I just found out something which could let us find not just some of the earliest Flowlab games and their users: But what number they were made in too!
Basically, the discovery was that the number that appears at the end of your games URL is what number your game is in total with EVERY GAME EVER MADE on Flowlab! So, for example: According to the URL, My game Old Super Mario Bros. is the 1,014,431th game ever made on Flowlab! (Wait, FLOWLAB HAS OVER 1 MILLION GAMES!?!?)
That’s a discovery within itself, right? Well, i took the liberty of trying to find some of the EARLIEST games ever uploaded to Flowlab! (Without asking @grazer, who probably would have answered it himself with less work… Oh well, this is the funner way!)
Here’s the results of my research:
*EDITED in later, thanks to information given by @“JR 01” (Thanks!)
“jumper” by @grazer himself is the ACTUAL first number which gives us results! Somehow this game has avoided getting corrupted like many other old Flowlab games. Which makes me suspect that grazer himself is keeping this one in mint-condition!
The game itself features an alien landscape with a cheese curl simply called “player”, a grey block named “enemy” and a sun named “BGOBJECT”… Ok then
The code is… interesting and editing said code in ANY way seems to glitch out Flowlab BAD so it’s best to just leave this game as it is!
https://flowlab.io/game/play/33
“slicer” by “skeddles” has the first number which actually gives us results! It’s number 155. Meaning either that the first 154 are SO OLD that Flowlab can’t even read them or @grazer did some spring cleaning! Meaning, yes, this is the earliest known game on Flowlab which is still “playable!”
https://flowlab.io/game/play/155
The game itself isn’t even really “Playable”. It features a bunch of red blocks on the background layer(?) in seemingly random positions and that’s just it. Now Flowlab experts (Like me!) may know that Flowlab creates red blocks when it fails to load an object! So, yeah, the first game ever uploaded to Flowlab is technically still there: But it’s corrupt
Due to 156 being a blank game, “New Game”/157 also by skeddles is the 2nd game on Flowlab which is still “playable”! It’s much of the same so i’ll keep this short: But in this one there IS something that actually has a name! It’s called “ball” and it’s, surprise surprise, a red cube.
https://flowlab.io/game/play/157
Due to 158 ALSO being a blank game, “New Game”/159 ALSO BY SKEDDLES is the 3rd game on Flowlab which is still “playable”! This one has 2 named red cubes instead of 1! One is named “block” while the other is named “ninja” and it hurts my eyes/it’s just a big red block of cubes!
https://flowlab.io/game/play/159
Now at this point i’m sure you’re getting sick of all the red cubes, right? Well, so am i! So to keep this actually INTERESTING i’m going to skip to the first game i could find which has visuals that couldn’t be emulated on a Virtual Boy! Let’s go!
Due to 162 and 163 being… Missing? 164 is the earliest game on Flowlab which has ACTUAL VISUALS!!!
https://flowlab.io/game/play/164
It’s made by some guy named “ala” and it’s called Test Game… Wait, does that mean Flowlab had a beta testing program? And if so: Does that ALSO mean skeddles is the founder of Flowlab? (The only Flowlab staff member THAT I KNOW OF is grazer!) and it consists of a blood-stain named Mario falling through a line of grey blocks. Yaaayyyyyyy!
NOT ONLY THAT it also seems to contain the EARLIEST known code ever in Flowlab: A extremely out-dated way to get a object to move left! Hooray!
Anyway that game is almost as uninteresting as the red cubes, right? So i’m going to skip ahead to the first game on Flowlab which has ACTUAL GAMEPLAY!
(I didn’t want to make an entire segment on this but 169-170 forward is when the single color blocks seem to start going away and actual custom game art starts being made!
So i had to go ALL THE WAY to 241 and 245 “Jumping Monkey” and “Copy of Jumping Monkey” (Creative names, i know!) in order to find something interesting and as it turns out: This is where @grazer’s game “Super Monkey Adventure” starting being worked on! The first one goes back to the good 'ol red cubes and the second one has actual visuals! BOTH however have one thing in common: ACTUAL GAMEPLAY! Yep, in these you can use the arrow keys to move the red block/monkey around the screen! And in the one with visuals: You can actually JUMP! Flowlab was growing up so fast!
https://flowlab.io/game/play/241
https://flowlab.io/game/play/245
After this point i noticed there were a TON of jumping monkey clones… I guess Jumping Monkey was the original Flowlab tutorial?
Welp, i’d keep investigating but i was getting sick of all the clones, new games and dead links so i’ll cut it short here! I hope you enjoyed this little look into Flowlabs history (For those who HAVEN’T been there since the beginning like me!) and @grazer if you’re reading this: I would REALLY like to hear your response to this documentary/discussion and what your explanation is for all the red blocks dead links and jumping monkeys! Thanks for reading! ~Crigence
PS: This was the last game i saw before quitting… https://flowlab.io/game/play/5000
