At 5/28/25 02:26 PM, TomFulp wrote:The time has arrived to announce the winners of Flash Forward 2025!

This event celebrates the legacy of Flash while giving people cool new Flash games and interactive movies, playable in the browser thanks to Ruffle.

Thank you @jmtb02, @FutureCopLGF and @Dungeonation for judging assistance!

Top Five Games

🏆1st - $1200

https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/975410

“BoMToons hardly needs an introduction for Flash Forward - and neither does Luis for that matter, a Portal Defenders team’s Flash game is always a good time, regardless of its scope. Chess Force is just another wonderful entry of theirs, this time tackling the shoot’em’up genre, and pretty well at that! Stages are offered to you Mega Man style, yet it still feels good to upgrade your artillery against a slight difficulty shift in some stages over others! (Mega Man-ifying a shoot’em’up…BoMToons could make me interested in any game genre, as I’ve said before) The boss attacks felt pretty telegraph-able and the final boss had me grumblin’ for a slight bit before I finally took ‘im down. I played through on a Steam Deck’s web browser, but I definitely noticed performance slowed on later stages, and some stages crashing and refreshing the browser on a mobile device. I also found the mobile touch controls to be too floaty and turned me off to trying to play it initially on my phone. (Hey, I’ve been there, we all wanna believe our game’ll be a perfect experience on mobile…) However, I can of course fully recommend this year’s entry from this team, though you’ll probably need something that can keep good enough game performance going throughout!

Ooh and also, Pyragmus’ chiptunes are a wonderful fit here! (Funny story, I listened to that unused Castle Crashing the Beard music BEFORE I played Chess Force, heard it being used in Chess Force, and was like “ayyyy, there’s that song again!”)” -Dungeonation

“What an awesome SHMUP experience! While I did have some gripes with the game since I'm a huge stickler for SHMUPs, and I did run into some bugs as well, the game's overwhelming charm, amusing concept, cool boss fights and sheer spectacle where you're blasting down gigantic ships while bullets fly and explosions go off made me easily push past its foibles and enjoy the crazy ride all the way through!” -FutureCopLGF

🏆2nd - $700

https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/977284

“It's the right balance of ambitious new dev and gameplay, it's just fun and stands out against the others. And there's multiple levels! It's what Newgrounds is all about, right? Emerging talent. It's great.” -jmtb02

“This charming SHMUP really impressed me with how it never felt satisfied just spinning its wheels, delivering you the same wave of mooks over and over like so many beginner SHMUPs do: instead it just kept escalating the stakes every level with all new and very creative enemy types, waves, mini-bosses, special events and big bad bosses, and in doing so, it made an incredibly well-paced and spectacular experience!” -FutureCopLGF

“There’s a game on Webkinz I was fond of growing up - Dex Dangerous - which controls similarly to this Flash, so when I pulled it up and started playing it I got very excited! This game’s got some good challenge, and a bit of a control scheme learning curve with the power ups (reading the controls?? HAH, never heard of her), but it’s a fun little package regardless, and a pretty fresh take on this sort of game, with additions like boss fights! It's less arcade-y than games like it, and short considering, but that didn't detract from the good times I had with it.” -Dungeonation

🏆3rd - $400

https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/977264

“Just incredibly accessible and charming. Just the right length, art and play is just great. This is peak for me.” -jmtb02

“Streamlined point n’ click goodness! It’s simple: look for the candies scattered about the house, in order to save a vampire named Vampi from an ADORABLE spider who just dreams about encasing the moon in silk while napping, awww. How could ya vanquish such an adorable spindly thing like that? But you must. It feels like Guy-Unger has DONE a simple point n’ click Flash before in Flash Forwards’ past, but nay - this appears to be the first! It’s visually appealing in looks as well as how it’s animated, and it also feels great to just click around and on things, being decently responsive outside of some things that just display some response text on the screen briefly.” -Dungeonation

“What a cute little adventure game! I'll admit that it's rather simple and doesn't have much meat on its bones, but I nevertheless enjoyed all the quirky animations and amusing interactions in my short-but-sweet time with it!” -FutureCopLGF

🏆4th - $150

https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/977280

“Maybe I'm biased because I'm rekindling my love for RTS recently, but this game really blew me away! I was seriously impressed at how smooth and intuitive the units were to control, and the way the game escalates in introducing new enemy types and formations while granting you all sorts of new guns and powers to play with made for a very addictive, challenging and strategic gameplay loop! The edgy humor as well takes me right back to tasting that old-school Newgrounds flavor, mm-mmm!” -FutureCopLGF

🏆5th - $100

https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/977227

“I got MAD at this game for making me laugh, ‘cuz it’s DISARMING for a spooky game! Like, there are definitely games that blend humor and horror together, that’s nothing new, but the way Fun Home does it makes you exhale with relief but then quickly go “Wait, no, come onnnn, it’s not the time for this right now! We’re in spookytime!” It’s pretty effective and a wonderful treat overall with what we got so far of the game. Deathink is a dang funny guy and a very talented artist and pixel artist, the homages to NES graphics scattered throughout feel great, and you can really appreciate the work he took learning ActionScript 3 in order to make this! The keyboard control scheme is supposed to mimic a controller layout, but I wasn’t a big fan of it, though that is a small criticism! My advice for more parts would be: keep it ridiculous, but juuust aggravatingly ridiculous enough!” -Dungeonation

“It was over before I knew it so it was a tad bit unsatisfying, but that's only because as a proof-of-concept, it was so well-done it made me excited and hungry for the eventual second chapter of this very promising stalker horror game, so hungry I wish I could play it right now, now, now!” -FutureCopLGF

Honorable Mentions

Riddle School fans were eating good this year, with two fan games!

https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/974778
https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/974947

Keep reading below for the Movies with Interactive Elements winners!

At 5/28/25 02:26 PM, TomFulp wrote:
“While I wish it had more short interactable games like it did for the final selections, this DVD-chapter-select-looking collection of movies was a fun diversion and tied together nicely with the cute interface design. From what I've heard, pseudo DVD menus with little animations are the next big genre to plague the indie scene like rogue-likes and deck-builders, so we're witnessing the future here!” -FutureCopLGF

At 5/28/25 02:26 PM, TomFulp wrote:The time has arrived to announce the winners of Flash Forward 2025!

This event celebrates the legacy of Flash while giving people cool new Flash games and interactive movies, playable in the browser thanks to Ruffle.

Thank you @jmtb02, @FutureCopLGF and @Dungeonation for judging assistance!

Top Five Games

🏆1st - $1200

https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/975410

“BoMToons hardly needs an introduction for Flash Forward - and neither does Luis for that matter, a Portal Defenders team’s Flash game is always a good time, regardless of its scope. Chess Force is just another wonderful entry of theirs, this time tackling the shoot’em’up genre, and pretty well at that! Stages are offered to you Mega Man style, yet it still feels good to upgrade your artillery against a slight difficulty shift in some stages over others! (Mega Man-ifying a shoot’em’up…BoMToons could make me interested in any game genre, as I’ve said before) The boss attacks felt pretty telegraph-able and the final boss had me grumblin’ for a slight bit before I finally took ‘im down. I played through on a Steam Deck’s web browser, but I definitely noticed performance slowed on later stages, and some stages crashing and refreshing the browser on a mobile device. I also found the mobile touch controls to be too floaty and turned me off to trying to play it initially on my phone. (Hey, I’ve been there, we all wanna believe our game’ll be a perfect experience on mobile…) However, I can of course fully recommend this year’s entry from this team, though you’ll probably need something that can keep good enough game performance going throughout!

Ooh and also, Pyragmus’ chiptunes are a wonderful fit here! (Funny story, I listened to that unused Castle Crashing the Beard music BEFORE I played Chess Force, heard it being used in Chess Force, and was like “ayyyy, there’s that song again!”)” -Dungeonation

“What an awesome SHMUP experience! While I did have some gripes with the game since I'm a huge stickler for SHMUPs, and I did run into some bugs as well, the game's overwhelming charm, amusing concept, cool boss fights and sheer spectacle where you're blasting down gigantic ships while bullets fly and explosions go off made me easily push past its foibles and enjoy the crazy ride all the way through!” -FutureCopLGF

🏆2nd - $700

https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/977284

“It's the right balance of ambitious new dev and gameplay, it's just fun and stands out against the others. And there's multiple levels! It's what Newgrounds is all about, right? Emerging talent. It's great.” -jmtb02

“This charming SHMUP really impressed me with how it never felt satisfied just spinning its wheels, delivering you the same wave of mooks over and over like so many beginner SHMUPs do: instead it just kept escalating the stakes every level with all new and very creative enemy types, waves, mini-bosses, special events and big bad bosses, and in doing so, it made an incredibly well-paced and spectacular experience!” -FutureCopLGF

“There’s a game on Webkinz I was fond of growing up - Dex Dangerous - which controls similarly to this Flash, so when I pulled it up and started playing it I got very excited! This game’s got some good challenge, and a bit of a control scheme learning curve with the power ups (reading the controls?? HAH, never heard of her), but it’s a fun little package regardless, and a pretty fresh take on this sort of game, with additions like boss fights! It's less arcade-y than games like it, and short considering, but that didn't detract from the good times I had with it.” -Dungeonation

🏆3rd - $400

https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/977264

“Just incredibly accessible and charming. Just the right length, art and play is just great. This is peak for me.” -jmtb02

“Streamlined point n’ click goodness! It’s simple: look for the candies scattered about the house, in order to save a vampire named Vampi from an ADORABLE spider who just dreams about encasing the moon in silk while napping, awww. How could ya vanquish such an adorable spindly thing like that? But you must. It feels like Guy-Unger has DONE a simple point n’ click Flash before in Flash Forwards’ past, but nay - this appears to be the first! It’s visually appealing in looks as well as how it’s animated, and it also feels great to just click around and on things, being decently responsive outside of some things that just display some response text on the screen briefly.” -Dungeonation

“What a cute little adventure game! I'll admit that it's rather simple and doesn't have much meat on its bones, but I nevertheless enjoyed all the quirky animations and amusing interactions in my short-but-sweet time with it!” -FutureCopLGF

🏆4th - $150

https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/977280

“Maybe I'm biased because I'm rekindling my love for RTS recently, but this game really blew me away! I was seriously impressed at how smooth and intuitive the units were to control, and the way the game escalates in introducing new enemy types and formations while granting you all sorts of new guns and powers to play with made for a very addictive, challenging and strategic gameplay loop! The edgy humor as well takes me right back to tasting that old-school Newgrounds flavor, mm-mmm!” -FutureCopLGF

🏆5th - $100

https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/977227

“I got MAD at this game for making me laugh, ‘cuz it’s DISARMING for a spooky game! Like, there are definitely games that blend humor and horror together, that’s nothing new, but the way Fun Home does it makes you exhale with relief but then quickly go “Wait, no, come onnnn, it’s not the time for this right now! We’re in spookytime!” It’s pretty effective and a wonderful treat overall with what we got so far of the game. Deathink is a dang funny guy and a very talented artist and pixel artist, the homages to NES graphics scattered throughout feel great, and you can really appreciate the work he took learning ActionScript 3 in order to make this! The keyboard control scheme is supposed to mimic a controller layout, but I wasn’t a big fan of it, though that is a small criticism! My advice for more parts would be: keep it ridiculous, but juuust aggravatingly ridiculous enough!” -Dungeonation

“It was over before I knew it so it was a tad bit unsatisfying, but that's only because as a proof-of-concept, it was so well-done it made me excited and hungry for the eventual second chapter of this very promising stalker horror game, so hungry I wish I could play it right now, now, now!” -FutureCopLGF

Honorable Mentions

Riddle School fans were eating good this year, with two fan games!

https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/974778
https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/974947

Keep reading below for the Movies with Interactive Elements winners!

At 5/31/25 08:44 AM, MebroukTheCat wrote:As someone who tirelessly worked hard to revive the legacy of Flash content on the Internet and also participated in the Flash Forward Jam since I was 17, I would like to congratulate those who won the competition for their hard work.