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Space Cadet Pinball on Linux

brennan.io

31–40 of 136 posts

Re: Space Cadet Pinball on Linux

#31
That reminds me, do skilled players actually use the tilt keys? I remember being confused for years as to the purpose of tilt keys because I hadn't used a real pinball machine, and I can't remember it nudging the ball enough to merit the risk.

Re: Space Cadet Pinball on Linux

#32
Last year we shipped a pinball game at Shopify that took some inspiration from Space Cadet. You can still play it here: https://bfcm.shopify.com/

Every year we ship a live visualization of our merchant's sales on Black Friday. For a long time it was just a globe with arcs where each arc shows a real sale going from seller to buyer, but in the last few years we have been transforming the website into something more fun and interactive.

I found programming a pinball machine to be quite challenging. We were a team of 2 engineers and 1 artist and we worked on that project for about a month and a half. We wrote some notes on the process and put them in the desktop computer next to the pinball machine if anyone is curious about how things work.

Re: Space Cadet Pinball on Linux

#33
post #9

Space Cadet wasn't bundled with Windows, was it? It was included in Microsoft Plus! 98 but not Windows 98.

It was actually part of Microsoft Plus! for Windows 95. It wasn't directly available for Windows 98 at all, but the Windows 98 install disc does include an INF file so you can install it, provided you have a copy of Plus! for Windows 95.

It was also included with Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows Me, and Windows XP (both the original and x64 versions). Finally removed in Vista to never return.

Re: Space Cadet Pinball on Linux

#34
post #14

I was wondering why newer OS doesn't bundle games with their default installation anymore? Even on smartphone. I remember on old dumb phone (nokia I think), you can play snake and some racing game. It even has multiplayer via bluetooth.

Google play games comes with a offline copy of snake, solitaire, minesweeper, and a few others. I'm not sure if that's bundled with phones or not, and the games are kinda hidden. I only found out about them because they come up if you try to search Google play without a connection.

Re: Space Cadet Pinball on Linux

#35

That reminds me, do skilled players actually use the tilt keys? I remember being confused for years as to the purpose of tilt keys because I hadn't used a real pinball machine, and I can't remember it nudging the ball enough to merit the risk.

Yes tilting an actual pinball machine is very legitimate. On the other end, pinball machines have adjustable legs and the arcade owner will make adjustments to the machine to throw people off. Not daily, but when they notice someone is constantly earning free plays, they will take action. Any minor changes will cause the ball to take slightly different paths.

Re: Space Cadet Pinball on Linux

#36
post #14

I was wondering why newer OS doesn't bundle games with their default installation anymore? Even on smartphone. I remember on old dumb phone (nokia I think), you can play snake and some racing game. It even has multiplayer via bluetooth.

Please describe the precise ROI with $1M in research and studies, that will show an OS vendor will make a profit on such bundles.

(I can't imagine any other reason why, except maybe bug reports)

Re: Space Cadet Pinball on Linux

#38
It's ridiculous how accurate this recreation is to the original, it looks and feels identical.

The author was able to do this just decompiling the exe files, without looking at the original source code. Basically, completely blind.

So it goes without saying: The deaf, dumb and blind kid sure makes a mean pinball.

Re: Space Cadet Pinball on Linux

#39
post #38

It's ridiculous how accurate this recreation is to the original, it looks and feels identical. The author was able to do this just decompiling the exe files, without looking at the original source code. Basically, completely blind. So it goes without saying: The deaf, dumb and blind kid sure makes a mean pinball.

My understanding is you had to NOT look at the disassembled code for a project but have someone else do so and document what they see and that constitutes clean room. Course if I make Claude do the same thing… write a spec from disassembled code, that could work.

Re: Space Cadet Pinball on Linux

#40
post #6

I'm always surprised at the nostalgia for Space Cadet Pinball. Perhaps it was just chance that I grew up playing what seemed like a much better pinball game ( Hyper-3D Pinball, aka Tilt!* ), but I was always underwhelmed by Space Cadet Pinball on windows. In reality they're both pretty similar, I just happened to play a lot of one before the other, but the full screen DOS experience was much richer than what felt lik…

I loved playing Epic Pinball and especially the music. Exactly the kind of sound I enjoy. I collected mod files on floppies as a kid.

Other pinball games are bland and boring to me.

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