I wonder how many hours people spent playing this simple yet incredibly fun pinball classic from Cinematronics / Maxis back in the Windows XP days?

But let’s start from the beginning – this stripped-down pinball game has a history:
Originally, Space Cadet was just one of three tables in the full-fledged game “Full Tilt! Pinball (1995)” by the American developer Cinematronics, which was acquired by Maxis shortly thereafter. Maxis is best known today for “The Sims” and “SimCity” and was acquired by Electronic Arts as early as 1997.

How did Space Cadet end up in Windows?

First and foremost, this version – which was limited to a single table and otherwise technically stripped-down – appeared on the market as part of the “Windows 95 Plus!” bundle, just as we still know it today. Later, it was re-licensed by Microsoft and included with Windows ME, NT 4.0, 2000 and XP. Personally, I remember it as one of several games included in Windows XP.

Since then, this game has not been included in subsequent versions of Windows – which is a shame, i liked it.

Does it run on modern Windows?

Yes, the game still runs unchanged today on the original systems as well as on Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, 10, and 11 – on both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the operating system. A port to SDL has also been implemented, so since 2020 you can play this game on many platforms or even in a browser!

You can download the game for example from archive.org in various languages; the “WaveFiles” must also be downloaded separately to get the sound effects. Or you can simply copy the entire game folder from a Windows XP installation to a newer version of Windows, that works too.

Here is the overview page on archive.org: 3D Pinball: Space Cadet (EN/DEU/PL/CS/JP/DA)
Here’s how to combine the files to play Space Cadet in all its former glory:

Step 1: Download the files

Download the two neccessary 7-Zip archives from the link above or from the following direct links:

PINBALL_ENGLISH.7z
WaveFiles.7z

Step 2: Unpacking

WinRAR or 7-Zip is necessary to unpack the archives.
Extract both archives to separate folders using the context menu.

Step 3: Merge sound effects

Copy or cut the entire contents of the “WaveFiles” folder from the extracted archive and paste or move them into the “PINBALL_ENGLISH” folder, which has also been extracted.

There should be 60 wave sounds.

Step 4: Play

Double-click “pinball.exe” to start playing this classic game.
First, the familiar full-screen splash screen appears, and after a few seconds of initialization, the game begins!

Cheats!

Something that used to be relatively unknown: There’s a hidden test mode in this game. To access it, simply type “hidden test” (including the space) into the fully initialized, running game. This unlocks new possibilities:

In addition, instead of “hidden test” you can enter “1max” during the game (as many times as you like) to get an extra ball each time!

Der Beitrag 3D Pinball for Windows – Space Cadet: The favorite among the included games erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.

While sorting through my old games, I stumbled across this classic mini-game once again. I can’t say why, but this game has popped into my mind every now and then over the years. Entertaining, challenging, and yet still fun.

All you need to control it is the left or right mouse button to determine the direction of the barrier creation. However, you need good nerves to play it. After a very long time, the developer Matthew Miller (https://mattdm.org/icebreaker/) has even released newer versions and there is now also a GitHub repository. The game is programmed in C.

I’ve been running v1.9.5 since the beginning, currently on Windows 11 and I still enjoy it just as much as I did “back then” on Windows XP when I first encountered this little game (was it perhaps once part of a CBS CD/DVD?).

Der Beitrag IceBreaker: An open source classic erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.

These are two really good games from legendary assembler programmer Chris Sawyer, which were huge hits when they came out and have only gotten better over time. I especially enjoyed playing Rollercoaster Tycoon 1 with the two expansions, “Added Attractions” and “Loopy Landscapes,” over and over again. Simply a timeless classic.

However, the technical side, or more precisely the resolutions, had long been a problem: the game only natively supports 4:3 resolutions, which have long since fallen out of use. There were hacks to get around this: Using a hex editor, it was possible to make at least 720p playable in 16:9 format. None of this was ideal. With Windows 11, full-screen mode no longer works at all, making it a hopeless case.

OpenRCT2

This is where OpenRCT2 comes in: an open source implementation of Rollercoaster Tycoon 2.
RCT2 builds seamlessly on RCT1 and has been improved and expanded in many areas without losing any of its charm (unlike RCT3, which came later). It’s best to have the original game handy, as the experience is only really good with the original game data.

Thanks to this community project, RCT2 is up and running again, with many modern features and support for modern systems and hardware. I highly recommend that every fan of the series take a look at the project.

The system requirements are:

Windows 7 or newer
macOS 10.13 (High Sierra) or newer
Linux is more complex: Ubuntu 18.04 or higher, Arch, in principle many distributions should run
FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD

…so the whole thing even runs natively on macOS and Linux!

OpenTTD

Just like OpenRCT2, OpenTTD is a community-developed reimplementation of the classic Transport Tycoon Deluxe, which was released in the 90s and is also an absolute classic.

Here, too, many features have been expanded and improved, and TTD now runs flawlessly on modern systems. You should also have the original game data at hand here. Click here for the project, and here for some impressions. The multiplayer mode is also actively used, and there are many servers!

It is also important to know where to copy which original game files.

The system requirements are very minimal:
OpenTTD should run on absolutely any computer with a standard operating system!

Der Beitrag Nice Thing: OpenRCT2 and OpenTTD erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.

If you install Unreal Tournament III to play exclusively offline or on a LAN, you cannot simply change your player name. In addition, the campaign will not be saved.

To be able to customize it anyway, you must perform the following steps:

Step 1: Requirements

The game must have been started at least once.

Step 2: File location

A file named “Player.ue3profile” has been created in the path “C:\Users\%username%\Documents\My Games\Unreal Tournament 3\UTGame\SaveData”.

Step 3: Change name

Simply replace the “Player” with the desired new name, avoiding special characters, etc. The result would be, for example, “TestPlayer1.ue3profile”.

Step 4: Login

Now start the game and enter the new name in the “Name” field of the login box, but do not enter a password.

Step 5: Offline mode

Click the “Play offline” button at the bottom.

Step 6: Testing

Done - you can now see that the name has been applied in the lower left corner. It will also be used automatically as the default in the future.

Der Beitrag UT3: Customize player name for LAN games erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.