Helpful Tools

The following is a list of tools or otherwise helpful software that we have found useful for saving web games.

General Software

JPEXS Free Flash Decompiler: https://github.com/jindrapetrik/jpexs-decompiler/releases

A tool for decompiling SWF files. This is useful for figuring out how a game loads files or fixing bugs. It is also useful for finding the SWF version or ripping graphics or music from a game. Be sure to download the Nightly version to get the most cutting-edge features.

exe2swf: https://web.archive.org/web/20190717135116/http://www.northcode.com/blog/Extract-SWF-files-from-Flash-Executables

A tool that extracts all the SWFs that it can find from an EXE. If you have only the EXE version of a Flash game, you can use this to easily grab the SWF from it.

HxD: https://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd/

The best and most popular free hex editor for Windows. Very useful for looking at file headers or other plain text information in files.

Your browser's Developer Tools.

The most useful and versatile tool for any Flashpoint curator. Use the Inspector to find embed codes and iframes, and use the Network tool to see every connection your browser makes.

Fiddler: https://www.telerik.com/fiddler

A free web debugger with even more features than a browser's Developer Tools. Instead of filling out your info, just use the direct download link.

Game Saver Extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/game-saver/lihjdneobgflplacgfokejchlhdojjnh

A Chrome extension that helps with downloading Flash games for a Flashpoint curation.

7-Zip: https://www.7-zip.org/

Free, open-source, and reliable. 7-Zip is the best tool to decompress almost any file.

Free Download Manager: https://www.freedownloadmanager.org/

One of the best ways to reliably download very large files (like Flashpoint Ultimate). Power users might prefer aria2.

qBittorrent: https://www.qbittorrent.org/

The best free BitTorrent client out there. Use this if you'd like to download the Flashpoint Ultimate torrent.

Software for Archiving

cURLsDownloader: http://bluepload.unstable.life/curlsdownloaderv54.zip

Created by nosamu#3385, cURLsDownloader is a tool developed for easily and quickly capturing URLs. It's excellent for saving multi-asset web games. It can also be used to save open directories and simple websites.

HAR Extractor: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/436484594485952542/578807801657294848/har_extractor.exe

Compiled by nosamu#3385 from its repository using PyInstaller. To extract any HAR file, drag it onto the HAR Extractor EXE.

Wget: https://eternallybored.org/misc/wget/

The endlessly customizable command-line web crawler that cURLsDownloader is based upon. Works best for open directories and simple websites.

WebRecorder: https://github.com/webrecorder/webrecorder-desktop

An advanced application for recording high-fidelity web archives. Includes a Chromium browser with full Flash and JavaScript support, so capturing nearly every kind of website is possible. To extract the WARCs for use with Flashpoint, you can use warcat.

grab-site: https://github.com/ArchiveTeam/grab-site

The state-of-the-art tool that our Archivists use to scrape websites. You'll want a Linux machine, or better yet, a beefy Linux server.

HTTrack: https://www.httrack.com/

An ancient but reliable website copier that works for some simple sites. You might find its interface easier to understand than the command-line.

Cyotek WebCopy: https://www.cyotek.com/cyotek-webcopy

A somewhat simpler and more modern, but less capable website copier. A notable feature is that unlike Wget on Windows, it correctly saves Unicode filenames.

Wayback Machine Downloader: https://github.com/hartator/wayback-machine-downloader

A command line tool that allows for whole websites or single items to be downloaded from the Wayback Machine.