Hey everyone, we're in the process of transitioning our request system to Google Sheets/Google Forms so we're locking down the channels for Java, Unity, HTML5 and #requested-other-games. We kindly ask that you submit any new requests for these platforms through our Google Form which is located here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdd9ifSu_anYKMKE280c3Y3dkmuEApr5N6gKnAmTvKh0F5txA/viewform

You can also view the Google Sheet in it's entirety here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1t0MbYMGm4dq4d5hA1l6MKuVYGyw9XU8UOPHjy2ceHX8/edit?usp=sharing

The other request channels will remain unlocked so you can continue submitting them through Discord for now until we finish converting them. As such, please do not submit any Flash/Shockwave/Animations through the form until we have finished converting those channels. Ask staff if you have any questions.

Hello again everyone, we've finished converting all the request channels over to the new spreadsheet, so if you want to request a new game, simply hit up #request-a-game for the details. #request-an-animation is also there, although we don't quite have a sheet for it just yet.

@everyone Flashpoint 5.4, "Recombination"...and Flashpoint 5.4.1, "74%", are available now.

The major feature of 5.4 is the return of Flashpoint Theatre, our small side project trying to save a bunch of Flash/other kinds of animations. The Launcher has been updated pretty significantly to reflect this, with an "Arcade" and a "Theatre" tab separating the two kinds. There's also been a few new animations added to celebrate, but we could always use people adding more. (Just because it's in Newgrounds Auditorium doesn't mean it's not allowed here.) A lot of the other tech has been given a tune up as well, hopefully things will be a bit smoother from now on.

Of course we've been adding new games, too, and just over a thousand are included in this new release. We've added some more infamous Flash games, including a particularly controversial one I won't name here, some long requested titles like Mission in Snowdriftland, some outright oddities including the entirety of the WonderFL Archive, a little bit of everything. There's also been plenty of updates to games already in the collection, too. You can always check the changelog if you want to see that stuff in detail.

There is also 5.4.1, which is just a small patch of stuff that either a) I forgot or b) got fixed inbetween wrapping up 5.4 and actually getting it uploaded. It's a small zip located in the downloads, all you need to do is extract it over the top of your Flashpoint install (you'll be overwriting a handful of files). It's not required, but it would be nice if you got it.

#downloads, as always.

@everyone I apologize for the second beep in such a short time but we had some Infinity related server troubles that need a second emergency patch.

This is only for 5.4 Infinity, 5.4 Ultimate is unaffected. You do not need to download Infinity again if you downloaded it after this beep.

You have two options: redownload Infinity 5.4 from the same URL as it's been fixed there, or download the zip file attached to this message and extract it so that you overwrite the one file that it updates. Sorry again for the beep.

@everyone Release 5.5, "Iron & Copper", is available now. (I've been playing too much Deus Ex and I have no other codenames for this release.) 5.5 doesn't change much. 800 new games, some tech updates, a new credits listing in the launcher, and that's about it. As always, the changelog has everything if you want to have a look: http://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/changelog.txt

There's been some major refactoring of Flashpoint we've been wanting to do for maintenance and simplicity's sake, but due to the breakneck schedule of releasing month to month, making it happen while not interrupting the regular process has been difficult, so for a while at least, we're not going to be working on 'the next release', instead just doing the tweaks, polishing and upheavals that we need to do. The next release will be out once we're confident we've got everything up to scratch. 5.5 should still work in the meantime, and we will still be accepting curation submissions, if they're in the queue they get in Flashpoint.

There is a small checklist of things that we do need help with though to get more games supported, so if you have some experience with anything in the following link, we'd appreciate it if you could take a look at this list and send us the right way: http://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/datahub/Help_Wanted_List Some of these will help us get those last few games that we don't support yet into Flashpoint. There's always more to be done though; don't forget that we always need curators and testers.

#downloads, as always.

@everyone

The following is not an April Fools Joke.

Hello. This isn't a release announcement as we're still working on what's going to be Flashpoint 6.0. Unfortunately the server we were running Infinity on has been changed for technical reasons, and we need to patch 5.5 again to compensate for it. If you're running Flashpoint 5.5 Infinity, below you'll find a zipped patch; extract it into the Flashpoint folder (and overwrite router.php when you're prompted to). If you aren't running it yet or don't want to go through that effort, you can redownload 5.5 Infinity from #downloads, it's been updated with the new file that you need. This doesn't affect Flashpoint 5.5 Ultimate (the big pack). This shouldn't happen again. Apologies for the beep.

@everyone It's been a long two months. Flashpoint 6.0, "Alignment", is available now.

This is the biggest Flashpoint update ever, in pretty much every respect. This update contains over 2500 new games across all ten of our supported platforms. Ten? Yup, this update introduces ActiveX support. Yes, the Internet Explorer ActiveX. There's about a dozen games included to start.

We've also got a massive step forward in the form of a tech called AMF; the major benefit this version is that we've managed to crack open the level databases for every game on ArmorGames and added them to Flashpoint in a playable state. This makes Flashpoint arguably the biggest user level database backup for Flash on the planet.

Combine this with a changelog that is a mile long with bugfixes and small additions (http://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/changelog.txt) and this is absolutely the biggest release so far. Alongside this is an update of Flashpoint Core for curators and hopefully even more to come (a little birdy has been whispering in my ear about Linux support...)

The links are in #downloads, but you better be ready; we broke 100GB this time if you want Ultimate. (You'll need 120GB of hard drive space to extract.)

Two other things: while we did include the level databases, their thumbnails are huge; just to cite an example, Crush the Castle 2, the biggest one added this time around, was a 1GB database...and 29GB of thumbnails. For the purpose of keeping this collection not insane on the file count, we're offering three thumbnail set downloads separately from Flashpoint: CTC2, Splitter 2, and every game that uses the ArmorGames UI to generate thumbnails. All those links are also in #downloads.

The last thing is that we gave Flashpoint a bit of a directory restructure for a multitude of reasons that aren't worth getting into here, but we've left a "Start Flashpoint" shortcut in the main Flashpoint folder. If you want to make a shortcut to Flashpoint though, make a shortcut to FlashpointLauncher.exe in the Launcher folder, and not the Start Flashpoint shortcut.

Have fun.

@everyone Hello, Flashpoint 6.1 "Preservationware" is now available.

This isn't the biggest update in Flashpoint history (kinda hard to top 6.0 on that count) but we still have 1,500 new titles and support for yet another plugin, Authorware. There's also, of course, a changelog with about a hundred individual fixes in it, so this is still a pretty sizable update. You'll find the links in #downloads as always, we'll be adding more mirrors as we can make them. There really isn't much else to say about this update, so have at it.

With that said, I understand that downloading 100+GB again is a massive pain in the neck, and we're working on a solution to that. Watch this post if you're interested; I (or someone else) will edit it with more details once we have something more concrete to show.

I just want to take the time to shill another, smaller project I've been working on, just while I'm here: instance_archive, a GameMaker game archival project. I admit I haven't put near as much effort into it as I have Flashpoint, but with Flashpoint being as big a monstrosity as it is to work on, can you blame me? If you want to learn more about that, you can get the freshly minted first release here: http://bluemaxima.org/instance_archive/

Hopefully we're back on the monthly release schedule without much issue. Version 6.2 should be out by the end of June, and considering that DarkMoe uploaded 1200 games to go into it today...well, let's just say it'll be Moe's great escape.

@everyone due to popular demand there is now a torrent magnet link and an archive.org mirror in #downloads and on the website. Carry on.

Hello @everyone. I know I said that we were aiming to get Flashpoint 6.2 out by the end of the month. However, there's been some complications, mainly due to a few staff members having either other obligations or unforseeable circumstances. Due to that, the release of 6.2 is being pushed back by a month. Sorry to disappoint anyone who was waiting eagerly to get their hands on the next release. We have been working pretty hard back here though; 6.2 already has 2,500 new games in it, so when next month rolls around, there will be plenty of new stuff to dig into.

With that said though, the beep for everyone is also important because there's a couple of things that need to be noted. The first is that 6.2 is actually going to have a pretty significant change, and I want people, especially curators, to be aware of it ahead of time. Due to how Flashpoint works it isn't easy for us to redirect HTTPS traffic, and a fair few titles, especially HTML5 ones, are heavily reliant on it. We've made the decision in 6.2 and onward to outright block HTTPS traffic in our browsers, because we've found that we might end up getting non-working games in the future due to it. This will most likely break a lot of games already in Flashpoint, so around the time of 6.2's release, we'll be bringing it up again, because we're going to need people testing HTML5 games as much as possible. However, since it's still a month to release and we've made this change now, people curating HTML5 games for the next release might run into problems, to which there's now a new version of Flashpoint Core in the #downloads channel, version 3.1. This applies the HTML5 blocks and a few other, minor changes, so anyone who plans on curating will need to upgrade their version of Core.

There is one more thing that does concern more than just curators though: we've been working on an updater for Flashpoint Ultimate, so that people don't have to redownload another hundred gigs or so every time we release a new version. It's very much in beta at the moment; while we have tested it successfully, we don't know about any kind of weird edge cases that might pop up. We were planning to release this alongside 6.2 for testing, but since that's not happening, we might as well do it now so that we can optimize it / bugfix it for 6.2. You can upgrade Flashpoint 5.5 and 6.0 to 6.1 using this updater at the moment; obviously if you have 6.1, you can't use this, this is only if you happen to have an old Flashpoint version lying around. It's in #downloads. The instructions are very simple: put the FlashpointUpdater folder next to your Flashpoint golder, go into the FlashpointUpdater folder, run update.bat and follow the prompts. Report back to us if something breaks. Note; since the updater is still in beta, it can probably break your Flashpoint install, so back up your Flashpoint install before you try this.

Hopefully, next time you hear an everyone beep, I'll be back to announce 6.2's release.

Hi @everyone. Flashpoint 6.2, "Moe's Great Escape", and Newgrounds Auditorium 2.0 is now available.

The big change from 6.1 to 6.2 is easily the 6,000 new games...yes, really, we've shot right past 20,000 to about 22,000 in this release? It's kinda silly. Most of that is thanks to our big man DarkMoe who wanted to grab a couple of sites worth of escape the room games on a whim and somehow ended up doing a few thousand himself. There's plenty new outside of that though, alongside a few updates to how things like the launcher and router for Infinity work. You can always check the changelog for more details.

This should appeal to people who like Newgrounds; a few months ago myself and DarkMoe went on a journey to archive all of Newgrounds' flash animations in an automated scrape to database sort of deal. It 99% worked, but thanks to Launchbox being a crippled mess with 131,000 animations, it was never particularly usable. Thanks to the new launcher and a bit of tweaking though, I managed to get it working much better; the new and improved Newgrounds Auditorium 2.0 is almost infinitely better, has a few bugfixes, and even has a playlist (thanks to eientei) of the top viewed 1,200 animations so you don't have to go, for lack of a better term, 'dumpster diving'.

Both Flashpoint 6.2 and Newgrounds Auditorium 2.0 are available now in #downloads. 6.2 Ultimate has a torrent from the word go this time, and we'd prefer it if you used it instead of the direct links, but they're still there if you need them. Newgrounds Auditorium 2.0's Ultimate version is not available at the moment (damn thing's still uploading) but it should be up within a few days, hopefully; thankfully the Infinity version is only 120MB, so you can start watching the animations right away. I'm not even going to try to guarantee a release date for the tenative Flashpoint 6.3, since I've been proven wrong on my release dates one too many times now.

(One other thing; updater isn't working at this time. Still looking into it. Sorry.)

Hi @everyone. There's something I want to talk about now that Tom has opened the floodgates with the announcement on Newgrounds (I only found out about it a couple of days ago). It's named Ruffle - it's an open source Flash emulator coded in the Rust programming language by Mike of The Behemoth. I absolutely support his attempts to get something like that off the ground; honestly we could have used it yonks ago, but better late than never, right?

Since Flash itself isn't open source, there's nothing but positives to be gained from a project like this. One of the major benefits is that they'll be able to convert the plugin to work in browsers, so when the official plugin goes, Ruffle can swoop in and take its place...when it's ready. See, the actual plugin is nowhere near complete. It can run earlier animations (it's based off the SWF to MP4 converter that the same guy made for Newgrounds) and some really basic games, but without things like ActionScript support, its uses for things like Flashpoint are limited. We use the official Adobe binaries, which means we more or less have 100% compatibility, something Ruffle won't have for (hopefully not, but let's be realistic) a long time.

See, Ruffle and Flashpoint, while they might be used for the same end goal, exist for different reasons. Ruffle is meant for playing the games. Flashpoint is meant for preserving them. See, just because you can play the games doesn't mean they still can't disappear from the internet. Say, for example, every ArmorGames server and backup is simultaneously hit by a meteor shower. Doesn't matter what Ruffle does, those games aren't coming back. Flashpoint keeps local copies of their games around, so even if there's a worldwide nuclear war that upends the internet, if your computer still works, you can still play Crush the Castle in your copy of Flashpoint Ultimate.

This concept of Flash files being removed from the internet resulting in them being lost is what we're here to stop, and just because Ruffle might let people play Flash games in browsers after 2020 doesn't mean we're going to halt things here. Games are still at risk of going down even with Ruffle around. Hell, we have multiple games that don't exist in a complete form on the internet anymore, which I consider a great success on our part. Not to mention our support for other tech like Shockwave and Unity Web Player and Silverlight and what have you. Not even beginning to think of games that rely on external servers or have sitelocks or...

With that said though, I wish the Ruffle project the best luck possible in making Flash preservation easier, and hopefully better than the official binaries; if they do end up with benefits over the official binaries I'd be happy to include them in Flashpoint as an alternative. I'm going to leave a link to the Ruffle Discord server below; if you have a good knowledge of Flash, Rust or both, please go and help out if you can. The faster a project like this is done, the better for all of Flash as a whole. If there's anyone that can make this happen, it's probably these guys.

https://discord.gg/3rYN56c

(And for those of you who are a little annoyed to be annoyed about a beep like this, well...if you have 300GB of space free, there's a present for you waiting in the bottom of #downloads.)

@everyone Flashpoint 6.3, "We're Talking About Flash Games, Not Abstract Philosophy", is available now. I know the version name is a bit weird, but it's probably one of the best quotes I've heard over the course of Flashpoint's development. There's download links in the usual places. The new game count in this version is around 5700 and there's about 600 new animations. (Side note: due to my idiocy, I forgot to add the new animations to the changelog; the more up to date changelog is at https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/changelog.txt) This version has a ton of individual changes and fixes, alongside a few notable things like a new plugin and an in-the-works but playable archive of Sploder.

There are a couple new things about this release that are worth talking about that aren't directly related to the new version, though. The first is that we're now distributing Infinity nightly builds at the same place as the usual Infinity builds. These will be up to date with the master copy of Flashpoint, although that comes with the chance of things not working right. Note that nightly builds do not update automatically; if you must stay current you'll need to redownload it every day. Also, don't expect the nightly to be significantly different from regular Flashpoint for a while; I take post release breaks from Flashpoint to catch my breath so the master build won't be updated for some time.

The second thing is that the updater for Ultimate has received multiple updates; you should, keyword should, be able to update to 6.3 from any version 5.5 onwards. Of course this comes at your own risk, but if you feel like trying it out, here's a link: https://github.com/FlashpointProject/FlashpointUpdater/releases/tag/0.3b The updater has a decent GUI version now, so there shouldn't be any complicated instructions.

Also, I feel the need to say this due to some recent drama, but there is no need to antagonize other Flash related projects. We don't need to worry about any other projects happening in parallel to us; we're doing our own thing and everyone else is welcome to do their own thing. It would be great if we could work together, but that doesn't mean we need to take an 'holier-than-thou' attitude due to our relative size or progress. What I'm saying is...play nice, people.

One more thing. I've been involved in a new project along the sane lines as Flashpoint for a while now; it's named Kahvibreak, and it's a collection of Java mobile games with the same launcher and general concept of double-click-and-play as Flashpoint. We just put out a first release which you can read about and download at https://bluemaxima.org/kahvibreak/, or you can join our Discord server at https://discord.gg/8TgbHAG if you want to chat or help.

Flashpoint 6.4's ETA is "the end of the year".

Hello @everyone. This beep is important. I'm sure a lot of you here are aware of MOTAS, Mystery of Time and Space, Jan Albartus' magnum opus of adventure games, that disappeared from the internet a while back. Game provider AlbinoBlackSheep did manage to recover some of it, but the game was incomplete, missing levels 14 through 20, and the music didn't work properly, and some languages too.

Why am I bringing this up?

Because I have good news.

WE HAVE THE MISSING LEVELS.

You have user RidgeX to thank for it. He backed it up back in 2008. All of it, including the missing languages. And music. And levels. He just showed up and provided it, and we've integrated it into Flashpoint. MOTAS, as it was before it disappeared off the internet in 2008, is now fully playable again.

And there's one more thing.

If you have Flashpoint 6.3 Infinity, you can play the complete version right now.

We've updated the master server that hosts Flashpoint's files. This includes the missing levels, soundtrack and what have you. All you need to do is find the MOTAS entry in Flashpoint (search for MOTAS or Mystery of Time and Space) and double-click it. It'll boot the refreshed copy with the new levels and you'll be able to play it through. Please note that if you want the music playback, you'll need to download the Other Technologies pack on the Home tab. (Ultimate will have the full game in the next major version.)

MOTAS is one of the holy grails of missing Flash games, and it works, right here, right now. Go have fun.

Here's a screenshot of level 19, running through Flashpoint.

unknown.png ??? kB

@everyone Hello. This isn't a version release beep, but due to the long length of time between releases these days, I've been told that people believe the project is dead in the water due to a lack of communication. The new status update, which hopefully I'll have the time to throw together every month, should help with that.

The status update is an article on Medium with details about how we do things here, some odd additions to the library recently, steps forward on the tech side of things, and another, 200GB sized surprise at the bottom if you're fast enough. There's also two extra articles linked at the bottom, one by me, and one by our Shockwave master Tomy.

Have a read if you're interested: https://medium.com/bluemaximas-flashpoint/flashpoint-status-update-october-2019-efb740ebb825

TL;DR: new neat stuff, still on track for a post-Christmas release of the next version. Let me know what you think in #flashpoint-chat.

Hello everyone! This is not a Flashpoint Infinity or Ultimate release, but Flashpoint Core 4 is now available. If you're interested in curating for Flashpoint, this announcement is for you.
Core 4 features a revamped Curate tab. Now you can use Flashpoint Launcher to make curations - just click the New Curation button on the Curate tab to get started. On the Curate tab, you'll be able to fill out metadata, test games, and export your finished curations for inclusion in Flashpoint. You can even load and edit existing curations. Hopefully this turns out easier. Flashpoint Core 4 also has the new ShiVa3D plugin support, Java games in the browser, and merges all our browser usage into Basilisk. Yes, .
If you have questions about any step of the curation process, you know the usual places to ask, and https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/datahub/Curation_Tutorial is always there. And if you're an experienced curator, we'd really appreciate it if you familiarize yourself with Core 4, so you can help new curators with whatever questions they may have.
Here is the download link: https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/Flashpoint%20Core%204.7z.
We have a newsletter coming soon as well, so stay tuned!

@everyone November status update. It's not massively long, but it still has some neat tidbits. See you in December. https://medium.com/bluemaximas-flashpoint/flashpoint-status-update-november-2019-9c22b9a59868

We're looking for help localizing Flashpoint Launcher into other languages! We've set up a new Crowdin project page so you can contribute.

Head to the project page linked below, right click on the language you wish to translate for and press Translate All. You are encouraged to have an updated Flashpoint Launcher open during translation so that you can make sense of the contexts given for each word/sentence. Links are below:

CrowdIn Project Page: https://fpl-translations.bluemaxima.org/
Extra Translator Info: https://support.crowdin.com/for-volunteer-translators/
Latest Launcher Downloads: https://github.com/FlashpointProject/launcher/releases/tag/latest
Advanced Translation Guide: https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/datahub/Translation_Guide

If you're proficient in your language and would like to approve translations as a proofreader, or don't see your preferred language on the CrowdIn page, just send DM our project manager, @Colin.

@everyone It's been a long, long, long, long three months, and kill me now if this turns out broken, but if it stays in the stable any longer I'm going to lose my mind. Flashpoint 7.0, uncreatively titled "Eight Thousand Hours" (because that's about how long we have until Flash is truly gone) is out now, in #downloads and on the newly refreshed website. The sheer amount of changes and new games in this release (a little over 8,000!) are way too many to list, so as always, there's a changelog at https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/changelog.txt.

Other things that need mentioning on quickfire:

We have a new tool for checking the cache files of old hard drives for games previously thought lost, if you have an old computer try giving this a run on it:
https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/datahub/Recovering_Files_from_Browser_Cache#Flashpoint_Cache_Dumper

We're still looking for translations for the launcher: https://fpl-translations.bluemaxima.org/

I also put out a new version of the Kahvibreak project recently at https://bluemaxima.org/kahvibreak/

We also have a #highscores channel now, if you feel like competing with other Flashpoint users

Keep an eye on this channel for other things I might have forgot if you want to help the project out. (Seriously. This release is huge, and we have more coming in the future. Although I don't think we'll try testing anything until the egg nog is out of everyone's system...)

It's currently 8:30am on Christmas morning and I have my family beating down my door to get me out and socializing, so I'm just going to leave it here. Happy holidays.