121–130 of 136 posts
I am one of the original authors of Space Cadet Pinball and I just want to say it is absolutely wonderful there are people who love our old pinball game enough to keep it alive. You made my day. I am forwarding this post to my Cinematronics co-founders and friends, Mike Sandige (lead engineer) and Kevin Gliner (designer and product manager). They will enjoy seeing this as much as I did.
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.
I remember in the original there was something you could type when the game was playing the starting sequence (I think it was "hidden test"?) to be able to move the ball with your cursor. I'm curious if this works in this version so I'll probably try it out later when I'm at a computer if no one else has. edit: It does! I installed the AUR version of it that was linked in the repo README and tested it out, and typing…
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Having a fun game bundled with every Windows install was really something special, so thanks for working on the game and selling it to Microsoft. Without it, we wouldn't have been able to have a Pinball league in my middle school typing class :) What parts of the game did you work on? Do you have any fun anecdotes about your time working on it, or stories about hard to find bugs?
I was CEO of Cinematronics (to be clear, we were a tiny startup so a CEO title didn't mean much - everyone pitched in wherever they could help.) I negotiated the contract with Microsoft. My engineering contribution was not in the gameplay itself but in the game's memory manager and low-level rendering code. That was all performance-critical X86 assembly. I doubt any of that code lives on today. Yes, there were a lot…
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It is (an understatement to say) with great honor to have the opportunity to tell you (and indirectly the team if they read this): Thank You for making possibly one of the greatest Windows selling points ever, the inclusion of Space Cadet Pinball into its base offering. SCP has had such a massive influence in my life up to the point of getting into the real world of pinball and becoming semi-professional (or the step…
Fellow pinball enthusiast here - I didn't get into it because of SCP, though, but rather grew up with the machines being regularly rotated and maintained in my Dads hamburger shop in the 70's .. halcyon days indeed! What part of the world are you in that doesn't have a professional pinball tournament roster? Just curious ..
Good ol' days indeed! That picturesque glimpse of the past brings a smile to my face! I didn't get more than 1 chance to play physical machines back in the day and only started in the last decade with a machine popping up at my office, to which I became the defacto repairman after it needing maintenance regularly.
I'm located in Prague, Czechia. The pinball scene in the country is basically held by two groups of people: those previously working in the gambling scene changing up their ways and going into the arcade scene, overcharging for tables (3$ dollars and up for 1 game, bought by in-house credits) or the older pinball scene and owners who have been milking out old tables for years on very reduced maintenance cycles, which results in rarely fully working tables.
Despite there being 1 local tournament, one of these options offers anything near IFPA standards.
Geographically speaking and as seen on the pinside map[0], France and Spain have very little areas where there are no machines whileas Germany has barely none. The reason being is that Germany has introduced entertainment laws at require businesses to pay for any machines they may offer to their patrons, resulting in table operators operating at a loss most of the time. That also stops the scene from crossing the border as it virtually doesn't exist, Spanish and French tourists do not come here for pinball whatsoever.
Move further east to Czechia and you have a very small population where most people do not know of the game or even less its local name of "Flipper". Businesses that have went into the pinball scene recently have failed miserably for various reasons but mainly due to pricing/bad business models and lack of international advertising.
Despite the grim situation over here, I'm aware that some efforts are persisting into getting another place set up so the dream of getting an IFPA chapter here is not dead!
Happy to hear your thoughts on it all!
[0] https://pinside.com/pinball/map/mapbox#5.89/49.472/14.274/0/...
I am one of the original authors of Space Cadet Pinball and I just want to say it is absolutely wonderful there are people who love our old pinball game enough to keep it alive. You made my day. I am forwarding this post to my Cinematronics co-founders and friends, Mike Sandige (lead engineer) and Kevin Gliner (designer and product manager). They will enjoy seeing this as much as I did.
It is (an understatement to say) with great honor to have the opportunity to tell you (and indirectly the team if they read this): Thank You for making possibly one of the greatest Windows selling points ever, the inclusion of Space Cadet Pinball into its base offering. SCP has had such a massive influence in my life up to the point of getting into the real world of pinball and becoming semi-professional (or the step…
We reached out to Microsoft a few years ago and offered to create a new version at no charge if they would restore it to Windows but they turned us down. There appeared to be no interest on their part.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is (an understatement to say) with great honor to have the opportunity to tell you (and indirectly the team if they read this): Thank You for making possibly one of the greatest Windows selling points ever, the inclusion of Space Cadet Pinball into its base offering. SCP has had such a massive influence in my life up to the point of getting into the real world of pinball and becoming semi-professional (or the step…
> Would you ever consider going back to the drawing board in an attempt to produce an official follow-up to Space Cadet Pinball? We reached out to Microsoft a few years ago and offered to create a new version at no charge if they would restore it to Windows but they turned us down. There appeared to be no interest on their part.
Thanks for the prompt reasonse!
I'm inclined to think that the landscape a few years ago has changed drastically and today's world is a lot different: Microsoft is now one of the world's largest gaming houses with their purchases of Mojang, ZeniMax and Activision/Blizzard and the dust from those mergers (should) have settled. A vision for the immediate and near future would certainly be different.
Add the fact that Windows 11 currently has a very poor overall impression with its user base and have publicly pledged that they will work to improve their operating system offering.
There's also a new Xbox leader, Asha Sharma, who has decided to change how the Xbox division is being managed, leading to new ways on how to improve their overall share of the gaming market.
All of the above pertains only towards the initial conception of how Space Cadet was introduced to a generation of fans focused on Microsoft. And despite it being a unique opportunity, it may only be applicable back then. That is no longer necessary now in today's age as you already have an established name, product and reputation. And on the flip side, going the no-charge to previous benefactors may even be detrimental to the overall goal without considering existing gaming solutions like Steam or GoG.
I'd be bold to ask why would you even need their blessing to release an updated or new version but would be quick to dismiss the hurdle as unnecessary, when there are other options and people out there to support your brand and product and to see that your fans blessed are with another table after such a long time.
Looking forward to your feedback!
-x
edit: elusive missing comma
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> Would you ever consider going back to the drawing board in an attempt to produce an official follow-up to Space Cadet Pinball? We reached out to Microsoft a few years ago and offered to create a new version at no charge if they would restore it to Windows but they turned us down. There appeared to be no interest on their part.
> We reached out to Microsoft a few years ago and offered to create a new version at no charge if they would restore it to Windows but they turned us down. There appeared to be no interest on their part. Thanks for the prompt reasonse! I'm inclined to think that the landscape a few years ago has changed drastically and today's world is a lot different: Microsoft is now one of the world's largest gaming houses with th…
My Cinematronics co-founders and I do not own the rights to any of the games we created. Cinematronics was acquired by Maxis, and Maxis was later acquired by Electronic Arts (who are being acquired, as well.) The rights would have to be untangled which was, I suspect, part of the hesitation Microsoft had in moving forward.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> We reached out to Microsoft a few years ago and offered to create a new version at no charge if they would restore it to Windows but they turned us down. There appeared to be no interest on their part. Thanks for the prompt reasonse! I'm inclined to think that the landscape a few years ago has changed drastically and today's world is a lot different: Microsoft is now one of the world's largest gaming houses with th…
> I'd be bold to ask why would you even need their blessing to release an updated or new version My Cinematronics co-founders and I do not own the rights to any of the games we created. Cinematronics was acquired by Maxis, and Maxis was later acquired by Electronic Arts (who are being acquired, as well.) The rights would have to be untangled which was, I suspect, part of the hesitation Microsoft had in moving forward…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'd be bold to ask why would you even need their blessing to release an updated or new version My Cinematronics co-founders and I do not own the rights to any of the games we created. Cinematronics was acquired by Maxis, and Maxis was later acquired by Electronic Arts (who are being acquired, as well.) The rights would have to be untangled which was, I suspect, part of the hesitation Microsoft had in moving forward…
Rights aside, would you be willing to explore other options to release a new pinball table to existing fans?
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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.
With game modding or decompilation, a lot of people do stuff that's probably illegal but whoever owns the rights doesn't care so they do it anyway. Microsoft is fairly hands off with old stuff like this that doesn't do any material damage to their bottom line. For a more serious example, the full leaked source code to Windows NT 4 and XP has been on Microsoft-owned Github for ages and they haven't bothered taking it…