The pinball story you never knew about | Pinball game in Windows 95, XP #games #windows #gamedev
4Because Doom Was Just Too Violent: The Origins of Pinball
Remember Space Cadet Pinball? Yes, the one you spent hours on with your Windows 95, NT, or XP. It turns out, it had not only more tables but also much more to its story.
The story begins in the summer of 1994, as Microsoft was gearing up to launch Windows 95 and was looking for games to bundle with the operating system to serve as a showcase for its potential.
Independent developer David Stafford and his newly formed Cinematronics LLC saw an opportunity in creating a game specifically designed for Windows 95.
Initially, Cinematronics attempted to port the highly successful game Doom to Windows 95 as a potential showcase.
However, Microsoft rejected the idea because Doom was known for its violent and gory content, which made it unsuitable for being bundled with their flagship product.
As Cinematronics searched for an alternative game idea, Alex St. John, a friend of David Stafford and co-creator of DirectX, mentioned a comment from his supervisor who casually suggested, "Can't we just get a game of Pinball or something?"
Grabbing that opportunity, David Stafford immediately pitched a 3D pinball game designed specifically for Windows 95 to Microsoft, despite not having anything in development.
Cinematronics had just nine months to create the game before Windows 95's planned launch in April 1995. They began using beta builds of the still-developing Windows 95.
Luckily, Microsoft postponed Windows 95's launch by four months to August 24, 1995, giving Cinematronics more time to polish the pinball game.
Windows 95 launched on August 24, 1995, but the pinball game ‘3D Pinball Space Cadet’ wasn't included as planned. It was released alongside Windows 95 in a separate package called Microsoft Plus.
The full version of the game, titled "Full Tilt Pinball," was published by Maxis in October 1995 with two more tables: Skullduggery and Dragon's Keep.
Space Cadet Pinball was included until Windows XP but stopped with Vista due to compatibility issues arising from the 64-bit architecture. The game's code couldn't be easily debugged or adapted for newer systems."
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