All nostalgia aside, TIL that superfans reverse engineered "Space Cadet" from binary code [1] the same way they did Mario 64 [2]. Not only that, they've ported the result to use SDL and execute in the browser under Emscripten. A super-impressive technical accomplishment with a beautifully tangible result, wow!
My favorite bit - the reverse engineering process seems to have fixed the 64-bit bug Raymond Chen blogged about [3]
> I did not find it, decompiled game worked in x64 mode on the first try.
> It was either lost in decompilation or introduced in x64 port/not present in x86 build.
> Based on public description of the bug (no ball collision), I guess that the bug was in TEdgeManager::TestGridBox
This is my obligatory old-guy post that Space Cadet was one of three tables in the package "Full Tilt Pinball" released by Maxis (along with Skulduggery and Dragon's Keep) which came in its entirety for free with the puzzle game Marble Drop, which was apparently only ever liked by me. So if you want the full set of tables and can 64-bit-ify the installer, the Marble Drop CD might be easy to come by.
Played this game for hours as a kid. My mom and I printed out the directions so we could read up on all the missions and promotions and stuff.
Having tried other pinball games here and there, this definitely became the standard that I judged everything else by. The physics just feel really good, and the gameplay was a wonderful mixture of skill and flashiness without ever feeling like it was too overwhelming. Just solid from top to bottom.
I'm right there with you. Once you understood what you were doing in the game, it felt like more than pinball, it felt like you were playing a game with the pinball machine, if that makes sense. Going on missions, getting promotions, etc were things you could actively pursue. Fun times.
I’d heard it as ZZT paid for Jill of the Jungle which let them afford Unreal’s longer development cycle while releasing other games (like Epic Pinball.) Epic Pinball and ZZT were two of my favorite games from the 90s.
Pinball FX3 (available on Steam, and other platforms) is pretty good if there's specific real-world tables you're interested in playing. Volume 1 has Medieval Madness, which I have logged far too many hours in.
Medieval Madness is my all time favorite table. I recently bought the version for Pinball FX3, and it's not half bad. I could complain about all kinds of things about PinballFX3, it's very emblematic of the problems with modern gaming, but the tables themselves are pretty good recreations.
It's nowhere near as fun as real pinball, but the one thing that I found really cool was that I was able to play the game on "training mode" and get a better sense for the different things I could do and how to set up certain situations.
My best Medieval Madness score is something like 50,000,000... the table I play on has a high score of about 190,000,000 so I have a long way to go to have a chance at putting in my initials. But I can generally go for a pretty long session on a single credit. Even still, I hadn't ever seen half the stuff that I got to see while playing the virtual version, and I've taken some of that knowledge into the real world when I visit the bar where that table lives.
So overall, digital pinball is cool in my book, if flawed.
Quick edit/addition:
Medieval Madness is unique among nearly all the tables I've played in that it doesn't bullshit you much. Most of the time when I lose balls, I know exactly the wrong thing I did (in particular, trying to hit the castle gate or the trolls without multiball is pretty dangerous). Most tables I've played will suck up a credit in a few flips in ways that seem pretty unfair, but Medieval Madness seems pretty fair. I would love to own a table but they're shockingly expensive, maybe someday!
Phone apps are close to ideal for a quick game of pinball - touchscreen controls are not perfect, but they are "good enough."
The best "originals" on phone are in Pinball Deluxe Reloaded, which sticks to a flat 2D design.
Pinball FX(Zen Studios) is the runner up and has a series of apps dedicated to its originals and licenses. It tries to have a 3D camera, which isn't the best experience on a tiny screen.
Pinball Arcade and Zaccaria both have apps. The content is pretty good but they haven't been maintained properly to work well on the phone. I still sunk hours and hours into Pinball Arcade despite it having a broken camera implementation in vertical aspect.
Great project... unfortunately nearly unplayable with german keyboard layout because you have to hold shift for a /. Player controls are not working, so no dice...
I would raise an issue, but that is not possible in this project, because it's a fork... :-/
Left and right mouse buttons. Hover the central wheel button over the piston launcher, while pressing the wheel button, rotate the wheel towards you to deploy the launcher. Sorry I don't know pin-ball lingo. There are probably other keyboard interfaces for this......
This version has a pretty low frame rate, it's just not very snappy. I downloaded the version on the Microsoft store and it works just like I remember.
As a workaround, you can put the following "conditional breakpoint" on the "this.requests[name] = this;" line in the SpaceCadetPinball.js file (formatted):
(name.includes('MID') && (this.end=this.start)),0
This makes the `PINBALL.MID` resource file empty and the rest seems to work.
Readit News
My favorite bit - the reverse engineering process seems to have fixed the 64-bit bug Raymond Chen blogged about [3]
> I did not find it, decompiled game worked in x64 mode on the first try.
> It was either lost in decompilation or introduced in x64 port/not present in x86 build.
> Based on public description of the bug (no ball collision), I guess that the bug was in TEdgeManager::TestGridBox
[1] https://github.com/k4zmu2a/SpaceCadetPinball.
[2] https://github.com/n64decomp/sm64
[3] https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20220106-00/?p=10...
Looks like the Marble Drop stuff won't run without the installer, but the Full Tilt executables run off the CD just fine.
I had those tables in their box years ago. Skulduggery and Dragons Keep were a lot of fun!
Worth noting that F8/Player Controls dialogue doesn't work, and neither does disabling the music.
Having tried other pinball games here and there, this definitely became the standard that I judged everything else by. The physics just feel really good, and the gameplay was a wonderful mixture of skill and flashiness without ever feeling like it was too overwhelming. Just solid from top to bottom.
It's nowhere near as fun as real pinball, but the one thing that I found really cool was that I was able to play the game on "training mode" and get a better sense for the different things I could do and how to set up certain situations.
My best Medieval Madness score is something like 50,000,000... the table I play on has a high score of about 190,000,000 so I have a long way to go to have a chance at putting in my initials. But I can generally go for a pretty long session on a single credit. Even still, I hadn't ever seen half the stuff that I got to see while playing the virtual version, and I've taken some of that knowledge into the real world when I visit the bar where that table lives.
So overall, digital pinball is cool in my book, if flawed.
Quick edit/addition: Medieval Madness is unique among nearly all the tables I've played in that it doesn't bullshit you much. Most of the time when I lose balls, I know exactly the wrong thing I did (in particular, trying to hit the castle gate or the trolls without multiball is pretty dangerous). Most tables I've played will suck up a credit in a few flips in ways that seem pretty unfair, but Medieval Madness seems pretty fair. I would love to own a table but they're shockingly expensive, maybe someday!
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pinout/id1108417718
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mediocre.p...
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/07/atgames-legends-virtu...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Pinball
The best "originals" on phone are in Pinball Deluxe Reloaded, which sticks to a flat 2D design.
Pinball FX(Zen Studios) is the runner up and has a series of apps dedicated to its originals and licenses. It tries to have a 3D camera, which isn't the best experience on a tiny screen.
Pinball Arcade and Zaccaria both have apps. The content is pretty good but they haven't been maintained properly to work well on the phone. I still sunk hours and hours into Pinball Arcade despite it having a broken camera implementation in vertical aspect.
Dead Comment
I love this project and would love to play the game, but at least two keys on my keyboard would be necessary...
Or do I just not know the deep lore of pinball and how to keep the blockers deployed in the side routes 100% of the time.
Actually I have the game installed in Windows 10, but I no longer play it. I lost the aim in the central targets that give endless extra balls.
Deleted Comment