The preservation of classic Flash-based games becoming a reality through Leaning Technologies latest project, CheerpX

[AnotherGills 25]

With the phasing out of Adobe Flash slowly on the horizon, many classic Flash-based games would be seemingly lost to the ether. However, the latest project by Leaning Technologies  may change this. Their current project, CheerpX, is a new software designed to run unmodified x86 binaries in the browser in WebAssembly.

Alessandro Pignotti, founder of Leaning Technology, went into detail regarding the project on Medium. He specifically states in the post:

Quote

"Our solution to preserve Flash in the long term is to run the full, unmodified, Flash plug-in from Adobe in WebAssembly"

The post further shows progress of the project, showing that certain simple Flash content has successfully rendered through CheerpX. While the developers are currently starting through the rendering of Flash applications, the post also states:

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"In the long run, the CheerpX technology will make it possible to run any unmodified binary application in the browser, from productivity apps, to games, to full systems. As much as we would like to release something publicly right now, CheerpX is not yet ready for that."

This is certainly an ambitious project. Are you interested in seeing this project's future developments? Are there any Flash games in particular that you want to see preserved for the years to come?

[Aemony 141]

Flash games that works standalone are pretty much guaranteed to work for years to come, even without this project, as desktop Flash "projectors" have existed for years, both in official forms from Adobe and recently in third-party open-source alternative Flash "players" such as LightSpark.

The games that are questionable are the ones that relies on some form of online DRM solution (as in, they require a connection to a server and/or sign-in to play). Those are unlikely to function regardless of what third-party solution is used, if the servers it depends on are taken offline.

[Guest]

On 9/1/2019 at 3:20 AM, Aemony said:

Flash games that works standalone are pretty much guaranteed to work for years to come, even without this project, as desktop Flash "projectors" have existed for years, both in official forms from Adobe and recently in third-party open-source alternative Flash "players" such as LightSpark.

The games that are questionable are the ones that relies on some form of online DRM solution (as in, they require a connection to a server and/or sign-in to play). Those are unlikely to function regardless of what third-party solution is used, if the servers it depends on are taken offline.

TBF, this is more useful for things like Strong Bad Flash episodes and Homestuck. This sort of thing is meant to be viewed in the browser as part of an interactive experience. Games, yeah - they don't strictly need this since, as long as they aren't DRM-hindered, just download the SWF file and play!

[Hman360 5]

For people who aren't aware, there's a neat project called Flashpoint that's seeking to preserve Flash, Shockwave, and other browser plugin based games by downloading them and putting them into a client. It already has a lot of stuff in playable state. Here's the homepage for the project: https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/

[zermok 0]

The task hi huge, but the result will be a massive hammer hit on Flash detractors.

Among RUFFLE and CHEERPX, this is amazing and fantastic projects! keep it going!

[Mirh 102]

There's also open flash

Anyway, just like shumway, any one of these thingies are going to hit a roadblock if browsers don't implement content handlers

On 9/1/2019 at 9:11 AM, AnotherGills said:

With the phasing out of Adobe Flash slowly on the horizon, many classic Flash-based games would be seemingly lost to the ether.

Internet explorer will be with us for the decades to come to be honest.