I can’t believe it’s been 12 years since I created my very first game. Very first *complete* game, anyway. Well, not that I ended up making a whole lot of games after that but I probably started a bunch and never finished them because programming never stuck with me. Someday I’m sure I will make something else though.

Anyway, Pandagotchi. It was a Flash game that I made as my final project for EMS I (Electronic Media Studio), a required class in my very first semester in college. Until the end of this month (this year really, which is in like 2 days) supposedly there will be no more support for Flash, so if you can,

please play Pandagotchi here!

After Flash is gone and whatever’s in that link (or the whole link) dies, I’ll at least have video of gameplay. One important thing I’ve learned as a gamedev:

The best way to preserve your game is to record gameplay of it with video.

And audio of course, if it has audio. I’ve realized that playable files go out of date with new hardware and things don’t always stay where you put them online for one reason or other. It also might be extra work to update the compatibility and so on.

Here’s my recorded gameplay footage:

This right here hits pretty hard for me:

I used to think life just *had to* be like this, that burnout was totally normal and it was just going to be like that for the rest of my life if I was successful. It really doesn’t. Especially if I do everything with a strict schedule and don’t take on too many activities. I’m an adult, I’m in control of my life. I’m just really glad those stressful times are behind me, but I still have nightmares about them all the time still 😛

It’s too bad that the world is moving on. I don’t know much about Flash actually nor the reasons why or why we shouldn’t keep it around, but I do feel sad that it’s not going to be supported anymore. It’s a small reminder to me that I’m getting older and that time flies.

Maybe I can remake Pandagotchi in a more modernized playable format but I’d also like it to be playable in the browser. *Shrug*

Cheers to old fun relics of the past. Have a very Happy New Year!