The classic flash game Happy Wheels is now available to purchase on Steam. Ahhh, nostalgia. Nice to see this game will live forever.
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There is also Flashpoint for flash games if steam is unavailable your country.
So, what is is it? The web version + a web browser shoved onto Steam? The flash version and flash player shoved onto Steam (like “Transformice”)? The mobile version?
The system requirements say “Any GPU with WebGL” which sounds like it’s the fucking web browser one, although the actual game uses a 2D canvas and not WebGL I am pretty sure.
EDIT: yup it’s a browser. For a free to play browser game.
Directory listing from BTDigg:
- chrome_100_percent.pak 702.79 KB
- chrome_200_percent.pak 1.21 MB
- d3dcompiler_47.dll 4.52 MB
- dxcompiler.dll 24.55 MB
- dxil.dll 1.44 MB
- ffmpeg.dll 2.97 MB
- Happy Wheels.exe 234.94 MB
- icudtl.dat 10.37 MB
- LICENSE.electron.txt 1.07 KB
- LICENSES.chromium.html 19.52 MB
- …
Why is this a problem?
You waste a few hundred megs of disk storage and a few gigs of RAM to get the same shit as https://totaljerkface.com/happy_wheels.tjf but with achievements.
Was about to mention the Flash version at happy_wheels_flash.tjf but they broke it. Ran fine at least last year, I tried it.
The only good thing I see here is offline support, although someone could code it as a userscript using “service workers”. I know the totaljerkface won’t, because money. If you really want, you could just open the Newgrounds demo (featuring the Flash exclusive “Green hills” level) in desktop Ruffle. You will get bored of it after a bit but if you get a few dozen more Flash games it’s fine. Oh, and the actual Newgrounds page for it has controller support, it says so in the sidebar. One of the things advertised on Steam is controller support, so I guess that’s nothing new as well… On Newgrounds it’s not analog, but I don’t see why anyone wouldn’t be using a dpad here anyway.
So what? Why are you acting like it’s a great scam or grand conspiracy? It is the web game - now on Steam. It wasn’t advertised as anything more than just a version of the web game you can play for a few dollars. Are you upset it’s bundling Electron instead of the game being re-written in Assembly for maximum optimization? It’s a very simple game that runs on everything. But thanks for the cynical breakdown of the technology used, I guess.
Everything? A modern internet browser is pretty resource intensive. If the game was done with a proper multiplatform game engine, maybe in Godot, and was exported to Linux, Windows, Mac and to the browser, then it would probably have a better chance to run on more devices.
If you’re on a computer that can’t run a web browser in 2026 I’m out of words honestly.
Also, Godot exported to the web would definitely run worse than a game made directly for the browser.
If you’re on a computer that can’t run a web browser in 2026 I’m out of words honestly.
You are moving the goal post here. Some people game on systems that don’t support modern browsers.
Also, Godot exported to the web would definitely run worse than a game made directly for the browser.
That depends on how the game was made. Godot exports to Wasm and WebGL, which is web assembly, and generally pretty fast. I don’t know anything about that game, but there are certainly worse ways to make games natively in the browser, which could be avoided by using a proper engine. Of course you can also write unoptimized games in Godot as well.
But a good native Godot export is certainly faster then a good web export of the same game made with web technology.
You are moving the goal post here.
And you’re being pedantic. Any computer made in the last 15 years can run a browser. If your laptop can’t run a browser, you probably can’t even run Steam. Why are we even talking about this?
But a good native Godot export is certainly faster then a good web export of the same game made nativley with web technology.
I’m a Godot developer and this is wrong.
You got it backwards last paragraph but yup, nothing to add.
If you’re on a computer that can’t run a web browser in 2026 I’m out of words honestly.
Not everyone can afford all of your Steam Decks or whatever. I am sure there are plenty of people who have to either go do something else while a site loads or browse like this:
Obviously not running much of any browser games there, apart from web form quizzes.
Godot exported to the web would definitely run worse than a game made directly for the browser.
Yes, that’s for lazy bastards to try the game for placebo when it would be actually faster to install, or for little Timmy to play on a school computer.
Problem in question is when you have:
- Discord (Electron)
- Slack or Teams whatever
- Steam for DRM (Chrome Embedded Framework)
- The game (Electron)
running all at once. You can just skip Steam and run everything else in one instance of Firefox.
Oh, and let’s not forget the “average person” will also have Spotify (literally just desktop Chrome), the Winsoft from Microdows 11 React Native start menu and the 3 macrohard background Chromium instances from different era embed APIs. Let’s not support it any further.
i knew it
Hope the performance is better.
Sounds like it is not, see my other comment.
tried it yesterday on my deck, didn’t notice any performance issues. has there been?
The web version is notorious for abysmal load times, if a level loads at all.
https://totaljerkface.com/happy_wheels.tjf
… dad?
We’re so back. Can’t wait to see a new influx of community maps!
Huh, never saw this before. Happy Tree Friends vibes.
amazing trailer and music
It is the original menu 35 second .ogg from 2010 (SuperPretzel.ogg). It is showing “featured levels”, I don’t know when that was finalized but probably around that time.
