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Space Cadet Pinball on Linux

brennan.io

21–30 of 136 posts

Re: Space Cadet Pinball on Linux

#21
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm what's the problem with that? I understand that the bumper extends down, but what else needs to be on the underside that makes this unbuildable?

I think it's because the bumpers on top (the white things with the blue dot in the middle) need a lot of space underneath and the line runs through the space that they would need.

Hm I understand the bumper part, but what does the line represent? Why does it need to run on the underside?

Re: Space Cadet Pinball on Linux

#22
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's because the bumpers on top (the white things with the blue dot in the middle) need a lot of space underneath and the line runs through the space that they would need.

Hm I understand the bumper part, but what does the line represent? Why does it need to run on the underside?

The line represents a physical tunnel through which the ball can travel.

Re: Space Cadet Pinball on Linux

#23
post #22
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm I understand the bumper part, but what does the line represent? Why does it need to run on the underside?

The line represents a physical tunnel through which the ball can travel.

Oh, there's a hole at the top of the line that leads to an underground lane? That makes sense, I couldn't make that out in the photo, thanks.

Re: Space Cadet Pinball on Linux

#24
post #8

The Full Tilt version also has multiball which is missing from the Windows version. Lock a ball by shooting into a wormhole where the two lights are the same color, lock 3 balls to start. If you enjoy playing Space Cadet I would really recommend giving Visual Pinball a try. There are so many more pinball games better than Space Cadet, with amazing tables people have made for them all available for free. I think it's…

I intuitively feel like more realistic games could be more fun, and that I might just have fondness for Space Cadet from growing up with it; but the more I played other pinball games the more I appreciate that space cadet is a simply great game to play, it feels great and there's a great variety of things to keep you hooked.

I wish I could find another pinball game I enjoyed as much. The closest experiences I could find are Xenotitle and Demon's Tilt but I found them harder to get into and get good at.

The next best thing imo is Yoku's Island Express.

Re: Space Cadet Pinball on Linux

#25
post #7
post #5

I wish somebody had as a passion project or company to build Space Cadet into a real physical pinball table.

Many people have thought about this, IIRC it's not physically possible to build because there is a lane that goes under a bumper (which in real life they extend down quite a bit) https://files.catbox.moe/pnaeri.png

Assuming that it's about moving the ball unseen (which makes it much easier) from the sink hole higher on the table to the apparent ejection hole and kicker low on the table.

One could have the ball go quite low below the table surface and then use some kind of mechanical kicker to get it up to table level again near the bottom. It's possibly a unique problem, but seems to be much less work than building the rest of the table.

Re: Space Cadet Pinball on Linux

#26
I like the authors remark on "source code FLOSS escrow" at the bottom of the article.

It's prolly hard to achieve legally, but the idea that a software is close source until it's no longer sold then automatically becomes open source would attract me as a potential user/buyer of the software: less lock-in in the worst-case scenario (being fully dependent on it wile company goes bust or decides to cancel the project).

Reminds me a bit of the https://kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation/

>

Re: Space Cadet Pinball on Linux

#27
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people have thought about this, IIRC it's not physically possible to build because there is a lane that goes under a bumper (which in real life they extend down quite a bit) https://files.catbox.moe/pnaeri.png

Assuming that it's about moving the ball unseen (which makes it much easier) from the sink hole higher on the table to the apparent ejection hole and kicker low on the table. One could have the ball go quite low below the table surface and then use some kind of mechanical kicker to get it up to table level again near the bottom. It's possibly a unique problem, but seems to be much less work than building the rest of…

Or just have a different ball ready to come out of the exit hole, the top hole would swallow ball 1, and a different ball could exit after a realistic delay...

A bit like Star Trek teleportation.. is it you, or a copy of you?

Re: Space Cadet Pinball on Linux

#28
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…

It's really no surprise: it's a game that was pre-installed on hundreds of millions of computers. That's it. For people of a certain age it's very very likely they have played it, at least a bit.

Re: Space Cadet Pinball on Linux

#29
post #5

I wish somebody had as a passion project or company to build Space Cadet into a real physical pinball table.

I suggested this to a Stern employee 21 years ago, which obviously went nowhere. Back then they were trying to do a Halo machine, which also went nowhere.

Re: Space Cadet Pinball on Linux

#30
post #7
post #5

I wish somebody had as a passion project or company to build Space Cadet into a real physical pinball table.

Many people have thought about this, IIRC it's not physically possible to build because there is a lane that goes under a bumper (which in real life they extend down quite a bit) https://files.catbox.moe/pnaeri.png

Just put one pop bumper there, you could make it work
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