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Tom Fulp

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Tom Fulp
Fulp in 2024
Born (1978-04-30) April 30, 1978 (age 46)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Alma materDrexel University
OccupationProgrammer
Known for
Spouse
April Fulp
​
(m. 2007)​
Children2

Thomas Charles Fulp (born April 30, 1978) is an American programmer known for creating the website Newgrounds and co-founding the video game company The Behemoth.[1][2][3]

Fulp has been credited with "changing the landscape of the Internet forever" by kickstarting the browser game scene in the late 1990s, both with the releases of his own advanced Flash games and the launch of the Newgrounds Portal, one of the first sites that allowed creators to easily share their creations with a large online audience.[4][5][6][3] Fulp is also known for his browser game preservation work.[7]

Biography

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Fulp (left) with the Behemoth in 2007

Fulp was born and raised in Perkasie, Pennsylvania, on April 30, 1978. In 1991, Fulp launched a Neo Geo fanzine called New Ground and sent issues to approximately 100 members of a club originating on the online service Prodigy.[8] Using a hosting service, he launched a website called New Ground Remix in 1995, which increased in popularity during the summer of 1996 after Fulp created the BBS games Club a Seal and Assassin, after graduating from Pennridge High School. Eventually, this site turned into Newgrounds.com.[9][10]

In 1999, Fulp created the game Pico's School in Macromedia Flash 3, before the launch of the scripting language ActionScript that subsequent Flash game developers would use. The game "exhibited a complexity of design and polish in presentation that was virtually unseen in amateur Flash game development" until then and has been credited both with helping kickstarting the Flash games scene and launching Newgrounds as a "public force".[11][12]

Fulp co-created the Flash game Alien Hominid, which he later developed for consoles under The Behemoth, and the console game Castle Crashers.[13][14]

Fulp received the Pioneer award at the 2021 Game Developers Choice Awards for the creation of Newgrounds and for being a trailblazer of the Macromedia Flash games that helped define a generation of indie developers.[5][6]

Games

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Year Title
1999 Pico's School
2002 Alien Hominid
2008 Castle Crashers
2010 The Room Tribute
2013 BattleBlock Theater
2018 Pit People

References

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  1. ^ Torres, Nichole L. (July 1, 2008). "Get in the Game". The Washington Post. Retrieved March 25, 2009.
  2. ^ Wolf, Mark J. P. (2008). The Video Game Explosion: A History from Pong to PlayStation and Beyond. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 197. ISBN 978-0-313-33868-7.
  3. ^ a b Asarch, Steven (April 6, 2020). "20 years ago today, Newgrounds changed the internet forever with the Portal". Newsweek.
  4. ^ Moss, Richard C. (July 7, 2020). "The rise and fall of Adobe Flash". Ars Technica. Retrieved August 7, 2021.
  5. ^ a b "Tom Fulp and Laralyn McWilliams to be honored at 2021 Game Developers Choice Awards". Game Developers Conference. July 1, 2021.
  6. ^ a b Partis, Danielle (July 22, 2021). "Hades and Ghost of Tsushima triumph at GDC Awards 2021". GamesIndustry.biz.
  7. ^ Elker, Jhaan (April 8, 2021). "Newgrounds founder Tom Fulp on Flash and the challenges of preserving two decades of content". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 21, 2021.
  8. ^ "1991: The Zine". Newgrounds. Archived from the original on March 31, 2021. Retrieved April 20, 2018.
  9. ^ "#105 At World's End - Reply All by Gimlet Media". Gimlet Media. Archived from the original on September 29, 2017. Retrieved September 25, 2017.
  10. ^ Fulp, Tom. "NEWGROUNDS WIKI: TomFulp". Newgrounds. Retrieved April 30, 2011.
  11. ^ Williams, Andrew (2017). History of Digital Games: Developments in Art, Design and Interaction. The objective of Pico's school was to survive a school shooting perpetuated by ninjas and aliens disguised as Goth teenagers. Despite the game's theme, which pushed the limits of black humor and political correctness (like much of the content on Newgrounds), it exhibited a complexity of design and polish in presentation that was virtually unseen in amateur Flash game development.
  12. ^ "The rise and fall of Adobe Flash". Ars Technica. July 7, 2020. Retrieved August 7, 2021.
  13. ^ Remo, Chris (July 30, 2007). "Comic-Con 07: Castle Crashers Preview and Interview with The Behemoth's Tom Fulp". Shacknews. Retrieved March 25, 2009.
  14. ^ Remo, Chris; Sheffield, Brandon (December 12, 2008). "Taunting The Behemoth: Tom Fulp and Dan Paladin Cry Out". Game Developer. Archived from the original on August 23, 2021. Retrieved July 21, 2021.
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