmings game with only one lemming to take care of.” Mr Snoozleberg is an important guy, but also a sleepwalker, very good at putting himself in precarious situations. Your objective is to make sure nothing happens to him, without waking him up. Clear his path of any threat, clear platforms for him to walk on, etc.
We can recognize the graphic style of very early Flash games, full of details and cartoony animations. It is a simple yet challenging game for players of all ages.
