For more than 40 years, we have been able to entertain ourselves online with simulation games of all kinds, but where do they come from? What are the first browser games to be released and what are the languages and processes behind them? Let's discover it all together.
Where it all began
The first simulation game to thrill gamers was called The Sumerian Game. This is a text-based management game. Released in 1964, it offered its players to reign over the city of Lagash in the land of Sumer in 3 BC.
This game, like other pioneering online games, was available on the large and terrifying computers of the time such as the DEC PDP-1. Some of them have been repurposed with HTML to last across generations and still sit alongside newer browser games.
The late Flash games
Flash appeared in 1996 and notably enabled the introduction of animations and interactive objects on the various internet pages. This progress was accompanied by the birth of online games as we know them today.
Flash has also been used on many well-known sites such as YouTube and Twitch. Although he had his number of faults, he allowed the internet to revolutionize itself. But Adobe was forced to accept the various flaws in its software, and not least. Indeed, in addition to its slowness, it allowed hackers to take control of devices with Flash remotely and access user data.
After the disappearance of Adobe Flash Player, a new blow for the people in charge of video game conservation 😢
👉 https://t.co/QxwRJojMd0 by @ModernHermit
PlayStation Store shutdown on PS3, PSP and PS Vita will permanently delete 138 games according to @JVCom https://t.co/mU0nPWBtgW pic.twitter.com/xVpAtCDHCn
— Master AMINJ, Design of playful devices (@MetzJeu) April 8, 2021
The programming language for these must-have games was called ActionScript 3 (AS3). Once mastered, it allowed to create a game in a few clicks.
It was in 2020 that things went wrong for the animation giant. Its many flaws have got the better of its supremacy and more and more search engines have ousted it from their services. Indeed, in wanting to create browser games more efficient, some developers have completely abandoned Flash. He disappeared in 2021 taking with him thousands of games dear to our teenage hearts.
Although there are incredible techniques to find old Flash games, it is much easier to move on and let yourself be carried away by its great replacement: HTML5.
HTML5 era
It's well known that every end has a beginning and Flash's disappearance is no exception to the rule. His departure gave way to the HTML5 language, the latest revision of the HTML format used to code web pages.
You certainly know the shortcomings that he was accused of ⤵️
💻Adobe #Flash leaves room for #technologies more evolved. It has spent years being the favorite tool of #developers to create animations & mini games.https://t.co/xpj8b15d96#security #Web #dev
— G4 Institute (@G4formation) January 14, 2021
Its main advantage is that it does not require the installation of additional plug-ins. Another strong point, all multimedia content is integrated directly into the source code of websites through native audio and video elements, in other words, all in one!
Browser games are actually much older than we imagine and evolve with computer advances. If Flash was the first to integrate 3D formats, we can expect everything with HTML5 at the dawn of augmented reality. If this format is already available on consoles, it should soon be exported to computers and push the browsing experience of players even further.