Windows’ classic 3D Space Cadet pinball is getting a physical re-creation

Windows 经典游戏《3D 弹球：太空军校生》即将迎来实体复刻

If you owned a Windows computer in the late ’90s or early ’00s, you probably remember 3D Pinball for Windows – Space Cadet, a surprisingly competent virtual table included for free with multiple Microsoft OS releases through Windows XP. 如果你在 90 年代末或 21 世纪初拥有一台 Windows 电脑，你可能还记得《3D 弹球：太空军校生》（3D Pinball for Windows – Space Cadet）。这款令人惊艳的虚拟弹球游戏曾随多个微软操作系统版本免费附赠，一直持续到 Windows XP。

Despite the game’s authenticity to real pinball, Space Cadet wasn’t based on an extant physical table, but was merely one part of the Full Tilt! Pinball software collection sold by Maxis starting in 1995. 尽管这款游戏在弹球体验上非常逼真，但《太空军校生》并非基于现实中存在的实体球台，它仅仅是 Maxis 公司从 1995 年起发售的《Full Tilt! Pinball》软件合集中的一部分。

In the intervening years, hobbyists and enthusiasts have discussed the possibility of crafting a homebrew physical table based on Space Cadet many times, without much tangible progress to show for it. A company called Deeproot Pinball went so far as to develop a reskinned prototype of Space Cadet‘s layout for a planned 2021 release before the whole company went under amid fraud allegations. 在此后的多年里，许多爱好者多次讨论过制作一台基于《太空军校生》的自制实体球台的可能性，但一直没有取得实质性进展。一家名为 Deeproot Pinball 的公司甚至曾开发过一个换皮版的《太空军校生》原型，计划于 2021 年发布，但该公司最终在欺诈指控中倒闭了。

Where Deeproot failed, though, hobbyist CNCDan hopes to succeed in creating a physical Space Cadet table. In a video, he documents the start of his build process, which already includes 3D-printed mechanical flippers, pop bumpers (complete with embedded LEDs), slingshots, and even a raised playfield, all designed to mimic the look and feel of the original Windows table. 不过，在 Deeproot 失败的地方，爱好者 CNCDan 希望能成功打造出一台实体《太空军校生》球台。他在一段视频中记录了制作过程的开端，其中包括 3D 打印的机械拨杆、带有嵌入式 LED 灯的弹出式保险杠、弹射器，甚至还有一个抬高的游戏区域，所有设计都旨在模仿原版 Windows 游戏的外观和手感。

While the Windows Space Cadet table didn’t have to deal with any real-world constraints, CNCDan has already run into issues with the size and positioning of table elements. After scaling and skewing the on-screen, perspective-shifted view of the Space Cadet playfield onto a 1-meter-tall table, he ended up with a rectangular playfield just 56 cm wide. That’s on the smaller side for commercial pinball tables and maps to playfield bumpers that are just 53 mm wide—way smaller than any prebuilt bumpers that are commercially available. 虽然 Windows 版的《太空军校生》无需考虑现实世界的物理限制，但 CNCDan 已经遇到了球台元件尺寸和布局的问题。在将屏幕上具有透视效果的《太空军校生》游戏区域缩放并调整到一张 1 米高的球台上后，他最终得到的矩形游戏区宽度仅为 56 厘米。这对于商业弹球台来说偏小，意味着游戏区的保险杠宽度仅为 53 毫米——这比市面上任何现成的保险杠都要小得多。

Once CNCDan dealt with issues with unreliable plastic microswitches for those tiny bumpers (Hall effect magnets seemed to help), he ran into a separate problem with the even smaller bumpers on the raised playfield. The wiring for those bumpers had to be arranged very carefully to avoid blocking a kickback return alley underneath, a positioning problem that the original designers of the virtual table didn’t have to consider at all. 在解决了那些微型保险杠上不可靠的塑料微动开关问题后（霍尔效应磁铁似乎有所帮助），他又遇到了抬高游戏区上更小保险杠的问题。这些保险杠的布线必须非常小心，以免阻挡下方的回球通道，这是虚拟游戏的原设计师完全无需考虑的布局难题。

CNCDan also ended up adding a physical mechanism to simulate the short delay 3D Space Cadet players may remember, when the ball dropped down a hole from the raised playfield back to the flippers below. CNCDan 最终还增加了一个物理机制，用来模拟《3D 太空军校生》玩家可能记得的那个短暂延迟——即球从抬高的游戏区掉进洞里，回到下方拨杆的过程。

CNCDan says he’s currently looking for artists to help him with a hand-drawn re-creation of the original Space Cadet playfield, which he doesn’t want to use AI for. “I’m sure [AI] can do it, but I’d much rather give this job to a real human being,” he said in the video. CNCDan 表示，他目前正在寻找艺术家协助他手绘复刻原版的《太空军校生》游戏区，他不想使用人工智能来完成这项工作。“我相信 AI 能做到，但我更愿意把这份工作交给真正的人类，”他在视频中说道。

While CNCDan is still a long way from having a complete Space Cadet table in his workspace, we’re intrigued by his progress so far and hopeful that our nostalgic memories of classic Windows pinball will soon be a tangible reality. 虽然 CNCDan 距离在工作室完成一台完整的《太空军校生》球台还有很长的路要走，但我们对他目前的进展感到非常好奇，并希望我们对经典 Windows 弹球游戏的怀旧记忆能很快成为触手可及的现实。