FlashThemes (previously codenamed as Wrapper 2) is a GoAnimate Legacy Video Maker restoration project developed by MegaT with assistance from It'sJay (formerly: Poley Magik). It intended to be the unofficial successor to VisualPlugin's GoAnimate Wrapper and all "wrappers" in general. Development began in mid-2019 and production began in late 2020 with private beta-testing starting the following year. It is a self-described passion project according to MegaT.[1]
The project was originally known as Wrapper 2 to the public, being a codename for the official title.
FlashThemes was a revival of the GoAnimate Legacy Video Maker, inspired by the 2009-2014 incarnation of GoAnimate, with elements of later versions mixed in. It includes most of the missing features that most other "wrappers" and Legacy Video Maker revivals do not contain, such as true importing, video exporting, a community tab, an account system, user friendly mod integration, watermarks, and a mostly bug-free light-weight experience. Other bonus features it contains include community events, the Quick Video Maker, team collaboration features, comment sections on videos, fully customizable accounts with public video viewing, comments, reactions, likes, dislikes, etc, translations for Spanish, Portuguese and French (with more coming soon), and more.
FlashThemes requires the Adobe Flash Player. FlashThemes provides modern builds of Flash and compatible browsers on their Get Flash page.
For news and info about the project, join the Discord server!
History[]
Early History: mid-2019 - mid-2020[]
Conceptualization began in mid-2019, throughout the chaos in the community as the LVM was sunsetting. Nothing really went beyond this as the project was too ambitious and nobody involved had the necessary programming skills to create such a thing at the time. This sentiment changed after the release of VisualPlugin's GoAnimate Wrapper project.
Early Development (First Stage): February 2020 - November 2020[]
It'sJay teasing the project to GoAnimate City members.
Early 'Wrapper 2' logo.
Around late 2020, GoAnimate Wrapper was abandoned by VisualPlugin due to his views on ethics involved, Wrapper: Offline, Wrapper's direct unofficial successor was put in control by Keegan Salisbury (Imageny/xomdjll_ at the time) after being handed ownership of the project by previous owner benson. This project was criticized by MegaT and It'sJay for it's sub-par code and lack of improvement on the base Wrapper project, along with an unrelated clone entitled FutureAnimate. Believing they could do better, MegaT and It'sJay decided to go forward with making a new clone, with a goal of giving an authentic and stable animating experience. Another motivation behind this was because Mega wanted to do something greater than any other person could, revolutionize the process of content creation in the community, revive creativity in the community, and just generally have a nice place for the community to bond. MegaT along with It'sJay gathered the resources they needed and began development. They announced the project in Discord server GoAnimate City on October 1st, 2020.
"Cancellation"[]
On November 13th, 2020 FlashThemes ended up cancelled due to Samantha emailing Vyond about LVM-clones. The email said that Vyond "didn't approve" any LVM-clone of kind. MegaT and It'sJay decided to suspend FlashThemes's development. The email was largely discredited later on. On December 20th, 2020 the FlashThemes project was revived.
Mid-Development (Second Stage): December 2020 - February 2022[]
On December 24th, 2020, MegaT left GoAnimate City and said he needed a break from the server so he could have more time to focus on his project. The project was rumored to be cancelled again, and on January 4th, 2021, GoAnimate City Admin 2Epik4u announced FlashThemes was "now closed".
The project wasn't cancelled however, instead just being closed-off to the public, to be worked on with less stress, with intent on potentially returning once the project had more progress to show, as at the time it was considered to be lacking in tangible progress by the team. It was open to beta-testers and moderators only.
Late-Development (Third Stage): March 2022 - July 2022[]
Logo for 'Wrapper 2' before FlashThemes was adopted as the public name.
Kaneedian leaking FlashThemes by accident
On March 7th, 2022, FlashThemes returned to the public-eye as the announcement channel in GoAnimate City for it was reopened. This had been teasing this in the weeks prior by the devs. They announced significant progress and future plans for the application, and later made a public information document to help answer common questions that would come up often in Q&A.
On April 26th, 2022, a contest was announced, involving a user submitting a video to be used for the "Quick Video Maker" feature, to be added to FlashThemes. The contest has since concluded, and the winners were announced on October 1st.
On May 17th, 2022, during Kaneedian's birthday livestream, Kaneedian accidentally leaked the URL (among other details) of FlashThemes' website. Although the stream was privatized quickly, the damage had been dealt and it resulted in the official name of FlashThemes (known as Wrapper 2) at the time, being leaked to public.
Pre-Release (Fourth Stage): August 2022 - September 2023[]
On August 18, 2022, the FlashThemes Discord server was officially opened to the public. People could see teasers, announcements, and more, which was previously only available in tid-bits from the GoAnimate City Discord server. This also was followed up with Samantha becoming an assistant developer, (similar to It'sJay) mostly working on the front-end.
On September 4th, 2022, Samantha sent a message in the FlashThemes Discord server saying "27", followed up the next day with MegaT saying "26", and from there the trend continued. This was speculated to be the amount of days left until the release.
Samantha and MegaT teasing the release date.
On September 10th, 2022, a livestream (which has since been privated for unknown reasons) was done on the FlashThemes channel, where the website and its features were shown off, along with a few videos some beta-testers made. It was officially confirmed by MegaT that October 1st, 2022 was the release date. The release was later delayed to October 31st, 2022, possibly because the front end of the site was being re-written at the time. On October 31st, less than an hour before the intended release, MegaT announced FlashThemes had been delayed after realising that the product wasn’t gonna be able to be finished in time, and would be full of bugs. and confirmed that the site will release when it is stable and ready. In June of 2023, MegaT and Samantha got into some drama that led to her stepping down as a FlashThemes developer for a short time, eventually returning in September.
MegaT announcing FlashThemes's delay on October 31 2022
On September 3rd, 2023, it was announced via a video on the FlashThemes youtube channel that FlashThemes would be released on September 9th 2023. The video was met with a positive response from many people in the community. The same day, a countdown clock was added to the FlashThemes maintenance page which when finished FlashThemes would end up being launched.
Release (September 2023)[]
FlashThemes was officially released on September 9, 2023 at 6:00 PM UTC, but the site had to go into maintenance within 20 minutes because of a large influx of traffic caused by new users signing up and creating videos, which caused the site to run extremely slow. The site came back online an hour later, but continued to be slow. The site became functional later that night when its traffic slowed down, and the issue was fixed the following day after tweaking some settings. While mostly positively received, some users had issues with aspects of the site, such as the use of the virtual currency "FlashTokens" being needed for exporting, and quality control issues on the shop.
Post-release (September 2023-Present)[]
FlashThemes since release has been updated every now and then, with mainly bug fixes and improvements. A massive update for the site (referred by the devs as V2) is currently in development and is set to be released sometime in the coming months.
Staff[]
| Contributor | Role |
|---|---|
| MegaT | Owner, Development Lead |
| It'sJay | Programming Assistance, Graphic Design, QVM Lead |
| GoTube | Financial Backing, Moderator |
| Milesium | Financial Backing, Moderator |
| Kaneedian | French Translator, Moderator |
| ppanther | Spanish Translator |
| DarthKirby7601 | Spanish Translator |
| CollieCalamari | Portuguese Translator |
| Tbone Animate | Moderator |
| Nematode | Moderator |
| noelle | Moderator |
| axel_lol | Moderator |
| imani | Moderator |
| Contributor | Role |
|---|---|
| yeaimsammi (Samantha) | Former Frontend Assistance |
| aubzz (LemonadeSnake) | Former Moderator |
| Wizard Animate | Former Moderator |
Features[]
- Social Media experience
- Pre-Fall 2013 video/user layout
- 2010-2016 LVMs
- 2013 and 2016 CCs
- QVMs (two of them are currently functional, with the others are coming when the version 2.0 stated to release in 2025)
- All of the old Goanimate themes
- Community Library
- Video Exporting (need FlashTokens)
- Importing
- Custom Assets (To get you need FlashTokens and to publish also.)
- Live Character Creator (FT Studio exclusive)
- Missing Stock Characters (New feature added on March 1st, 2024)
- Multiple languages (since March 2024)