

The true face of flash games - ecaradec
http://grownsoftware.com/blog/the-true-face-of-flash-games

======
ecaradec
This all began as a project I wanted for me and my kids that kept scrolling
when playing and loosing focus, etc... I couldn't have hoped better exposure,
as this goes to the HN front page.

Given the feedbacks, this might be its grave as well too... may be I should
have written a blog post first ;)...

I'm probably an hardcore flash gamer. As I worked on it, may be I have fallen
in love with my idea, and stopped looking for it's pertinence. This might be a
case where scratching your own itch does not work. I love the little fun of
flash games and was hopping to give it more quality.

It's built anyway, I think that some people will like it because it's still
the absolute best solution to play flash games fullscreen as it has qualities
that no other solution provide : not scaling games and speed.

If you want to try it, I guaranty that it is safe anyway, I checked it against
<http://virustotal.com>, it's clean for 41 of 42 antivirus.

------
sadiq
The true face of flash games requires a windows-only exe to download and
install first?

I think these guys might have missed the main selling point of flash, it's
insane penetration which means pretty much any desktop user can play straight
away. If i'm forcing my users to run some random program to play my games
properly then I might as well just ship my own executable and get native
performance.

------
dugmartin
Why not just build your Flash game to go full screen on a button click? If you
want to see how it can be done well check out Club Penguin in full screen mode
- no thick client required.

~~~
ivank
Full-screen Flash doesn't let you handle key input. From
[http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/full_screen...](http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/full_screen_mode.html)
:

"# Users cannot enter text in text input fields while in full-screen mode. All
keyboard input and key-related ActionScript is disabled while in full-screen
mode, with the exception of the keyboard shortcuts that take the viewer out of
full-screen mode."

Edit: looks like it's slightly better in Flash 10. From
[http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/fplayer10_s...](http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/fplayer10_security_changes_03.html#head5)
:

"Flash Player 9 does not allow keyboard input when displaying content in full-
screen mode. Flash Player 10 changes this, allowing for a limited number of
keys to be usable in full-screen mode. These include Tab, the Spacebar, and
the (up, down, left, right) arrow keys."

~~~
Sujan
Still sucks for games that need text and encourage chatting.

------
benologist
While I think some portals (not so much Kongregate though) could tone down the
clutter I don't think this is going to take off. From what I can see only
about 5.8% of players go full screen.

Flash games also look crap stretched out and you can't play discretely
(work/uni/school) or jump back and forth between email/browsing/im etc while
you wait for that wave of creeps to finish dying.

Not to mention download random.exe to play a Flash game on a website?

You really can't compare the immersiveness of full screen titles vs. Flash
games. Flash games fill a different need and they do that in spite of richer
options being available. I really think you're solving a problem that doesn't
exist.

~~~
ehsanul
_Flash games also look crap stretched out_

That's partly what his software apparently fixes, by switching to the screen
resolution to something close to the size of the game's screen.

But I do agree, I don't see a market for this myself. It looks like something
that would appeal to "hardcore flash gamers", like the author presumably is.
But from my limited observations, most people playing flash games don't seem
to care that much and are just looking for some quick fun.

~~~
Sujan
Isn't this even worse if you use a TFT monitor?

~~~
ecaradec
Actually not, probably because games do not require you to read a lot and
because the resolution is quite low. I don't feel that it looks bad.

------
BoppreH
Immersion is not only screen size: it's how the game reacts to your commands,
how the screen shakes, what is shown and what is not. This program solves only
one aspect, but the game must be _built_ for immersion.

And... I don't play Flash games to immerse. I play to pass time.

For me Flash games are like pen-and-paper puzzles. I don't mind playing sudoku
on a small piece of paper.

That being said, it _would_ be interesting for some games, but I'm not going
into the trouble of downloading (and installing?) random programs to play an
occasional Flash game. Even if I did, I'd be over with the game before
remembering I even had this program.

And it removes the chat and comments feature from the original website, and
they are valuable.

My opinion is that Flash games fill a very specific role and you are mixing
things up, but others are free to disagree.

------
_pafy_
Or you can use your desktop zoom features:
<http://viennot.biz/full_screen.mp4>

