Advanced Flash/Silverlight games? Do they even exist?

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22 comments, last by ddn3 14 years ago
I recently realized I've never really seen a really advanced browser-based game. With advanced, I mean with a gameplay that resembles most of the PC-games (of the last two decades, or so - except for the graphics), etc. NOT another "throw the <insert weird thing here> as long as possible" or "shoot <insert weird enemy here> that appears on the screen!" game. Give me examples! And why? Are Flash/etc way too slow? Are the flash developers just a bunch of lazy kids who can't finish big projects? Or am I just too blind to find these more advanced games? /X
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actionscript/flash has both poor performance and is difficult to work with due to the language being quirky and having a incomplete feature set.

silverlight isn't wide spread enough yet to justify using it instead of flash or a normal non-browser application
Quote:Or am I just too blind to find these more advanced games?

Probably. They're so big it's hard to see them.

Club Penguin. I seem to recall it's worth around $300 million.
Habbo hotel. They have around 80 million users or something like that.
Farmville and company.
Playfish.

These have ~50 million players each, on average.

Or perhaps there is the problem with definition of "advanced".
Myst (1993), King's Quest VI & VII (1992 & 1994), The Amazon Trail (1994), and Lords of the Realm (1994) were released less than two decades ago.
Quote:Original post by Way Walker
Myst (1993), King's Quest VI & VII (1992 & 1994), The Amazon Trail (1994), and Lords of the Realm (1994) were released less than two decades ago.


Um... and these are available as web-based (flash/etc) games now?
Quote:Original post by Antheus
Quote:Or am I just too blind to find these more advanced games?

Probably. They're so big it's hard to see them.

Club Penguin. I seem to recall it's worth around $300 million.
Habbo hotel. They have around 80 million users or something like that.
Farmville and company.
Playfish.

These have ~50 million players each, on average.

Or perhaps there is the problem with definition of "advanced".


Hmm. Good examples. However, I'm still wondering if it is possible to find flash games with advanced _gameplay_?

Or am I asking the wrong questions here? Am I only supposed to find cartoonish games in the casual genre when trying out flash games?

Sorry for the ranting, but I got pretty tired of hearing some people say that "flash is the future of gaming!!11", so I decided to try to find out if it was.
Not sure what your definition of advanced gameplay is, but Dragon Age Journeys is pretty nifty.
Quote:Original post by SoldierX
Quote:Original post by Way Walker
Myst (1993), King's Quest VI & VII (1992 & 1994), The Amazon Trail (1994), and Lords of the Realm (1994) were released less than two decades ago.


Um... and these are available as web-based (flash/etc) games now?


No, but since when does "advanced" mean "identical"? I guess you did redefine "advanced" to mean "resembles", so maybe scratch Lords of the Realm from that list, but are you really claiming there aren't point-and-click adventures implemented in flash that are as "advanced" as Myst?
Quote:Original post by Kaze
actionscript/flash has both poor performance and is difficult to work with due to the language being quirky and having a incomplete feature set.

silverlight isn't wide spread enough yet to justify using it instead of flash or a normal non-browser application


I dont know the last time you developed in Flash but its actually very fast. You probably dont want to develop the next big 3D shooter in Flash but for just about everything else its up for the task. And I believe the latest version (or the one just coming out) is going to have hardware graphics support, so maybe 3D shooters will soon be possible as well.

I dont know what you mean by the language being 'quirky' - are you referring to Actionscript 2 maybe? Because AS3 is a strongly typed, full featured object oriented language with a lot less quirks than say C++.

There are some severe limitations due to Flash being a web platform - no access to the local disk for example. And not being able to right-click is a bitch.

I think the main problem is the development tools that come with flash. They make it extremely easy for an inexperienced 9 year old to start making games, so thats what mostly what happens. However, the tools are there for a more professional minded person to build a more professional type of game. Personally I develop 100% in actionscript and dont even touch the Flash IDE that Adobe sells.
I played the beta of gemstone dragon which touts itself as being a desktop quality RPG, but have had a better time playing ginormo sword, so I htink there's something about playing a web game that lends itself to having the quirky experiences being more fun than the serious ones.

If you're looking for modern style flash games, we've done a couple of multiplayer shooters in flash with Stick Arena and Boxhead: Bounty Hunter complete with the experience of people doing things you'd see in modern console games like calling you a fag and camping noob when you beat them using elementary tactics :p

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