User:Revac

This page is a basic tutorial on how Flashpoint works and how to curate games for addition to Flashpoint.

Why Curate?

Curation is the process of finding a game, getting it working in Flashpoint, adding metadata to it, and submitting. One curation is just game files and metadata, exported out into a .7z or .zip file. It is the most accessible method of contributing to the project. All it requires is a modern web browser and a copy of Flashpoint.

As we are an entirely volunteer-driven project, the more help we can get, the better. This tutorial is made so that anyone can learn to curate.

Curation is a far more simpler process than this wall of text may suggest. Here is the tl;dr:

• Get the files of the game.
• Put them into a new curation.
• Fill out metadata.
• Export and submit.

Finding A Title to Curate

If you are looking at this page, this hopefully means you have a game or animation you want to curate.

Before attempting to curate it, please verify it is not in Flashpoint first. Use our search tool, search Flashpoint itself, or even search the Discord server for if a game has been recently curated, just not added yet.

If you want to curate, but do not have a specific title you are looking to curate, consider checking out the Game Requests spreadsheet or the Curation Sitemap.

Banned Games and Animations

These are games/animations not allowed in Flashpoint for any reason. You can make an effort to get them working in Flashpoint if you want, but you may not request or submit them.

• Games/animations that are still on sale, we will not distribute currently paid content. (Don't forget that some games start in web browsers for free then get paid versions later, the web browser version would be allowed in Flashpoint in this case; be sure to check the history before you archive.)
• Games that require a server and have zero single player content. The amount of work it takes to preserve these is too high relative to what else we can be working on.
• Any outright emulation of a commercial game (Such as a swf of Contra which contains the Contra ROM image). Ports of games are absolutely fine, but games that are a ROM wrapped in an emulator are not allowed unless they contain only non-commercial games and/or allow you to load your own.
  • While not emulation, fan remakes/conversions of Nintendo projects like Full Screen Mario are too risky to add if they were taken down by Nintendo. Not all remakes/conversions are risky though, if you are unsure just ask in #curators.
• Videos embedded in SWF files:
  • If the SWF has nothing on it other than it requiring a separate FLV to run the SWF file properly (and if the FLV works perfectly fine on VLC), then it won't be allowed on Flashpoint and it should rather be uploaded through Archive.org
  • If it uses any Flash elements like ui, special effects, loop etc., it can be curated.
  • This means that your curation can't be only a video embedded in a SWF.
  • Games, animations and websites that use video are allowed, and you should include the video files and/or SWFs containing video in the curation.
• Animations using the HTML5 platform have to include animated components and make use of HTML5-specific tags, CSS, and/or Javascript.
• Games/animations with cub, shotacon or lolicon content.

• The following are not allowed at developer request:
  • Any game from XForm Games that is not already in the database
  • Windows 93
  • Dragon Ball Devolution, and other games from www.txori.com
  • Any game developed by Nitrome
  • Flash Flash Revolution
  • Any game developed by Farrago Fiction
  • Any game/animation developed by Anonymous-Frog
  • Non-classic versions of Cookie Clicker

It should go without saying that blatantly illegal games/animations are not allowed, either.

It is best if this page is read first before attempting curation, to get an idea of what the process and outcome looks like. It is also beneficial to read the specific curation guide of the Platform you are curating for, like the Flash Curation or the HTML5 Curation pages. Before we can jump into curation, it is best if you understand how Flashpoint works first.

How Flashpoint Works

Flashpoint is more than just a program to play files; rather, it's a combination of two programs working in parallel:

• a web server, which hosts game files from an internal or external drive and pretends to be the original Internet source the games ran off of,
• and a launcher, the user interface to select and play games from.

Flashpoint itself also comes in two primary versions:

• Infinity, the version that downloads games and animations from a server as you play or view them,
• and Ultimate, the gigantic version with every game and animation included and ready for offline play and viewing.

Infinity will download files as you play games that request them, while Ultimate knows the files are already there. Both make the files believe they're being ran on their original source. This has numerous benefits, the two most important being bypassing sitelocks and supporting multi-asset games. The How Flashpoint Works article provides more detail on this topic.

Setting Up Our Software

Curation only requires:

• Flashpoint Infinity, version 12 or later; curating in previous versions, as well using Flashpoint Core (built for curating but now deprecated) or Ultimate may run into compatibility problems,
• and a modern web browser such as Chrome or Firefox, which have tools that we can use to find and grab game files like SWFs, and sometimes multi-asset titles with low amounts of resources.

Additionally,

• cURLsDownloader is usually very beneficial in curation. It is found as a component in the Extras section of the Flashpoint Infinity Installer. This isn't strictly necessary, but it helps immensely; you'll see why later on. There are also other helpful utilities available in this section, like fpcurator.

To enable the Curate menu, where all curation takes place, open the config tab of Flashpoint and select Enable Editing. Please make sure your installation of Flashpoint is working normally first, if not, join our Discord server and post in #help.