I remember playing a crap web game in college, kinda like gunslinger, where you try to shoot people who turn around with a gun (and not those without). When I graduated college, Ian--one of my good friends at work--ended up being one of those guys in the game! Turns out that game I was playing was built by Tom Fulp, and he was using his friends (like Ian) as characters in his games pre-Newgrounds. All that messing around with crap games on the internet paid off. He had started Newgrounds while in college, and had quit to do it.
Met Tom once, and he was a cool guy, but he didn't believe in the stuff that they taught in CS. He had a long rant about how learning string diff algorithms were useless. Anyway, it turns out later on, he went back to college to finish his degree. When his classmate(s) found out who he was, this one kid was so excited to sit next to him. "Do you know who he is?!" he would exclaim to his professor, to Tom's embarrassment. I wonder if he had to do string diff algos when he went back to finish college.
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cableshaft
Haha, nice to see this pop back up. I used to live on this site, making Flash games, chatting on the forums, and as a member of the Clock Crew. Some of my games were fairly popular at the time, including Proximity and some Clock Crew themed games.
I also made (with Rob as the artist) the first commissioned game for what would eventually be the really popular Armor Games site. When he got started he was wanting to do LOTR themed games and was calling his site Games of Gondor, but he didn't stick with it long probably because of legal reasons. It was called Save The Ring!
It's cool to see how far Ruffle has come in making flash games playable without flash. Was able to go check out a flash game I uploaded 15 years ago on here, and it's completely playable now, when I just assumed it was gone forever. There's so much content on Newgrounds and similar sites that isn't lost to time because of it, makes me want to go spend a few hours reliving the olden days.
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adamiscool8
Almost brings a tear to my eye to see they still have all the games and stupid Flash animations I submitted as a middle schooler, hacking around with his friends going on 25 years ago, just hoping not to get “blammed”. I’m sure these days kids are doing the same in Roblox or Minecraft or whatever - maybe it’s the same, but it feels so much more commercial than the heyday of Newgrounds. A special time to have been online for sure.
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ileonichwiesz
My sexual awakening was centered around browsing the adult section of Newgrounds when I was way too young. 25 years later and I’m still a bit messed up in that regard, lol
QuantumNomad_
> A community of games, music, and art
And a legendary one at that!
I remember spending so many hours playing little flash games on Newgrounds and other sites like it in lower secondary school during the breaks. Running up to the library room where the computers where, to get the most amount of computer time squeezed into the short and long breaks.
For a while, my class teacher had me banned from using the computers because she said I shouldn’t use every break to just run to the computers. Maybe she was right that it wasn’t completely healthy. But it’s not like I was alone in running to them, my friends did too, and even though I may have been particularly excited to use the computers I still did things together with my friends both in front of those computers and other socialising with them after school etc.
rwol
Newgrounds forums is where I first learned how to code. My early attempts at Flash games were so basic, but in such an endearing way. Such a good community surrounding the Flash games scene. I ran FreelanceFlashGames, if any game developers on here remember the site. Cool to see this surfacing on Hacker News.
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binsquare
I'm glad that Newgrounds is one of those sites that has kept it's soul all these years.
Even the same old games are still there
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al_borland
I haven't played Fancy Pants Adventures close to 20 years... what a blast from the past.
I never got to actually be on newgrounds, when I was 8 to 14 years old I didn't understand much english so I was always playing newgrounds games but off sites, it's only later that I understood that most of it was from the same community!
nullpilot
While the games are where I spent most of my time, like most others I'm sure, I also found one of my favorite pieces of music on Newgrounds.
Looking up my user, kind of embarrassing to see comments from 22 years ago asking and giving code advice.
However, it does raise lots of nostalgia for the BBS era.
sarreph
So fun to see my music (created when I was 15 years old) is still sitting there! Sadly though my flash animations (that were 'blammed'[0] almost immediately) aren't there, which I wish I could find somehow.
Spent insane amounts of time on Newgrounds back in the day, still watch some of the classics (tank men, ultimate showdown, metal gear awesome, etc etc) from time to time. A different internet back then.
RobRivera
Newgrounds got me into learning how to animate, and thus practical techniques to do so quickly.
The community tutorials were good, even if you were drawing technicolor ponies with drug addictions
reassess_blind
Site is loading super slow for me. Anyone else?
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throwaway2046
Nice to see Newgrounds is still alive and more or less unchanged since its early days. With so many of the creative spaces online becoming highly censored hellholes, having a more laissez-faire platform is a breath of fresh air.
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theultdev
Go watch Claveman and Tankmen if you haven't seen them. Work of art.
Time to play some Nuclear Eagle. It's a game where you're a momma eagle feeding your chicks. Except you're giant and feed them people. And people don't like being eaten, so it has some GTA-style escalation.
hodgehog11
Maybe just nostalgia talking, but the height of Newgrounds really seemed like a golden age for light gaming. The shift to mobile games has just resulted in a large number of gambling simulators, which I'm sure has been a key reason for the popularity of Kalshi, Polymarket, etc.
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webnanners
I literally thought of newgrounds today and how different and wild it would be with world models and AI generated games. Then it shows up #1… wild.
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sans_souse
Is my old college dorm neighbor Tim P in the chat? Holy flashback from the era of Flash animation and Java everything
ghurtado
New Mandela effect unlocked:
"Remember when newgrounds ceased to exist?"
Or maybe I'm just not paying attention...
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_-_-__-_-_-
pre-teen me loved newgrounds, we would play at school hiding the browser from teachers, this was before they had implemented filtering
bhargav
Heli Attack 3
k2xl
The Problems of the Future... Today!
Lots of fond memories of this website. I have many flash games and animations still on there. My favorite period of the internet.
nidnogg
What a treat to see this pop up here. I used to be obsessed with Madness flash shorts back in the day. Got me into Flash and web tooling in general. A testament to the prime 2000s web.
carefree-bob
I used to play flash games on this site, one of my favorites was "William and Sly" and also "William and Sly 2".
You can still play them now, they ported it away from flash - which still offered experiences that we are just now beginning to match natively in terms of web gaming and video generation.
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bobcatsmith
These are amazing, will there be an AI label? Would be good to give love and support to human game devs and not AI slop
saidnooneever
funny to see Decline of video gaming xD.. they should make a 2026 one lol
I remember playing a crap web game in college, kinda like gunslinger, where you try to shoot people who turn around with a gun (and not those without). When I graduated college, Ian--one of my good friends at work--ended up being one of those guys in the game! Turns out that game I was playing was built by Tom Fulp, and he was using his friends (like Ian) as characters in his games pre-Newgrounds. All that messing around with crap games on the internet paid off. He had started Newgrounds while in college, and had quit to do it.
Met Tom once, and he was a cool guy, but he didn't believe in the stuff that they taught in CS. He had a long rant about how learning string diff algorithms were useless. Anyway, it turns out later on, he went back to college to finish his degree. When his classmate(s) found out who he was, this one kid was so excited to sit next to him. "Do you know who he is?!" he would exclaim to his professor, to Tom's embarrassment. I wonder if he had to do string diff algos when he went back to finish college.
Haha, nice to see this pop back up. I used to live on this site, making Flash games, chatting on the forums, and as a member of the Clock Crew. Some of my games were fairly popular at the time, including Proximity and some Clock Crew themed games.
I also made (with Rob as the artist) the first commissioned game for what would eventually be the really popular Armor Games site. When he got started he was wanting to do LOTR themed games and was calling his site Games of Gondor, but he didn't stick with it long probably because of legal reasons. It was called Save The Ring!
Here's my user profile, same name as I am on here: https://cableshaft.newgrounds.com/
It's cool to see how far Ruffle has come in making flash games playable without flash. Was able to go check out a flash game I uploaded 15 years ago on here, and it's completely playable now, when I just assumed it was gone forever. There's so much content on Newgrounds and similar sites that isn't lost to time because of it, makes me want to go spend a few hours reliving the olden days.
Almost brings a tear to my eye to see they still have all the games and stupid Flash animations I submitted as a middle schooler, hacking around with his friends going on 25 years ago, just hoping not to get “blammed”. I’m sure these days kids are doing the same in Roblox or Minecraft or whatever - maybe it’s the same, but it feels so much more commercial than the heyday of Newgrounds. A special time to have been online for sure.
My sexual awakening was centered around browsing the adult section of Newgrounds when I was way too young. 25 years later and I’m still a bit messed up in that regard, lol
> A community of games, music, and art
And a legendary one at that!
I remember spending so many hours playing little flash games on Newgrounds and other sites like it in lower secondary school during the breaks. Running up to the library room where the computers where, to get the most amount of computer time squeezed into the short and long breaks.
For a while, my class teacher had me banned from using the computers because she said I shouldn’t use every break to just run to the computers. Maybe she was right that it wasn’t completely healthy. But it’s not like I was alone in running to them, my friends did too, and even though I may have been particularly excited to use the computers I still did things together with my friends both in front of those computers and other socialising with them after school etc.
Newgrounds forums is where I first learned how to code. My early attempts at Flash games were so basic, but in such an endearing way. Such a good community surrounding the Flash games scene. I ran FreelanceFlashGames, if any game developers on here remember the site. Cool to see this surfacing on Hacker News.
I'm glad that Newgrounds is one of those sites that has kept it's soul all these years.
Even the same old games are still there
I haven't played Fancy Pants Adventures close to 20 years... what a blast from the past.
https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/301341
I remember watching Salad Fingers on there and playing tons of idle and tower defence games; good times
Hell yeah Pico's School is still up https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/310349
I never got to actually be on newgrounds, when I was 8 to 14 years old I didn't understand much english so I was always playing newgrounds games but off sites, it's only later that I understood that most of it was from the same community!
While the games are where I spent most of my time, like most others I'm sure, I also found one of my favorite pieces of music on Newgrounds.
https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/201982
Ha, it’s still up.
Looking up my user, kind of embarrassing to see comments from 22 years ago asking and giving code advice.
However, it does raise lots of nostalgia for the BBS era.
So fun to see my music (created when I was 15 years old) is still sitting there! Sadly though my flash animations (that were 'blammed'[0] almost immediately) aren't there, which I wish I could find somehow.
[0] - https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/599831
Spent insane amounts of time on Newgrounds back in the day, still watch some of the classics (tank men, ultimate showdown, metal gear awesome, etc etc) from time to time. A different internet back then.
Newgrounds got me into learning how to animate, and thus practical techniques to do so quickly.
The community tutorials were good, even if you were drawing technicolor ponies with drug addictions
Site is loading super slow for me. Anyone else?
Nice to see Newgrounds is still alive and more or less unchanged since its early days. With so many of the creative spaces online becoming highly censored hellholes, having a more laissez-faire platform is a breath of fresh air.
Go watch Claveman and Tankmen if you haven't seen them. Work of art.
Glad to see Kingdom Rush is still there, even after half a dozen iPad apps: https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/587194
Don’t know what my childhood would have been like without the dress up Brittany spears game! https://web.archive.org/web/20050120091734/http://www.newgro...
Time to play some Nuclear Eagle. It's a game where you're a momma eagle feeding your chicks. Except you're giant and feed them people. And people don't like being eaten, so it has some GTA-style escalation.
Maybe just nostalgia talking, but the height of Newgrounds really seemed like a golden age for light gaming. The shift to mobile games has just resulted in a large number of gambling simulators, which I'm sure has been a key reason for the popularity of Kalshi, Polymarket, etc.
I literally thought of newgrounds today and how different and wild it would be with world models and AI generated games. Then it shows up #1… wild.
Is my old college dorm neighbor Tim P in the chat? Holy flashback from the era of Flash animation and Java everything
New Mandela effect unlocked: "Remember when newgrounds ceased to exist?"
Or maybe I'm just not paying attention...
pre-teen me loved newgrounds, we would play at school hiding the browser from teachers, this was before they had implemented filtering
Heli Attack 3
The Problems of the Future... Today!
Lots of fond memories of this website. I have many flash games and animations still on there. My favorite period of the internet.
What a treat to see this pop up here. I used to be obsessed with Madness flash shorts back in the day. Got me into Flash and web tooling in general. A testament to the prime 2000s web.
I used to play flash games on this site, one of my favorites was "William and Sly" and also "William and Sly 2".
You can still play them now, they ported it away from flash - which still offered experiences that we are just now beginning to match natively in terms of web gaming and video generation.
These are amazing, will there be an AI label? Would be good to give love and support to human game devs and not AI slop
funny to see Decline of video gaming xD.. they should make a 2026 one lol