The guys at Effect Games were actually making a pretty kickass javascript game engine in basic non-HTML5 HTML, using all kinds of Flash hacks to get sound and other advanced stuff working... until libraries like impact.js came out and browsers made a jump forward to support canvas and HTML5 better.
Hi there, I won't speak for Joe nor Mark (the color cycling demo was their baby, but I'll pass along the sentiments), but thanks for the kind comments about Effect Games.
As far as Gold Cart is concerned, we're working mainly on some short "experiments". By way of a preview, http://itsmin.com/portfolio/goldcart/gbasp/ Again, thanks for remembering us.
As for where jhuckaby is and what he's up to, I don't know. But I respect his work and his code.
EffectGames is something I'm really familar with. I worked on the open sourced version, fixing bugs and adding features over the last 8 months as part of a school project. I've added libraries, fixed up the online text editor, and learned a lot. Now that the project is over I'm debating whether I should keep up the work and get a webgl rendering pipeline working or if my time is better spent on other things.
So they shut it down and started a game development company: http://www.goldcartridge.com/
I wonder what they're up to?