Backup simulators of pica-pic.com

[Crash95]

Hello,
on the website www.pica-pic.com there are some cool old lcd handheld simulators in flash and I tried to make an offline backup of them to get them safe even if the site doesn't exist someday in the future.
Somehow they created the whole site as flash and if you use the simulators the site will load more data from the server. So it seems they can't be saved as easily as other flash games. The farthest I got was when I opened the site and watched the files in the firefox-plugin CacheViewer. There I got a swf-file for each simulator in the size of about 300-800kb. Despite that there was an index.swf and an picaPicMain.swf.
But when you open the simulator-files you will only see the down-right corner of the handheld and nothing more. I try to attach an example and the files mentioned before. Maybe anyone here has an idea how to get down the whole simulators with these information, every help would be appreciated.

Thank you very much,
Crash95

 

[LyonHrt]

nice find, but maybe something that downloads whole websites wget maybe? but as someone who does websites, i do my best to stop that happening, i'm sure there will be roadblocks on this one too. another program that might work is flashvampire.

 

[Crash95]

Hi,
thanks for your answer.
I just opened the swf-file of the simulator in "JPEXS Free Flash Decompiler" and see that all the screens used in the game are contained in the images-folder. So I'm confident that the whole game is already contained in the file. Maybe there is a need to change some parameters regarding the size or position when opening the swf to show the whole simulator. Unfortunately I'm not enough into programming and flash to know how. Anyone here who has some knowlege? As said, an example game is included in the rar of the first post.

Thanks,
Crash95

 

[wmoecke]

Pica-pic kinda forbids playing their content offline?

Hi,

Nice find about the Free Flash Decompiler. :tup:
I've downloaded all of the content from pica-pic; I was using showmycode.com to decompile each .swf but the site seems to be down - and its output is not nearly as comprehensive as FFD's.

The reason I am getting to the point of looking at the source code is because I suspect there has to be some sort of mechanism hardwired into the code to make the games unplayable, unless some inside variable is set in a certain way (which possibly, only their servers 'know' how to) - like I said, this is a suspicion only at this point. Reason being, they set a flashvars "gateway" variable ponting to a certain server address (~/amfphp_1.9/gateway.php). So this flashvars parameter is fed to the flash object (e.g., the game).

After I've downloaded their whole content I began by mimicking their directory structure and ended up making a few minor changes - namely, I've modified their 'index.html' page, only to bypass both 'index.swf' and 'picaPicMain.swf' files that were originally being loaded at the beginning (since these only load to a white background when played back offline - another reason for me to suspect there's a hidden component in there somewhere). In an attempt to compartmentalize the loading of each simulator (to assist in debugging) I've ended up making a static 'index.html' page (completely flashless) which in turn, links to each simulator's own 'index.html' page which in turn, embeds the Flash object in it.

Here's the whole content as downloaded (and customized to load locally): bit.ly/pica_pic (put this in your browser's address bar - sorry, the forum won't allow me posting 'too much' urls in here, neither uploading the files directly. Whatever.)
** You might wanna edit the main 'index.html' file in order to redact the anchor links to the folders to reflect the location where you put your files locally on your hard drive.

However, the issue with the game scene seemingly being rendered at offset coordinates seems to not want to go away. Even if I try loading the swf objects within a separate container (such as Adobe Flash Player Projector) I get the same issue.

So, even knowing next to nothing in regards to ActionScript/Flash programming, I wanted to take a look at the decompiled code to try and spot whatever clues it can possibly give me. I'd love to get to the bottom and work around this issue. Perhaps some seasoned Flash developers out there would be willing to lend a hand by taking a look at the decompiled ActionScript for these files?

 

[emufan55]

Hi,
Here's the whole content as downloaded (and customized to load locally): bit.ly/pica_pic (put this in your browser's address bar - sorry, the forum won't allow me posting 'too much' urls in here, neither uploading the files directly. Whatever.)
** You might wanna edit the main 'index.html' file in order to redact the anchor links to the folders to reflect the location where you put your files locally on your hard drive.

I downloaded files from this page but after running index.html "You need Adobe Flash Player to play games." appears. Adobe Flash is installed. On the pica-pic site works.

 

[BdR]

I'm also a fan of the pica-pic site, but was disappointed that it didn't support the games I used to have. Also, like you point out it's Flash which means it doesn't work very well on mobile or tablets.

Because of this, I've started my JavaScript library for LCD games, it currently has 5 playable games and a global highscore list. I can't post links in this forum, but it's called lcdgame.js and it's on github.

 

[Flyzy]

I'm also a fan of the pica-pic site, but was disappointed that it didn't support the games I used to have. Also, like you point out it's Flash which means it doesn't work very well on mobile or tablets.

Because of this, I've started my JavaScript library for LCD games, it currently has 5 playable games and a global highscore list. I can't post links in this forum, but it's called lcdgame.js and it's on github.

Love Game & Watch emulators. Looking to get all of them in flash or html. Got some from pica-pic, but are unplayable, one from brianapps-dot-net (ball/toss-up) works fine, some html's from lcdgame-dot-js on github-dot-com, unfortunately work only with xampp running, one from madrigaldesign-dot-it (donkey kong), and a few flash's from workingmariosonicgames-dot-com. I just keep searching, hope to find some here.

 

[Crash95]

About 2 years passed since my original post and I gave it another try.
This time I tried different flash viewers to use offline and I got a big step further when I stumbled over Alpha Interactive's "SWF Player". This player delivers some controls which you can use to move the viewable screen of the swf-file played. So if you open one of the pica-pic swf-files you can open it in full screen and move the screen with ctrl+arrow keys. With this player you are able to see the full simulator and most of them are playable (with the default keys shown on the website) but some of them aren't, namely the Nintendo Game & Watch titles and some others because in these cases you only see the closed simulators. On the website you open them using the arrow shown next to the top-right corner of the simulator or by pressing "1". But in the player I couldn't find any key-combination to open them and clicking everywhere also didn't do the trick.

Maybe the solution is hidden somwhere in the code if viewed with the above mentioned "JPEXS Free Flash Decompiler". Does anyone have any suggestions to make the remaining simulators also playable offline?

Thanks
Crash95