Today is the 25th anniversary of NG’s Flash Portal becoming automated!

If you aren’t familiar with NG history, Newgrounds started in 1995 as something I did while goofing off in high school. In 1998 I learned Flash and made a bunch of weird Flash games that started getting attention, making NG the ~500th most popular website on the Internet.

There was a page on NG called “The Portal” where I dumped smaller projects but in 1999, I started using it to showcase Flash by other people, oftentimes people without their own web hosting. This ended up getting more and more popular and every day people were emailing me their Flash files, or updates to existing files. It felt like it would be useful to automate the process and my friend @Ross came aboard as the PHP / MySQL pro to do it.

The automated Portal launched on April 6, 2000 and was the first place on the web where you could instantly publish movies and games. Endless chaos ensued and here we are, 25 years later, still sharing weird stuff on the web.

Much of the Portal has remained the same; you can instantly upload a game or movie, people can vote on it and write reviews, then if the score is too low during the judgment phase, it gets auto-removed to save space.

Much has also changed; you can now upload animation in video format and games as html5, no longer relying on Flash. The Flash plugin itself is no longer supported by browsers but we’re fortunate to have Ruffle to keep Flash running. As a result, NG is a living, breathing archive of 25 years of “user generated content”, I can’t think of anywhere else on the web that goes this deep.

Every Tuesday on NG is Takeover Tuesday, where Supporters can each share one thing from the site on the front page. If you’ve enjoyed NG at any point over the past 25 years, consider becoming a Supporter and sharing one of your favorites this week! You’ll introduce new generations to the things you’ve enjoyed, while keeping this living archive alive and growing.

Other News

Today was the original Flash Forward deadline but that has been extended to the 20th. That didn't stop Chess Force from launching today, though! Enjoy this brand new Flash game by @BoMToons, @Luis and @Pyragmus:

CmFluffles is hosting a Clear Skies Game Jam, with a steampunk / solarpunk theme.

The Art Inspired Music Contest starts on April 18th!

Low Poly Day is June 6th with categories for movies, games, art and even music.

See the calendar for many more events, including a Game Gallery Meetup in Langhorne, PA.

Can’t believe its already been a quarter century of the Flash Portal. 

When I first joined the site it felt like Newgrounds had already existed for ages before I got to it but now the period between the portal opening up and me getting involved seems tiny. Back in the day my favourite kinds of entry were sprite cartoons, where people would rip sprites from popular games and make really cheap animation using them. Back then I was young and gullible enough to believe that because Mario was in it then these things must have been officially made by Nintendo, and I was amazed that Nintendo would make videos where Mario would get up to all of these edgy things like swearing, doing drugs and having sex. In reality of course, they were mostly just made by edgy teenagers. In a sense my Mazza games are inspired by all these old works. 

This year is 20 years since I first released Gravoor 1 which was my first real success on the site. That game no longer exists though sadly because when I was like 16 I decided it wasn’t very good and had it removed from the site. Really wish I’d kept all those up now because even though they’re were bad its a lot of fun to go back and look at your progress over the years. Oh well, you live and you learn I guess. If any younger artists are reading this don’t make the same mistake I did because whatever you think of your early work now you’ll wish you still had it to look at in the future. 

When I went off to Uni I didn’t have a lot of time for Newgrounds sadly, and when I finished I got busy trying to make games professionally. Despite some wins I ultimately decided it wasn’t working out and went off to get a more boring but better paying job. I spent the next part of my 20s either believing I was done with making stuff or trying to make something that I might be able to sell. Ultimately though I wasn’t enjoying any of that. Eventually I realised that the only time I was ever having fun making games was when I was making them for Newgrounds and releasing them for free. Which led to me coming back in 2023 with Sunday Drive (A sequel to this game will be on the way later this month!) 

Ever since then I’ve had a blast making stuff for the portal. I’ll probably be a regular poster here now until either I, or the site dies. Whichever comes first. Heres to another 25 years!

I was going to release my Flash Forward movie today with it being the original deadline but as I’m away from my machine this weekend (and just general impatience lol) I just put it up earlier in the week. 

Its the first flash movie I’ve made since my Uni days. So check it out and let me know what you think! 

It's just what we do! You can't stop us!

I still remember when the portal was brand new!

What an exciting time for the internet, it seems so...normal now!

EDIT: Also thank you Newgrounds for supporting Flash and developing Ruffle and Swivel and all that good shit! I still use Flash daily for art/animation/games with my brother. It's nice to know Newgrounds is still the home of Flash

I love the newgrounds history so much!!! I publish my flash game for this special day:

The portal will always be special for us.

Happy 25th Anniversary!

Man thats a long time!

While @Mike started the Ruffle open source project, credit goes to all the hard-working devs who contribute to its ongoing development! NG is a Ruffle sponsor (technically the #1 sponsor but most of our contributions came through GitHub Sponsors before switching to Open Collective) and anyone who wants to support development can become a sponsor too.

Whoops, gotta give due credit where it's due! Love these guys and everyone else who keeps my old games running in 2025!

<3 <3 <3

But also shoutouts to all the Newgrounds staff and mods for helpings idiots like me use the portal for the last 25 years lol!

Whenever I have a dumb question about API's or Swivel or features, guys like Tom always help out.

Love u Newgrounds

Newgrounds will always be my favorite websites, I've heard of this website around 2018 - 2019 I can't quite remember, everything still looks the same like time never flies, anyways congrats on the anniversary!!!

Happy 25th Anniversary to the flash portal,

i have made a game that i hope you peeps will enjoy!

Super happy 25th anniversary to the Portal!

Twenty-five years. God damn. I wasn't even alive when the Portal started - I was born a few months after it. I didn't even sign up to here until 2023, either.

Its times like these which remind us all just how fucking long this site's been around. Happy 25th anniversary to the Portal - may your next 25 be full of wonder and charm.

You truly are a god among men tom.

It's my mom's birthday Tom and you didn't even mention it...

But yea happy 25 to The Portal, my cool uncle!

Damn, I can't believe that it's been 25 years already since the portal released! I hope Newgrounds will stay here and thrive for many more years to come! I still remember when I saw Newgrounds for the first time through Alien Hominid, and I've been in love with Newgrounds since!

On a side note, it would be cool to see Telebubby Funland as a proper movie portal submission kind of like Pico's School. Same with Club a Seal, but the file won't load anymore.

Happy Birthday, Automated Portal. Many happy returns!

Man, I kinda thought this was about Portal, The game for a bit lol.

But yeah, Flash portal brought so much of the early internet together to show the creative freedom that people had and something that shaped myself growing up with my Dad showing me things on Newgrounds.

Thank you Tom Fulp and Ross and everyone else who made basically the best thing on the internet.

"In 1998 I learned Flash and made a bunch of weird Flash games that started getting attention, making NG the ~500th most popular website on the Internet."

Gotta love the self-deprecating humor here!

Anyway, happy 25th automated portal and yes, big things do come in small packages!

such a blessing, HAPPY 25TH TO THE PORTAL!

And yet people still think Flash and Newgrounds is dead.

Congrats on the big 25!

The Portal is older than me by a matter of months! (And a day)

A monumental anniversary, proud to be here for it! 💚

Congratulations, and everyone give yourselves a pat on the back for keeping this craziness going in big or small ways!

Thought you were talking about the Game

Happy 25 years of Newgrounds Automated Portal.

Also good thing that the deadline for the Flash Forward Jam was extended, a good way for your flash game to have a breathing room before the completion.

Oh how time flies by fast. Happy 25th to the Portal and to many more years to keep it alive & well for future generations!

WOW, Congratulations for the milestone! 25 years is no small thing for a site especially considering the times of the internet which fly much faster than irl time. I always like to read the page dedicated to the history of the Portal especially the beginning years and see how things evolved in terms of the type of the content and the type of Internet at that time. It always gives me goosebumps when I read these past facts and because I love so much seeing how things evolves over time, I created a personal playlist to archive what characterized the Portal during all these years, an archelological-like excavation kind of, lol.

You’ll introduce new generations to the things you’ve enjoyed, while keeping this living archive alive and growing.

This part gave me genuine goosebumps because it shows how Internet should be: a place where people generate content that inspires others to generate content for the sake of generating content instead of chasing after numbers determined by algorithms. I wish this site all the best for the next years, while in the meantime I wait for more favourable conditions to buy a Support by myself (thank you to all people who gifted me a Support four times straight, I love you and you shouldn't have but I deeply appreciate).

fun fact: I got my first computer the same year and around the same period NG was born

I think back to Nox's video on AI, where he discusses his want to make a Flash Game or animation, and names some of the greats from NG. It made me realize how much it shaped our childhoods without us realizing it in the moment. How it offered a creative outlet. How it killed hours of boredom. How we discovered games and series and creators through it.

It's remarkable NG has kept its legacy going, where other websites shrug it off as a relic. But its become like a piece of fine art. To be remembered, appreciated and archived.

Happy Anniversary! ^-^

Man, Nox is a great series. Truly James Lee's best work. I kinda regret seeing NG as a lost leader in web creation and wishing it to be bigger, but the latter's a truly terrible idea that would hurt the brand and I couldn't have it any other way!

I'm glad that I've managed to enjoy my time on Newgrounds. This website really isn't like anything else I've been on, and that's astonishing. Here's to 25 years of the Portal!

Happy birthday portal!