If you ask any survival horror fan about the glory days of the genre, they’ll almost inevitably point to the sixth generation of console gaming. Back then, coming up with decent graphics and clever mechanics wasn’t as prohibitively expensive as it is now, so developers took more risks. This resulted in the PlayStation 2, GameCube and original Xbox becoming home to some of the greatest horror titles of all time, with hits like Silent Hill 2, Fatal Frame and even hidden gems like the Forbidden Siren series.
However, as technology evolved and gaming became more complex, smaller developers simply weren’t able to compete with big publishers, quickly losing their hold in the industry. Don’t get me wrong, the seventh generation of consoles did bring a few memorable horror titles to the table (most notably Dead Space and Alan Wake), but AAA titles dominated the market, leaving the creative spirit from the previous generation behind. It was around this time that many of us turned to an alternative source of interactive scares… browser-based flash games!
Browser games had already been around for years at this point (I know I’ll never forget the infamous maze game that surprised players with the screaming image of a possessed Regan MacNeil) but there was a content explosion toward the mid-2000s that turned the flash game scene into a thriving community. While early horror games were mostly simplistic adventures booby-trapped with cheap jump scares, we were soon bombarded with clever twists on established formulas and even homages to some of our favorite scary movies. With the rise of online ads, it was even possible to make real money off these fun little projects.
Fan-games also began to pop up left and right, reviving then-dormant icons like Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger in unlicensed labors of love, many of which were more creative and fun to play than the official games that preceded them. I lost countless hours clicking around Afro Ninja’s flash recreations of Elm Street and even Camp Crystal Lake, wishing that AAA developers would take some inspiration from these passionate programmers instead of turning everything into a generic shooter.
Many of these horror titles were inspired by popular Escape Room games like the infamous Crimson Room, which, while not exactly horrific, managed to transform flash games into a nearly Hitchcockian exercise of mystery and suspense. Nevertheless, the Escape Room genre itself owes a lot to classic point-and-click adventure titles, with some programmers using games like Clock Tower and Myst as a template in order to experiment with their own ideas on a smaller scale.
Of course, there were some more action-heavy titles as well, primarily focusing on zombies and different methods of exterminating them. Games like the Last Stand trilogy managed to juggle shooting, resource management and strategic survival mechanics better than nearly all big-budget games at the time, making it one of the best zombie apocalypse simulators in an absurdly overcrowded genre.
One of my personal favorite flash games, Free Icecream, created by a group of HKU students, is a perfect example of using classic gaming conventions as a jumping-off point in a new medium, simplifying the point-and-click format to tell the brief but terrifying story of a young girl attempting to escape the home of a deranged child killer. While you probably won’t take more than half an hour to reach the end, the experience is a fun and self-contained little romp that lasts just as long as it needs to, and all this for the low, low price of absolutely nothing.
Naturally, this freedom didn’t last forever, as several flash games garnered cult followings and even spawned their own franchises. Sequels became more complex as time went on, rivaling even larger gaming projects, so it came as no surprise when some of these developers eventually transitioned to online gaming services like Xbox Live and PSN, where their smaller games became a cheap alternative to the standard console fare.
With the rise of independent markets like Steam, not to mention the ever-expanding world of mobile games, it seemed that the days of free browser-based gaming were all but numbered. Unexpected hits like Amnesia: The Dark Descent and the freeware title Slender: The Eight Pages announced a new age of low-budget horror games that could compete with AAA productions as they became infamous through let’s plays and word-of-mouth.
These projects ushered in a revival of horror in video games, one which we are still currently enjoying. Games like Outlast, Friday the 13th and even the new Call of Cthulhu are slowly making up for the previous generation’s apparent disdain for the genre. Unfortunately, this also means that the once thriving world of flash games has all but been abandoned.
That’s not to say that these juggernauts of the old internet have simply evaporated, as many of these once-famous gaming websites still exist, but a large part of the original fan-base has moved on, just like developers continue to migrate to mobile gaming and other more lucrative projects. Additionally, advancing technology has resulted in many of these internet relics becoming unplayable, with several gaming platforms being shut down. Adobe itself has announced that it’ll be retiring Flash entirely by 2020, so it’s safe to say that most of these games will soon, quite literally, disappear.
While it’s a shame to see such a big part of gaming history go to waste, I don’t think browser games will ever completely go away. There are still some hardcore fans out there, making and playing new games as we speak, and I think we all enjoyed that short but sweet Escape Michael Myers game, proving that this format is still effective. That being said, why not go back and enjoy some of your favorite scary flash games while you still can? At the very least, you’ll be reminded of a time when spooky gaming was available to almost anyone, and I think that’s worth remembering.