Building a new Flash

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Nostalgia and What Made Flash Unique

  • Many recall Flash as the most fun environment they ever used: instant visual feedback, easy animation, built‑in hit detection, and simple ways to attach code to frames and movie clips.
  • Key strength: a single tool usable by both artists and programmers, with vectors, timelines, and scripts all in one FLA. Artists could hand over FLAs, developers could tweak timing or behavior without a heavy pipeline.
  • Nested timelines and “code on frames” encouraged experimentation and emergent complexity, especially for small web games and interactive cartoons.

Why Flash Declined

  • Several blame Adobe more than Apple: feature bloat, unstable “ball of mud” code, endless zero‑days, and missed opportunities to rewrite or open‑source.
  • Others argue iPhone hardware simply couldn’t run Flash well, citing early iOS performance and later poor Android Flash performance and battery drain.
  • Some say the runtime itself was efficient but enabled non‑coders to ship very inefficient content.
  • There’s debate over whether open‑sourcing was feasible; claims that licensing/embedded third‑party code made this impractical.

Value and Role of a “New Flash”

  • Strong interest in a modern, open authoring tool that can import legacy .fla/XFL files, preserving decades of work (including TV/cartoon pipelines) as Adobe Animate enters maintenance mode.
  • Desired features: HTML5/Canvas export, good debugging tools, vector‑based animation for games, and a workflow that recaptures Flash’s coder–artist collaboration.

Alternatives and Gaps

  • Mentioned tools: Ruffle (SWF player), Haxe/OpenFL, Rive, Spine, Godot, Unity, Toon Boom, OpenToonz, Construct, Hype, Cavalry, Love2D, etc.
  • Consensus that modern web tech (SVG/CSS/JS/Canvas/WebGL) can replicate Flash output, but authoring and debugging remain far worse.
  • Rive is seen as promising but hampered by subscription pricing and limited free export.

Licensing, Trust, and Skepticism

  • Some advocate an open‑source core with paid binaries (Ardour/Aseprite model) or non‑commercial licensing.
  • Strong distrust of closed‑source creative tools and single‑maintainer projects (“what if the dev gets bored?”).
  • Skepticism around the new project: ambitious .fla import claims, lack of public repo or working demos, Patreon launch timing, and possible LLM‑generated UI/text; others push back, saying this doesn’t invalidate the effort.