Widespread support for Adobe Flash has been slowly winding down for years now, but 2020 will finally see Adobe itself and web browsers end support for Flash once and for all and leave the thousands of web-based games powered by Flash essentially unplayable.
Ahead of that shutdown, projects like BlueMaxima’s Flashpoint have sprung up to try and preserve those games before the lights go out on a chapter of video game history.
“Internet history is important, and content made on platforms such as Adobe Flash are a significant portion of that culture doomed to obscurity, explains the project’s website. “This project is dedicated to preserving as many games and animations from these platforms as possible, so that they aren't lost to time.”
Flashpoint currently has over 38,000 games squirreled away in a sizable 288 GB collection, and allows the curious to download and play those games with its launcher, or opt for a smaller 296 MB download that instead takes an on demand download approach.
Part of the reason Flashpoint takes a launcher-driven approach is that the whole system is built to trick each game into thinking it’s being played online and in its original webpage, something that overrides the sitelocks and other systems that often keep Flash games from being playable when separated from their original host.
It’s an interesting process that creates an illusion of the internet to keep those games running as designed, and one that the BlueMaxima team explains in-depth on the project’s wiki. More details on Flashpoint, download links for its library, and info on how developers can join in on the preservation effort are all available on BlueMaxima’s website.