Flashpoint - An app to access & play Flash-based game archives after Flash goes EOL...

[mikewalsh]

Afternoon, guys & gals.

Now then:-

Research for this was 'sparked' by a query from forum member xenial, just yesterday.....and it got me thinking, because I've recently become interested in the subject matter myself.

The subject? Adobe's "Flash Player", which is finally retiring at the end of this year. More specifically, Flash-based games.

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The issue - and it's been widely-discussed across the web on multiple fora over the course of this year - is simple. We're all aware that Adobe Flash is being retired, OK? Many people have enjoyed playing Flash-based games over the years. I proved myself, earlier this year, that you could download the 'Flash-Player Debugger', and use it on the desktop to play Flash games with. Just drop your SWF files onto it, and off you go.

All well & good, you might think. Just download a copy and keep it for games in perpetuity, yes? Oh, if ONLY it were that simple...

It became general knowledge around the middle of the year that Adobe, crafty buggers that they are, had made sure to build a date-sensitive "kill-switch" into recent builds of the thing. When January 1st rolls round, every one of these recent versions will not only quit working, but there's a good chance they'll corrupt & break any SWF files you try to play on them.

Any builds prior to 32.0.0.3xx don't have this "kill-switch", and should, therefore, be immune. No problem; download an older version from their archives, yes? Err....no. 'Fraid not!

Adobe, in preparation for EOL - remember, this was announced some 3 years ago - have already de-commissioned the Flash archives. For users, these no longer exist, and you can only d/l the newest version.....which will quit working in a little under 2 months time. Many have seen this as blatant intent to deliberately make sure the older versions CANNOT be downloaded any longer, thereby depriving thousands of the pleasure that Flash-based games bring.

Enter BlueMaxima.......and the 'Flashpoint' project.

https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/

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This is an attempt to archive as many of these games as possible, along with providing a means of playing the things for years to come. The BlueMaxima team have been busily downloading as many games as they possibly can for the whole of this year, and have currently amassed a huge database of the things, accessible via their own servers. However, it's not quite as simple as merely downloading those games and playing them through an older version of Flash....

It appears that many of these games are "locked" to the sites they were originally hosted on. This ensures they can't be downloaded, and the user has to keep returning to that site to play them....

Essentially, Flashpoint has been created by combining a stripped-back Chromium browser (the Electron platform) with a local 'proxy' server; this permits downloading the games to play on the local machine.....while tricking the game into thinking it's still running on the original website. Even more crafty.

And it in fact works really rather well, all things considered..! The only 'drawback' is that WINE is required, due to the fact of the initial app 'updates' all being poached from Windows.....including the all-important multiple versions of FlashPlayer itself.

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Rockedge provided invaluable assistance during the "getting-it-to-work" phase. Initial tests complained about not finding PHP. That said, and bearing in mind the principle this is working on, I had visions of the full LAMP 'stack' being needed.

We decided to start off with just the 'minimal', cli-based version of PHP; it appears this thing can also be used as a general programming language. Turns out that was almost all that was needed, along with a pair of deps I've not come across before - libargon2, and libargon2-dev - and the creation of a relative sym-link in /usr/bin.

Anyways.....

Here, for anybody who's interested, or merely curious, are SFS packages that will run under Fossapup64, Bionicpup64, and Xenialpup64. The original package works in the two newer Pups, while Xenialpup needed a modified package, due to the requirement for a slightly older version of PHP - 7.0 instead of 7.2.

Fossapup64/Bionicpup64:- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1raOV6Z ... sp=sharing

Xenialpup64:- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TFqAEU ... sp=sharing

The database can be a bit 'hit or miss' - not everything you select will load/run. Most are coming via BlueMaxima's servers, but some are coming direct from their original sites. I will say this; everything I've so far tried in the "Hall of Fame" seems to load & run as it should.

(Once you've fired-it up, you'll be prompted to download the updates (this is all the important data needed for everything to run properly), along with creating a directory for it all to live in. After this process has run its course, the 'Home' page will still appear to say you need to update.....but you can safely ignore t after that.)

Enjoy.

Mike.

[xenial]

Thank you for that very informative post which is very much appreciated.!
435gb is one hell of a download and my main area of flash is the room escape point and click adventure genre.I have yet to find viable html5 alternatives in this area.

I myself have downloaded approximately 60 swf files but until the end of december i have no idea how the browser plugin will behave.There is a version 10,11 of adobe flash available in the puppy package manager which may work on some of them if version 32.0.0 433 stops entirely.

not sure if any of these files will work with a puppy media player of some sort or vlc maybe.?
Crying shame adobe didn't leave the door ajar so those great flash games could still be played.

[mikewalsh]

@xenial :-

Afternoon, young man..!

Well, you may not need to download that humungous wadge of data.....unless, of course, you have already done so! If all you want to do is to play your own games - and you don't mind running WINE for this - there's a way round that.

There's a sub-directory inside all that stuff that gets downloaded, simply labelled 'Flash'. When you look inside this, there's a whole bunch of different FlashPlayer releases, right from early FP2 all the way up to the current FP32; I'm guessing this is so there's always a version of the right 'age' for most any game.

Do be aware; this is NOT the same item as we use in the browsers. That's a browser plug-in; these are 'standalone' players.

That directory of stuff you download at the beginning, I confess I hadn't even looked at the size of it. That is indeed a big download; not for the faint-hearted! Mine in fact measures out at just under 2 GB ATM; there's also an SQlite database there which stores games preferences, settings, number of times you've played any given item, number of times Flashpoint has had to connect to an external website, connection data.....all sorts of things. That probably accounts for a good chunk of that, all told.

If I'd still been on my old hardware, I would have balked at that, though you can of course specify a separate partition for this stuff. It doesn't have to sit in the save. Mine is 'set' as being in /opt, though I've moved this out to a secondary internal drive and sym-linked it back so that Flashpoint still 'sees' it.

Having moved all the way up from 3 GB to 16 GB, increased up to 5 TB of storage, and with a way more powerful processor, too, it's got so I can do all sorts of stuff now that I simply wouldn't have been able to before. It's getting bad when a packager stops considering those running less-capable hardware, though I will admit, there aren't many apps that want this kind of disk space.....and this project is, I think, something worth having around.

(Having said all this, of course, gamers think nothing of needing several GB of data for just one game, so.....I guess it's all relative, TBH.)

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To play your own games, it's a bit 'hacky'; it's not done through the app itself.

Locate that data directory we've just been talking about, and go into the FPSoftware->Flash directory. Drag the newest one - FlashPlayer 32.exe - out onto your desktop; this is FP 32.0.0.142, so pre-"kill-switch". (This next bit assumes you have WINE running, of course, since these are all Windows players.)

Click on the FlashPlayer to fire it up. A blank player window will appear, with a small Menu bar. Click on 'Open'.

A wee window appears; you can select a URL, or browse for local files. Click on 'Browse'. Navigate to where your SWF files are, select the one you want->Open. Back to the small window->OK. All things being equal, your choice of SWF will fire up, and you can play it.

Or - if you want - I can soon let you have a copy of FP32.0.0.142.

Mike.

[xenial]

@mike.
Good afternoon good sir.!
I must confess i have never used wine and i am assuming it works ok on 32bit pup.My initial plan was to freeze palemoon browser as the 32bit linux version will cease end of this month,i have been scouring the web looking for a pre-v32 of flash tarball which i could use with it and then play the swf files i have so far downloaded with it.

Earlier i downloaded and tested v11 from the puppy package manager and it works just fine in palemoon. (some games don't load though.)However in firefox it is a different story as it will not play the swf files in browser via urlbar.(no always activate function in firefox now.).

So i guess wine is the only way to use the flashpoint player..?..there does seem to be experimental linux versions but not sure if puppy compatible.

Yesterday i downloaded the adobe debugger but it failed to run.
with hindsight i should of been downloading every single flash game i ever played and then i would have a hearty collection by now.

[mikewalsh]

@xenial :-

So i guess wine is the only way to use the flashpoint player..?..there does seem to be experimental linux versions but not sure if puppy compatible.

I take it you're referring to Gnash, yes? - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnash_(software)

I wouldn't bother. It was never properly finalised, and hasn't had any development for years......on top of which, it's not suitable for what you want, and doesn't correctly handle all SWF files. It's primarily intended for Flash movies (which used to be a 'thing', some 15 years ago); what YOU need is an 'interactive' player, which will allow inputs & respond accordingly. And that brings us back to FlashPlayer again.

I rather think what I outlined above is probably the way to go. I've been investigating the possibility of building this as a self-contained 'portable', with a built-in WINE. Older TeamViewers, and Google's Linux port of Picasa worked this way - running a Windows port under a sandboxed, 'built-in' WINE - but it looks f*****g complicated.....and WAY above my 'paygrade', I'm afraid..!

Mikeslr prompted me to come up with a way to 'externalize' the bulk of a WINE install after it's BEEN installed; you can move this out to an external partition, and sym-link everything back. I've been sharing a single WINE install between multiple Puppies for quite some time, and it works very nicely. Besides, there's method in my madness; I run the 'de-facto' text-to-speech Windows app, TextAloud!, and some of the AT&T 'natural' voices you can get for it - I found an unofficial source for these - run out to around 600-800 MB each. Half-a-dozen of those quickly fills a save-file/folder up!

It's not the WINE install itself that fills the save - fully installed, it's between 300-350 MB - it's the programs you install that take the space up. In this case, you won't actually be installing anything at all.....you simply need a 'real-time' Windows environment for the FlashPlayer32.exe to run under.

Flashpoint Infinity itself is 64-bit only, but if you go with what I've suggested you won't need it; the only thing required will be the FlashPlayer .exe file and WINE.....which tends to run far better as the 32-bit version anyway. 64-bit WINE is problematic, to say the least..!

Up to you. Let me know what you want to do.

Mike.

[xenial]

https://archive.org/details/softwarelib ... ads&page=2
quite substantial collection of flash content here.

I have decided not to go the bluemaxima route and instead use downloaded swf files with palemoon browser.
I am still on the lookout for an older flash plugin however.

Many thanks mike for your info on this matter.

[ozsouth]

@mikewalsh & @xenial - I found earlier flashprojector versions - are in our .pet archive. 5-8mb.
Unpack in an empty folder (tar -zxvf) & rename flashplayer to flashprojector & run flash games.
See (32bit v11.2) - https://archive.org/download/Puppy_Linu ... 386.tar.gz
See (64bit v27.0) - https://archive.org/download/Puppy_Linu ... _64.tar.gz

[xenial]

@mikewalsh & @xenial - I found earlier flashprojector versions - are in our .pet archive. 5-8mb.
Unpack in an empty folder (tar -zxvf) & rename flashplayer to flashprojector & run flash games.
See (32bit v11.2) - https://archive.org/download/Puppy_Linu ... 386.tar.gz
See (64bit v27.0) - https://archive.org/download/Puppy_Linu ... _64.tar.gz

Perfect and thank you.works an absolute treat ozsouth and thank you sir.I have attempted to run this projector for weeks and it would fail to run,

[s243a]

I wonder why Adobe wants to sabotage flash so badly. To me, it seems unconscionable to sabotage a platform that so many people invested time building software for.

[mikewalsh]

I wonder why Adobe wants to sabotage flash so badly. To me, it seems unconscionable to sabotage a platform that so many people invested time building software for.

@s243a :-

My thoughts exactly, mate. I can understand 'sunsetting' the browser plug-in; it's always been more full of holes than a Swiss cheese, and it's got so that current web technologies can provide an equivalent, in many cases better experience anyway.

But why not keep the Flash projector, specifically, in its own archive?

My guess is that the whole business of 'downloading' Flash games - although thousands DO it - has always been something of a 'grey' area. Most Flash game sites/catalogs will only ever link you to yet another web-site to play the things on. It's a web-based technology.....and Adobe, like most of the other tech giants, once their mind is made up, there's no budging them. They also wish to be seen as 'whiter-than-white', and have no intention of being seen to endorse anything even remotely 'shady'.

Witness the transition of Photoshop itself. No longer can you purchase, download & keep a copy in perpetuity; now, you pay a monthly subscription to 'rent' the use of cloud-based software. Great from Adobe's POV, but if your internet connection goes down, you're stuffed. And that's what happening here with Flash, albeit in a roundabout kind of way....in this case, the core software - round which an entire industry has been built - is just going to disappear.

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@AngelMoran/@xenial :-

I agree with both of you. It is a huge download, from the viewpoint of space constraints, CPU capability, and bandwidth. Not everyone has the hardware/available bandwidth to be ABLE to run this, I know that.

But as xenial is aware by now, my policy has always been that of providing as wide a choice of software to the community as I can.....no matter how 'pointless' some of them may, to some of you, seem to be.

Nobody's forcing you to use it, but I DO like to 'showcase' what's available out there.

Mike.

[xenial]

Hi mike.
Currently i have adobe flash player projector version 11.2.202.644 on my computer to run downloaded swf files..some of them require a newer version to run them..is there any way of obtaining a newer version to use although obviously not the latest version.

thanks.

[mikewalsh]

@xenial :-

Mmm.... There's "issues" here, mate.

I've just been doing some research on-line. Virtually all archived FlashPlayer Projector files are the Windows versions. I cannot find any archived Linux stuff anywhere; my guess is that people got so used to the Adobe repos just being there, nobody bothered.

Now; there ARE some standalone Linux projector files in the 'data' pack you download when first firing up Flashpoint.....but these are all 64-bit. You're on 32-bit, aren't you?

I do have one 32-bit Flashplayer projector, but it's a recent one, and that means it has the 'kill-switch' built-in.

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The only solution that springs to mind is to run a 64-bit Puppy as a 'live' install just to play your SWF files. I know you probably don't want to do this, but the 32-bit versions all need to be played via WINE, since they're the Windoze releases...

I can't think of any other 'easy' way round this one, I'm sorry to say. If you decide to use a 64-bit Pup for this, I can share the 64-bit Linux standalone players; there's v27, v28, v29, and a version of v32 built before the 'kill-switch' was installed.

Up to you; I'm quite willing to do that.

Mike.

[trister]

The easiest way is to have somewhere an older browser -just for swf files. I use Iron v61 (chromium based).
The most recent one is Palemoon that still supports flash.
For older flash files try here : https://archive.org/download/flashplaye ... /archive/
a more detailed list:
https://ia803201.us.archive.org/view_ar ... rchive.zip

In the old puppy forums I had uploaded this Iron and a working flash file to suit him (in squashfs -for DebianDog/UbuntuDogs) .
I will re-upload them again here some time

[xenial]

@mike and trister.
thanks for the replies.
yea the version 11 of the standalone projector is playing my locally downloaded just fine but their is the odd one which will only run in my pale moon browser with a v30 something plugin installed so im assuming those games required a later flash.

i have downloaded approximately 100gb of flash games of my choosing and i would say 90% of them are running in the projector just fine.
I would agree that an upgrade to a 64bit machine would be beneficial.To be honest i should of started archiving in 2017 when the end of life was first announced.Im just hoping most gamesites will not go up in smoke in the new year.

yea i really could do with a v25-30 of the adobe projector if i can get hold of one.

[mikewalsh]

@xenial :-

Here's a tarball with those 4 projectors as mentioned above. Remember; these are 64-bit only.

Tarball & MD5 can be found here:-

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

Hope they're useful.

Mike.

[xenial]

@mike.
thank you.
I use a 32bit puppy and im looking for a more recent version of the standalone flash player.My current player is version 11.2,202,644.

It runs the majority of my swf files but in some instances some files need to be run in my pale moon browser with flash plugin 32.0.0.171.
I cannot find any 32bit linix flash projectors anywhere.
any ideas please..?

[trister]

@mike.
thank you.
I use a 32bit puppy and im looking for a more recent version of the standalone flash player.My current player is version 11.2,202,644.

It runs the majority of my swf files but in some instances some files need to be run in my pale moon browser with flash plugin 32.0.0.171.
I cannot find any 32bit linix flash projectors anywhere.
any ideas please..?

The archive I posted above (https://archive.org/download/flashplaye ... s/archive/) has all the flash stuff. Download one of them . It has all the platforms for all versions 32bit/64bit...

I think you need the versions marked "sa" (stand alone).

[mikewalsh]

@xenial :-

Yes, the link above from trister IS what you need. I know they're large downloads, but that's because each one is the complete 'debug' tarball for that release, and contains flashplayers for every platform that was supported.

That's how Adobe used to offer them, basically for developers. v32.0.171 or v32.0.192 ought to do what you want. Late enough to play your 'odd' items, but still prior to the 'kill-switch'. Anything prior to 32.0.0.3xx should be OK.

As trister says, the 'SA' items are the ones you need. You can only run the 'libflashplayers' through a browser, because those are the plugins.

Mike.

[xenial]

hello mike and trister.
i have looked at the contents of the above linked flashplayer archives and i cannot find a 32bit standalone player anywhere.thanks for your help but i feel i should stick with what i have and see how the wind blows in the new year.

[trister]

hello mike and trister.
i have looked at the contents of the above linked flashplayer archives and i cannot find a 32bit standalone player anywhere.thanks for your help but i feel i should stick with what i have and see how the wind blows in the new year.

Strange...
You seem right. I think after Flash 11 adobe didn't release any 32bit standalone in linux. I had a quick look to all versions and didn't find one.

Anyway I never bothered with standalone player because almost half swf I tried had issues. Never had issues with Iron 61 and Palemoon.

[xenial]

@trister.
At one point adobe stopped supporting linux flash and version 11 was the only way to run flash or use google chrome browser with their pepperflash.

Im guessing adobe resumed support for linux flash but only the browser plugin and perhaps version 11 was the last linux standalone produced.

[xenial]

Okay i am struggling to find a 32bit standalone flash projector newer than version 11.Does one even exist.?

[xenial]

Bluemaxima has uploaded most of his flashpoint archives on to internet archive.com for anyone who wishes to peruse the files.

[mikewalsh]

Okay i am struggling to find a 32bit standalone flash projector newer than version 11.Does one even exist.?

@xenial:-

TBH with you, I don't know. I know that after standing still on version 11.2.202.xxx-something-or-other for quite some time, Linux Flash all of a sudden resumed at around v23/24, I seem to remember..?

Ah, here we are. I posted about this back in September 2016, more than 4 years ago:-

http://oldforum.puppylinux.com/puppy/vi ... 55a750#top

Since at that time I had no interest at all in Flash games, I only ever made use of the browser plug-in. You may be right; Adobe could well have quit building 'standalone' versions of the Linux FlashPlayer when they brought it up to date alongside Pepper.

I know I've looked around a bit in recent months, and I can't track down any older Linux versions. Plenty for Windoze, but not for Linux.....

Mike.