I never watched the series myself but I do remember hearing about it.
In the video essay he talks about how flash videos like Home Star Runner were a unique medium. Not quite passive like a video but not quite interactive like a video game. The videos could be watched passively but also could incorporate interactive elements like minigames, easter eggs, and choose your own adventure stories.
He points out that even when Netflix dipped into the choose your own adventure format they couldn't achieve the same flexibility as a flash animation because if for example they wanted to make a story change that would dye a character's hair blue they couldn't possibly film all the permutations scenes required to propagate that visual difference throughout the story.
But in flash animation you can. You can easily let the audience choose a character's hair color and have that effect the animation for the rest of the story.
The author of that YouTube video made me wish I could experience those cartoons and it makes me happy that places like the IA are making that possible.
I never watched the series myself but I do remember hearing about it.
In the video essay he talks about how flash videos like Home Star Runner were a unique medium. Not quite passive like a video but not quite interactive like a video game. The videos could be watched passively but also could incorporate interactive elements like minigames, easter eggs, and choose your own adventure stories.
He points out that even when Netflix dipped into the choose your own adventure format they couldn't achieve the same flexibility as a flash animation because if for example they wanted to make a story change that would dye a character's hair blue they couldn't possibly film all the permutations scenes required to propagate that visual difference throughout the story.
But in flash animation you can. You can easily let the audience choose a character's hair color and have that effect the animation for the rest of the story.
The author of that YouTube video made me wish I could experience those cartoons and it makes me happy that places like the IA are making that possible.