Pixel Day Raffle
Pixel Day, January 23rd, with over $1,200 in prizes! You can participate by sharing your original pixel art, animation, games and chiptunes. Read the Pixel Day post for more information.
@Mabelma has created new sticker packs and is hosting a raffle to celebrate Pixel Day!
The raffle is open to US residents only. To enter, fill out this entry form. If you are under 18, you must have the permission of a parent or guardian before providing any personal info.
I’ve included a picture of the stickers at the bottom of this post. Friday Night Funkin’ fans won’t want to miss this!
End of Flash Stuff
Last week was the true End of Flash, where Flash was completely removed from browsers.
Newgrounds uses two different workarounds, Newgrounds Player, which you need to install on your computer, and Ruffle, which runs Flash in the browser without you having to do anything.
Currently we use Ruffle as much as possible and default to Newgrounds Player when Ruffle isn’t an option. If you are using a browser that supports Flash and want to stick with traditional Flash embeds, go to your account options and disable the toggle to “Use Newgrounds Player for Flash”, listed under the content display options.
Windows itself is blocking Flash, so if you use Newgrounds Player you will likely need to edit or replace a specific config file. Read this post for instructions concerning the config file. We’re looking into making this part of the install process.
@APace has also posted instructions for Firefox users to enable Flash, including Mac users.
We’ve been witnessing just about every use case imaginable, including people who ONLY want to use Newgrounds Player and people who ONLY want traditional Flash embeds. To address all this we will likely have to make a more complicated menu of options. We’re trying to give people options without making the whole thing too confusing.
More About Ruffle and Flash Preservation
Most of the content shared on NG nowadays isn’t Flash; you can share your HTML5 games and any sort of original animation you’ve made in video format, as well as art, music, voice reels and podcasts. As the original Flash Portal we continue to host both old and new Flash content.
Newgrounds sponsors the development of Ruffle.rs, to run Flash content in the browser without Flash. Flash will be removed from browsers at the end of the year but thanks to Ruffle, we can enjoy Flash forever! Ruffle doesn’t support everything yet, which is why we have Newgrounds Player as a desktop fallback until it does.
Ruffle was created by @Mike as an open-source alternative to the Flash plug-in, free of all the legacy problems associated with Flash. Lots of smart people have gotten involved with the project and you can sponsor it with money or help as a Rust developer.
I’ve been keeping spreadsheets of movies that don’t work and AS2 games that don’t work and have already disabled Ruffle on those.
If you find anything that is trying to run with Ruffle but doesn’t work, please note it in the Ruffle Testing / Flash Preservation Crew thread.
You can also test Ruffle on content where it isn’t enabled by adding “/format/flash?emulate=flash” to the end of the URL. If you find something that works, let us know in the testing thread! A good example would be AS2 games released after July, 2006.
If you’re wondering where to start, our hubs let you browse by specific date ranges. For example here are the games from July 1st, 2006 to January 1st, 2008, ranked by views. Choose “Custom” in the Range dropdown to set parameters like this - if you want to commit to checking a specific date range, you could note it in the testing thread so other users are encouraged to pursue a different range.
We also have a thumbnail crew thread if you’d like to help update thumbnails with higher resolution source images.
Any help with this stuff is greatly appreciated; it’s a lot of material to sort through!
Other Events
NG is hosting a Flash Forward Jam. We’re gonna surprise people with a bunch of new interactive Flash creations, running in browsers this January thanks to Ruffle, after Flash has been officially removed. Over $2,600 in prizes!
@Xinxinix is hosting a Sexiest Outfit Art Contest and Concept of Love Art Contest.
@SevenSeizeHasCookies is hosting a Valentine’s Day-Themed Writing Contest.
@littlbox has created a new littlMix!
I've been holding off on making daily posts because I want to be sure as many people as possible read about the ongoing Flash changes. I'm also dealing with a lot of PMs and emails from people who aren't reading these posts but want to run Flash. Thank you everyone who has been helping people in the Where Is / How To forum!
