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Tom Fulp

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Tom Fulp
Fulp in 2007
Born (1978-04-30) April 30, 1978 (age 46)
Perkasie, Pennsylvania, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Alma materPennridge School District
Drexel University
Occupation(s)Founder, Webmaster, and Administrator of Newgrounds, Video game programmer, and co-owner of The Behemoth.
Spouse(s)April Fulp
(m. 2007)
Children2

Thomas Charles Fulp (born April 30, 1978) is the creator of the game and animation website Newgrounds and co-founder of video game company The Behemoth.[1][2][3] He has been credited with "changing the landscape of the Internet forever" and kickstarting the browser game scene in the late 1990's, both with the releases of his own unprecedentedly advanced Flash games but more importantly the launch of the Newgrounds Portal, which made Newgrounds one of the very first sites that allowed creators to easily share their creations with a large online audience.[4][5][6][3]

Fulp is also notable for his browser game preservation work.[7]

Biography

Fulp was born in Perkasie, Pennsylvania on April 30, 1978 and he was raised there. 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 Shockwave Flash 3, before the launch of the scripting language ActionScript which 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]

Family

Tom married his wife April on May 12, 2007. She gave birth to a son named Liam on March 25, 2009, and another son, Adam, in July 2011. Tom's older brother, Wade Fulp, manages social media on Newgrounds.

Games

References

  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 (6 April 2020). "20 years ago today, Newgrounds changed the internet forever with the Portal". Newsweek.
  4. ^ Moss, Richard C. (7 July 2020). "The rise and fall of Adobe Flash". Ars Technica. Retrieved 7 August 2021.
  5. ^ a b "Tom Fulp and Laralyn McWilliams to be honored at 2021 Game Developers Choice Awards". Game Developers Conference. 1 July 2021.
  6. ^ a b Partis, Danielle. "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 21 July 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". gimletmedia.com. 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 Newgroudns), it exhibited a complexity of design and polish in presentation that was virtually unseen in amateur Flash game development.
  12. ^ Staff, Ars (7 July 2020). "The rise and fall of Adobe Flash". Ars Technica. Retrieved 7 August 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. "Taunting The Behemoth: Tom Fulp and Dan Paladin Cry Out". Gamasutra. Retrieved 21 July 2021.
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