Thanks to a post by Jetro Lauha on Google+, I learned that Flipcode is back.
If you remember back over 10 years ago, the Internet was dominated by a couple of game development website. One was GameDev.net, still going strong after all of these years, and the other was Flipcode.
Both had an archive of articles, but Flipcode focused almost entirely on the technical side of game development. It even had an Image of the Day, which included Telltale Game’s first project, Telltale Texas Hold’em, AIGameDev.com’s editor Alex Champandard’s voxel engine demo, Sol/Jari Komppa’s shadow contest entry, and hamumu/Mike Hommel’s first foray into 16-bit color. There’s even something by Jetro Lauha. B-) I wish I had submitted something of my own so I could be nostalgic about it today.
Unfortunately, in 2005, Flipcode shut down. The closure note said:
I realize this announcement may be a disappointment to many, but I feel I’ve done all I can with this site to serve the game development community over the years. The industry is changing rapidly, as is the face of the web. There are plenty of other game development resources out there (of all shapes and sizes), and more are sure to pop up. I genuinely hope you enjoyed your stay at flipCode, and wish you the best of luck with your future adventures.
The article archives were left up, which is good because they remained useful references for years if you were interested in graphics programming and example source code for topics such as surface subdivision, encoders, and resource managers.
Yesterday, there was a message by Flipcode’s founder, Kurt, that the site was being brought back. It already has some updates, although it seems to be primarily links to other sites and news.
To be honest, I expected other sites to fill the void after its closure. And while I’ve seen a few sites step up, I haven’t seen the same raw spirit I saw in flipcode and its community. *That’s* what this ‘reboot’ stuff is all about. At the moment I’m in a position where I hope to put in the time to rebuild a site that’s worthy of the name. And once the ball gets rolling, I’d love to establish a small team to ensure the site has a bright future, always capable of adapting to changing times– something I should’ve done the first time around.
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flipcode has always been about the community. The site itself is essentially just a tool to help organize and coordinate content, around which a community can thrive and amazing things can emerge. In the coming weeks and months, I expect to be rebuilding the familiar, core features (such as forums, IOTD, etc), while still exploring some cool new directions for the site. I expect to soon be tweeting about progress, as well as potentially blogging. But most importantly, I’d love to hear what you think about this whole mess.
Over the last few years, there’s been a couple of times when I’ve checked on the site to make sure it was still up. That the site is going to be updated again is very good news indeed. Welcome back, Flipcode!