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Why Flash?

Around when I started planning to develop a flash game, I had one of my programmer friends ask me why I would want to start learning Flash instead of HTML5 or Unity3d or any other game friendly development platform. He cited this article showing that even Adobe didn’t believe in the future of Flash.

There are many reasons why this didn’t stop me from starting with Flash for my first game development effort.

1. Flash games are incredibly popular on laptop and desktop computers

I started playing games on the Flash portal Kongregate about a year ago and they’re coming out with new content every week. Other sites like AddictingGames.com and Newgrounds are still thriving as well. With the most popular games on Kongregate getting over 10 Million plays I doubt that Flash is in danger of going obsolete any time soon.

2. It’s fairly easy to make games for Flash

I mentioned the Kongregate Shootorial before. Following the tutorial allows you to create a basic side-scrolling shooter in less than a day. I have a friend that had never programmed before that was able to complete it in 7 hours. Flash lowered the barrier to entry into game development for me.

3. Flash provides a large audience

Since Flash is web-based and free-to-play anyone can find and play my game once it’s published. If I were to create a Steam game it would be hard to get people to actually download the game. And there aren’t nearly as many iPhones or Android phones as there are computers. My hope is to get my game to as many people as possible, I’ll worry about monetizing it later.

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