Flashpoint Archive – Over 200k web games and animations preserved
Source: Hacker News
Overview
Flashpoint Archive is a community effort to preserve games and animations from the web. Internet history and culture are important, and the web evolves so rapidly that today’s commonplace experiences could become obsolete tomorrow. This project is dedicated to preserving as many experiences from these platforms as possible, so they aren’t lost to time. Since December 2017, over 200,000 games and animations have been preserved across more than a hundred browser plugins and web technologies.
Software
In addition to preservation, Flashpoint provides a highly flexible software package for reliable navigation and playback of the archived content. The suite includes:
- A fully‑featured launcher that acts as a frontend for the collection – GitHub: Flashpoint Launcher
- A proxy that tricks games into thinking they’re running on the live web – GitHub: Flashpoint Proxy
- A sandbox for secure playback of plugin‑enabled content – GitHub: Flashpoint Secure Tools
All components are open‑source software.
History
The project was originally started by BlueMaxima in an attempt to outrun the disappearance of webgames prior to the death of Flash. It has since evolved into a major undertaking involving hundreds of community contributors from around the world, encompassing both games and animations created for numerous internet plugins, frameworks, and standards.
Support
Flashpoint Archive operates as a non‑profit with the goal of furthering preservation and accessibility of games, animations, and other digital interactive experiences from the web. To learn more about funding or to contribute, visit the Open Collective page.