The loss of the mouse and keyboard as primary input devices is an underrated part of why everything feels worse now compared to the flash era. Web is a very different target now than it was. Also, the flash game ecosystem was intertwined with the animation ecosystem and the advent of streaming full motion video devalued animation skills.
Anyway nowdays we have Godot and Unity which are both very nice. But there were definitely lost years where amateur gamedev was less accessable.
> The loss of the mouse and keyboard as primary input devices is an underrated part of why everything feels worse now compared to the flash era.
It's okay to say "please visit this from your computer" when someone opens something that requires a keyboard from a phone.
> Anyway nowdays we have Godot and Unity which are both very nice. But there were definitely lost years where amateur gamedev was less accessable.
The barrier to entry is considerably higher with these things. They require programming from the beginning. The coolest part about Flash was that you could get started without writing a single line of code. Then you could build up your understanding of the thing iteratively. You could build a simple quest-type game with just one line of code that you copy-pasted from somewhere, `goToAndStop(frameNumber)`. And then you go from there — variables, flow control, all that. Flash got a sizable number of people interested in programming. This ease of use is extremely important and it's still unmatched by any purported modern replacements.
Anyway nowdays we have Godot and Unity which are both very nice. But there were definitely lost years where amateur gamedev was less accessable.