The Game Genres Shaped By Browser Games

If one were to recount the history of video games, in full, how genres bloomed, hits became massive influences, and trends shaped throughout the years, it might be easy to gloss over, or even to entirely skip, the significant impact that browser games have had. For most, the golden age of browser games was roughly from the mid-2000s to the early or mid-2010s, a short span in gaming history. However, within that short span, several genres were defined, while others would take undeniable influence. Here are a few of the genres that have been, in one way or another, greatly influenced by browser games.

 

Rogue-lites

The idea of randomly generated levels, progress resetting to zero after each death, and meta-progression between runs did not begin on the browser. Indeed, the game Rogue, for which the genre is named (although not without contention) had two of those out of the gate. However, browser games turned out to be the perfect fomenting ground, creating the super accessible loop that rogue-lites are still popular for, to this day. A lot of these were Flash games, meaning that they are lost to time, but there are still some rogue-lites that are very much playable in your browser.
 

RPGs

There are a lot of modern RPG developers that got their start in making games for the browser. The first one that immediately comes to mind is the Kingdom of Loathing series, which has gone on to be quite popular in Steam downloads. Indeed, the original Kingdom of Loathing is still very much playable on the browser. The genre of “micro RPG” also grew as a result of browser games, with things like Adventure Quest leading to a wide host of similarly inspired games that aimed to offer epic sprawling adventures but in a much more convenient and digestible package.
 

MMOs

Perhaps the biggest influence that browsers had on the RPG sphere is more so in the online space. After all, some of the very first online RPGs were played entirely or partially through browsers. The very original MUD is still there to play in its entirety, as well. A lot of the browser-based MMOs that were highly popular, such as Dragon’s Call, have been lost to time. Runescape is another that was browser-based, but has since become an entirely independent app, and is still one of the most popular MMOs to this day, and a strong source of nostalgia for some of the internet’s earliest adventures. The nature of having to maintain and update online games to keep them running for a player base does make them unfortunately difficult to keep online in the long term.
 

Puzzle Games

The modern puzzle game, as we understand it, may well have spawned from social media websites, such as Facebook. While the originators of the genre in video game form, such as Tetris, Puzzle Bobble, and the like have continued throughout the ages, as we started to move deeper into 3D technology, these games were sold increasingly less as standalone products. After all, who is going to buy a full-price Tetris game over Metal Gear Solid 3? While the more flexible pricing of modern games opened up the market again, to the relief of many, browser puzzle games held that torch for a long time, and it was games like Bubble Witch and Farm Heroes Saga that helped a lot of gamers, not just the core casual audience of Facebook games, get their fix.

 

Casino Games

There are old console games that emulate casino games and allow you to take your stack of digital money and blow it however you like. However, it wasn’t until the advent of the internet that games inspired by the casino floor truly blew up. A lot of this was due to the discovery of real online casinos but, for those who don’t want to bet real money, there are plenty of free slots and other games that emulate the experience and help you hit that dopamine button without any real risk behind it. As for real casino games, such as online poker, they’re a lot more regulated nowadays, so the boom is well and truly done for them.
 

The “Vampire Survivor-like” Genre

Also known as “bullet heaven,” although fans of SHMUPs, especially the danmaku/bullet hell variety really do hate that, this is one genre that is mostly modeled after one game: Vampire Survivors. Although not the first game of its genre, with Magical Survival and Crimsonland having some really similar elements, the developer, Luca Galante, famously noted in an interview that casino games were a key inspiration in how to keep the super simple game playable, engaging, and to leave a long-lasting impact on players. Many of the tropes in these games were developed in the browser space, so it’s not surprising that Vamprie Survivors feels like a browser game to so many.
 

VNs and Adventure Games

A genre that has become a lot more popular as of late, visual novels and text-based adventure games did not find life on the browser, with some of the earliest examples appearing on NES. However, they certainly flourished there, with the popularity of the text-based adventure taking hold in a wide range of sites, some of them directed at those looking for more traditional fantasy adventures, while others tapped into a more online fic-savvy crowd. A lot of the writers from these online text adventure spaces have come on to make their own adventure games being sold through platforms like Steam, and there’s no denying that the genre now has a very strong niche of people always looking forward to the latest text-heavy release.
 

Tower Defense

Again, tower defense games did not begin on the browser. Depending on who you ask, Rampart was the very first of them, and it was an Atari game. However, there is no denying that browser tower games, and those made in Flash, in particular, were where the genre really got its running start, with Kingdom Rush and the Bloons TD series both being key examples of the genre’s popularity that are still running, to this day. Nowadays, there are indie tower defense games released on Steam every week, as the simple loop of placing down your units, or building your towers, surviving a wave, and optimizing things for a better performance next time is one that immediately grabs the gamer’s thinking brain for a challenge.

 

Battle Royale Games

When you think of battle royale games, your first thought might be things like Fortnite, Call of Duty: Battlegrounds, or Apex Legends. However, there is another type of battle royale game, the type that Tetris 99 and Pac-man 99 fall into, and these games can easily be traced back to some of the hottest trending browser games of their kind.  Snake.io might be the most popular of them all, either that or Agar.io, which saw players take the form of blobs, with each player looking to eat smaller blobs to grow bigger and, eventually, be the last blob standing (or blobbing). It’s a very simple gameplay formula, but it’s not unfair to say that it has influenced battle royale games of every type through the sheer nature of getting a big number of players online and having them duke it out, with everyone against everyone else.
 

Idle Games

It may not have been the very first idle game, (also known as incremental games, since some of them don’t really allow you to be idle) but Cookie Clicker is what defined what people expect from the mechanics of an idle game ever since. These games were almost perfect for browser games, not requiring a controller or full incorporation of the keyboard, with no need for fancy graphics, either. It’s just about clicking, waiting, and strategizing to build resources so that you can gain resources faster to reinvest in your resource harvesting. It might seem almost thoughtless at a glance, but this genre is still going on very strong today, and it all began on the browser.
 

Quiz Games

Whether you consider them a video game or not is up to you, but online and browser quizzes have definitely been some of the trendiest interactive experiences in recent times. The most popular of them all, Wordle, spawns a countless legion of imitators, and it lives entirely on the browser and on smartphones. For gamers, you might want to take a look at a more specifically aimed gaming off-shoot called Guess The Game. If you’re in a Discord group, start playing this with your friends and you will some people get very serious about trying to keep that streak going for as long as possible.
 

Of course, many of these genres have had long histories outside of browsers, while some browser games are being developed right now that will likely influence others. The history isn’t a straight line but look deep enough and it's undeniable that browser games have played a much bigger part than we often give credence to.