Flash sucks, right?

[Flatlander]

Like everyone else around these parts I have this huge, ambitious old school CRPG project that will never be started or finished.

Since technically most of the Codex favorites could be created in Flash I have been thinking about making an even more streamlined version of my game in Flash. Do people in general (and the Codex gentlemen in particular) play any of the more 'demanding' Flash games? Most of what I have been able to find are derpy jrpgs which seem to hugely popular (1. Make a NESque game, 2. Profit from all the hipster journos. Like Sonny or Breath of Death VII in xblig), so my wild guess would be that anything that demands more than 2 seconds of attention wouldn't gather huge popularity in the Flash circles (and consequently profit since Flash market is very much volume driven).

Then again, Flash games are somewhat cross platform and easily distributed, the platform isn't too bad (if somewhat limited) and there is change of making at least a few six-packs out of it which might be a lot more than a real downloadable game might make.

So, would any of you bother playing a Flash RPG in the style of, let's say Might & Magic or old Ultimas?

 

[Piety]

I have always assumed that most of the dismissive attitude towards Flash has to do with the type of games typically made with it: quick, simple, and casual. Break that mold and there's no reason you shouldn't be able to make something enjoyable. I've always thought that it was a too-oft-overlooked platform for the reasons you mentioned above. Maybe take a look at the AIR runtime?

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

http://sinisterdesign.net/

That guy has made a flash RPG. Haven't seen anything else of any note.

 

[Flatlander]

Yeah, AIR could provide a way to upgrade a flash game into a 'real' full blown downloadable. There are just two problems with it:

1) I'm not sure how crossplatform it is; does it work on Linux? I'm not a gnufag but for no particular reason other than that I like to develop on Linux I'd like to have the game available on it.

2) Flash is somewhat annoying to work with. If the target platform is native there are a lot more options regarding (crossplatform) libraries and languages which makes Flash (or more accurately, Actionscript or Haxe) less tempting to work with.

Since similar questions could be asked about handheld platforms, I guess the issue is: Is there a place for more demanding games in markets that are already over saturated with practically free casual productions? I'd love to have some good RPGs for Android tablets but given the current situation developing them would be a financial suicide.

 

[Destroid]

You can't right click? I guess that makes it ok for macfags. It also seems to have utterly horrible performance.

 

[Castanova]

There's a bunch of RPGs on Kongregate that are more than just casual romps. Monster's Den is a mildly enjoyable blob-game, for example. There are others that I didn't enjoy really but they definitely require a time investment. So, no reason you can't develop an RPG for that platform.

That being said, Flash development is very esoteric and it costs money to buy the tools. So, basically, if you don't know how to program in it already you may be dumping a ton of time into a skill that isn't transferable.

 

[Flatlander]

You can't right click? I guess that makes it ok for macfags. It also seems to have utterly horrible performance.

Are you on Linux or something? Flash performance in general should be just fine. Also, you could play Pool of Radiance with a one button joystick.

Though I'll admit that of the biggest problems (to me, windowed games are just not immersive) Flash has is that, AFAIK, you can't have fullscreen apps that use other than mouse and a few keyboard keys (arrows and some other I think). And even if your game supports fullscreen most portals don't allow that.

Monster's Den is a mildly enjoyable blob-game

Agreed. Technically there is no reason it couldn't be done.

That being said, Flash development is very esoteric and it costs money to buy the tools. So, basically, if you don't know how to program in it already you may be dumping a ton of time into a skill that isn't transferable.

It's free and fairly straightforward if don't use any of the commercial Adobe tools, which aren't really required. With the free AS3.0 compiler or Haxe, it's not that much different from native development with, say, SDL.

 

[flushfire]

except for music (and this is because I have no talent for producing it, there's probably a free tool or two for it too), there are multiple free tools to get the job done. Flash Develop for coding. Multiple libraries and engines to handle the basics. sfxr for sfx. Gimp for 2d graphics.

it's just hard to find a "full game" experience with Flash games IMO. Most are designed to be short, casual and just achievement grabbing. such games are easier to make and sell relatively well, thus devs (even really talented ones, i know someone who i think has the ability to make adventures similar to those of old but has relegated to making 1-week $3-5k games) tend to just make those. but as for potential, it's there, just very few bother.

 

[thesheeep]

After having worked with ActionScript/Flash for 9 months, I can really say it would be absolutely possible to create a game like (example) Fallout with it.
And complete with modding tools, even!

Still. I don't like to work with it. It has some very, very awkward behaviour sometimes and some bugs so bad that you will never be able to find out what actually causes them.
I also have doubts when it comes to performance, though. But a game like Fallout shouldn't be too heavy on the performance since not so much stuff is going on simultaneously.

Also, Flash DOES support right-clicks. I have seen some games and programs making the usual use of the RMB. You can disable that standard Flash right-click menu and do something else instead,

 

[Arlborn]

It would be possible. Tibia is apparently is releasing a beta flash client tomorrow and it is a MMORPG game with pretty good 2D graphics.

 

[Piety]

AIR is available for linux... But you're right, once you're that close to making a desktop app, there's other options that are a lot more attractive. Also, so far as I know (from some limited javascript experience, not sure if ActionScript might be better optimized than browser implementations), any non-graphics work you might need to do will run pretty slow. Talking about stuff like field-of-view with obstacles, pathfinding, etc.

 

[zenbitz]

Why not HTML5 instead?

 

[Flatlander]

Why not HTML5 instead?

There is currently no commercial model for HTML5 what so ever, unless you go with monthly subscription or pay-for-loot system. Otherwise I'd actually prefer it, more geek cred and all that, and it should be about workable for old school RPGs.

 

[Severian Silk]

Flash ads suck. Flash is OK for games IMO.

 

[JaySn]

You can have a full-screen Flash game using Adobe's projector -- a Star Craft-based tower-defense had this feature, though you had to download the game. Kick the browser into full screen mode, detect the resolution, and fill the browser window with the Flash game should have a similar effect.

I've also seen a port of Doom to Flash that played responsively; chances are if it's from the mid-90s (and your computer isn't) Flash can run it today. You can also alter keybindings, so you're not stuck with the regular arrow keys, and such.

I've just never seen anything that great with Flash.

 

[sproket]

I chose Java for Goldchest because I wanted easy cross platform for Mac, Linux and Windows. Flash is pretty good in this area as well with a few caveats.

- Support is spotty under Linux.
- It's can be slow sometimes - usually under firefox
- There's no 3D toolkits that I know of (if you want 3D).

But ActionScript is quite nice and easy to learn so it really depends on what you want to do.

My thought is to strongly consider cross platform tools since it gives you a better coverage out there for these small independent games.

 

[sproket]

Why not HTML5 instead?

Yes actually HTML5 is not a bad candidate. This is a great up and coming tech. It's still a wait-and-see how well Microsoft ends up supporting it though, and JavaScript can be very painful to develop larger projects in.

 

[Flatlander]

I chose Java for Goldchest because I wanted easy cross platform for Mac, Linux and Windows. Flash is pretty good in this area as well with a few caveats.

- Support is spotty under Linux.

Apparently lots of Linux and Mac users have problems with Flash, but for me it has always worked better than Java. It's fine when it works but it seems that half of the JVM stuff I try just end up spitting out random stack traces.

- There's no 3D toolkits that I know of (if you want 3D).

There are 3D libraries/engines for Flash but IME they are very slow and limited. But the basic 3d features of Flash are perfectly capable of recreating something like an early -90s blob crawler, for example.

 

[Charles-cgr]

Personally what turns me off is:

"Be aware that clearing your browser's cache will delete your save file".

I can't stand losing a save file, obviously especially more so for an RPG.

 

[zenbitz]

Never had a flash (or java for that matter) problem with Mac, although I do alt my mouse so that I can right-click.

I think the main reason flash is on the outs for these types of efforts is iPhone/iPad.