Winnie the Pooh's Home Run Derby will be shutting down in Japan next month, the end to an area for a legendarily-difficult Flash game.
You might be wondering what the heck Winne the Pooh's Home Run Derby actually is. Simply put, it's a Flash game where players participate in a home run derby, a special event played in baseball. Typically, a home run derby involved a batter trying to hit as many home runs as they possibly can with a certain number of pitches.
This flash game has players participating in such a competition and features characters from the Winnie the Pooh franchise. Pooh himself serves as the batter and friends like Eeyore, Piglet, and Tigger serve as the pitches. This is a game that was clearly made for children, so it'd be sensible that think that this is a super-easy game for kids. That is where you would be very, very wrong. Just check out this speedrun of the game to see the kind of insanity you'll have to deal with:
Players must progress through each pitcher by hitting a certain number of home runs with the allotted pitches. It starts off easily enough with Eeyore chucking some proverbial softballs at the player, but the difficulty quickly ramps up from there. Pitches will zig, zag, and outright defy physics in what may be one of the most frustrating Flash games ever created by human hands.
Winnie the Pooh's Home Run Derby falls into that unique class of children's games that are, for some reason, insanely difficult. The sheer level of challenge made the game appeal to gamers well outside of its intended audience, but now it's shutting down for good next month.
Why (and When) is Winnie the Pooh's Home Run Derby Shutting Down?
As Siliconera reports, Winnie the Pooh's Home Run Derby is shutting down for one simple reason: it's a Flash game. If you haven't quite connected the dots, this is where I remind you that support for the Flash player is ending in 2020. The game will close for good on December 126, 2020, in Japan.
The end of Flash Player support means that a lot of gaming history is running the risk of being lost. A number of organizations are working hard to preserve what they can in the meantime — most notably, Flashpoint and NewGrounds are engaging in efforts to preserve this medium.
Despite its impending closure, Winnie the Pooh's Home Run Derby is leaving behind a legacy of rage-filled videos on YouTube. That said, there are still some places where one can play it if they look around including Disney's website.
If you've ever been curious about trying it out for yourself, now's the time — it might be pretty hard to play this classic Flash game beyond 2020. And who knows — perhaps the efforts to preserve Flash will protect this game so that future generations may know what despair truly feels like.
Have you ever played Winnie the Pooh's Home Run Derby? What's the hardest Flash game you've ever played? Let us know in the comments below!
