For preserving the least toxic and most culturally relevant Tumblr heritage posts.
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FOSS Android Recs per u/[email protected]: 1 , 2
Don't be mean. I promise to do my best to judge that fairly.
We used to get video games in the captain crunch box or in exchange for tokens on the crunch boxes or something to that effect... anyway that was essentially just a flash game but equally if not more interested. Got a lot of mileage out of that crunchwrare game in the 90s
Oh, wow, we're there now?
Like, the online hellscape of endless Flash applets and browser shovelware games is retro now?
You get what that means, right? In twenty years you GenZ Tumblr nerds will be in some online forum recoiling in horror at some kid waxing nostalgic about back when you could just play a free gacha game full of anime waifus and where have all the good phone games gone?
It's happening and you're not ready.
Well, either that or Thunderdome. We'll see.
Ok but where have the good phone games gone. I'm horrified watching a 10 year old or so relative playing games on his phone only to spend 90% of the time watching unskippable ads.
It's worth it to pay 1 to 5 dollars for a no ad mobile game for the kid. Even if they play it for a week, it's just like any other $5 toy they may have gotten and got bored of.
Can also get an emulator and enjoy all the classics of yore. Chronotrigger holds up, for example
I'm not their parent, but I guess your argument makes sense.
I'd love to install PiHole for them at one point because it gets rid of all those ads in mobile games.
Like, the online hellscape of endless Flash applets and browser shovelware games is retro now?
The next balatro (at least in terms of game being played into the ground by Northernlion) is nubby's number factory.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3191030/Nubbys_Number_Factory/
Almost every asset has a gradient, or is a low poly model.
EDIT : Overwhelmingly Positive (4,480 reviews)
2000s are back baby. The only thing that sucks is that I don't feel 90s retro really took off, the 80s just had a double helping.
The 90s nostalgia is all the boomer shooters, Thief and Deus Ex style immersive sims, and indie games with a PS1 or N64 style aesthetic.
Also Hypnospace Outlaw.
I see you don't appreciate the "click all traffic lights" minigame on every single website in existence
I actually made a random game you can play without login or tracking or anything. Dunno if it's any fun, though 🤔
And you need a keyboard to play. Otherwise it's just a screensaver.
https://nailbar.io/proj/miniduel3/
Sorry about the plug, but I am kinda proud of it.
I mean, that's a pretty badass screensaver.
THIS is what I'm talking about!
Issues with Flash and the actual quality of those games aside, what I really miss from that period of the internet was that children could use it safely. There's no spaces for children on the internet anymore and I think that's really sad, nine year old should be playing Hannah Montana dress-up not get eating disorders from TikTok influencers
Edit for clarity: I didn't mean to come off as though I think the internet was ever safe for unsupervised children because that's not what I believe. What I was trying to say is that the loss of spaces made for children, with adequate content curation and moderation, pushed children on social media which is awful for them
Oh, you sweet, sweet child.
I'm just going to say I'm very glad you discovered flash games before you discovered IRC.
what I really miss from that period of the internet was that children could use it safely
Uhh... my largest grievance with how the Internet has been designed is that it was never safe for children to be on it, yet children were thrust onto it en-mass long before adults even really understood what it was. And still people are ignoring the massive problems it continues to cause, specifically for the healthy development of children, as society is circling the drain.
I think a more accurate statement is that the internet was never safe for children, but online content was never monetized and targeted to various audiences for nefarious purposes the way that it is now (including towards children).
I would also make a tangential argument that interacting with the internet used to foster a degree of technical ability, critical thinking, and reading comprehension that just isn’t necessary when “going online” can just mean downloading an app and mindlessly scrolling through an endless short-form video feed. On a macro level, today’s internet is dumbing kids down, while yesterday’s internet required (or at least encouraged) some understanding of how systems and technologies work.
what I really miss from that period of the internet was that children could use it safely.
Or less safely. You have to try a lot harder to see someone crush a glass jar in their anus nowadays.
yeah naw, I was flirting with pedophiles in chat rooms at like 12, it absolutely was not a safe space. Maybe not as harmful of a space, but the internet has always been poison to children. It's why parental supervision is so important.
Ebaumsworld.com
Newgrounds.com
I miss those days so much, never forget what they took from us.
I was thinking about old flash games the other day. Swords and Sandals and Line Rider ate a lot of my time.
I apologize in advance for any decrease in productivity or wasted time.
I'm on a Macromedia kick this morning but the internet really died when adobe bought flash, turning point for me personally lol
I opened lemmy to procrastinate working on my web game and this is the first post I see.
I can take a hint internet.
Yeah, I miss it in some ways, too. It was more of the Wild West of internet.
I would argue today's internet is fully optimized for control over people (when desired) & profitability. Unless there's some Earth-shattering backlash where idk people kill all ads & they purchase NOTHING online unless they very specifically search for it....this is the internet, perfected. The internet is free, our attention & wallets are the product. Traded, tracked, bought, and sold.
I grew up in the wild west of the internet and I do miss it. Things were so much more interesting, but that was probably becuase I was a kid and the internet was new, so having all this content was not usual.
Itch.io game devs unite! There's still hope. I miss Ebaumsworld, New grounds and Miniclip too but I think there a small part of the Internet that still has this charm.
Here's my game dev contribution:
Am I misremembering or would corporate websites randomly have branded flash games
We got a free, breakfast-themed Doom total conversion .wad in boxes of Chex. Truly a golden age.
Most Aussies of around my age can remember getting (or at least knowing someone else who got) a full copy of Age of Empires on a CD contained in Kellogg's cereal. That was truly a great time.
I miss the era where most pages didn't have ads.
Like 1986?
Because in the 90s population ads were REALLY bad. You'd open a page and 30 new windows would open up with ads, and closing each one caused 3 more to open, and you eventually just had to turn off the fucking computer.
And this was on dial-up, so they also destroyed your bandwidth.
What "not leaving money on the table" does to a mf
Lifesavers had a bowling game on their site that was actually a ton of fun and decent quality. All the balls were patterned to look like their candy, but still. It was free and that's where the advertisements ended.
It was a fair trade.
Edit: This might've actually been creamsavers, not lifesavers. It was back in 2002.
The old internet was like the wild west. Who'd have thought it would meet a similar fate to it too?
For me, it’s the fact that every god damned program I want to use requires a fucking subscription.
Shout out to fucking Blender and GIMP and InkScape. They’re really keeping shit cool.
So sick of this “pay to play” structure we now have on EVERYTHING.
And on Nintendo's website, there was an elevator sidebar that'd take you to different levels, each one having some other function like upcoming releases, tips, and stuff.
One was labeled "secret" or something, and opened on a black screen. You'd think it was a broken page. But if you moved your cursor around, you'd find a hidden link that'd take you to their secret page. I can't remember what was there, but I sure remember feeling like an elite hacker at 10 years old when I did it!
I've been inside a few big companies and I've seen exactly how it works.
In order to manage huge organisations, they divide them all up into cost centers. And the website is considered marketing so it gets given a budget on the theory that it brings customers. It uses the budget to make games and it does indeed bring customers.
Then a few years later, the shareholders are asking why their stock hasn't outperformed the market, and they put in a CEO tasked with fixing it, and the CEO asks the head of the department in charge of websites what can he do to address the fact that his department is losing money instead of making it.
I remember when Chex and Dominoes put out games that were better than they had any right being. Chex even gave it away for free.
I doubt this will be the catalyst for social change, but I agree. The idea that society owes nothing to the average person, but ownership class members are entitled to public resources, is exactly what will cause heads to roll, if we get to that point. This is a silly little microcosm of that situation, and I do miss those days.
itch.io, sort by free browser games
I loved their Dexter's lab Flash game back in the days. CN and Nick lost their charm