3D Pinball - Space Cadet Wii

3D Pinball - Space Cadet
File:3dpinballspacecadetwii.png
General
Author	MaikelChan
Type	Arcade Games
Version	0.2
License	MIT License
Last Updated	2021/10/31
Links
Download
Website
Source

This project is a port of the classic game 3D Pinball - Space Cadet for the Nintendo Wii. Originally bundled with Windows from 95 to XP, this port brings the game to a new platform.

Currently, the project is in a playable state with some limitations. There are no menus, options, or results screens yet, but it can be played with a Wii remote or GameCube pad. Sound effects and music can be played if the player supplies the music in OGG format. However, there may still be some bugs present.

The port was based on a PC decompilation made by k4zmu2a and can be found on GitHub. The original decompilation used SDL2 for rendering, but for this Wii port, native GPU rendering with the GX library was implemented as SDL for Wii is considered incomplete and did not utilize the GPU enough, causing slow performance.

The necessary changes were also made to make the original game's binary assets work on the Wii, as the Wii's CPU is big-endian rather than little-endian like PC x86. These changes could also be useful for porting to other big-endian devices.

How To Run

Wii with homebrew channel

1. Rename SpaceCadetPinball.dol to boot.dol.
2. Go to the sd folder in this repository, and copy its contents to the root of the SD card you use for loading apps for the Hombrew channel.
3. Copy boot.dol to apps/SpaceCadetPinball/ in your SD card.
4. For legal reasons, you will need to get the original PC game on your own to obtain the assets like graphics and sound effects. Those are not contained in this repository.
5. Copy all PC game's assets to apps/SpaceCadetPinball/Data/ in your SD card.
6. Optionally, since this port doesn't play MIDI files, you'll need to convert the music to ogg format, and call the file PINBALL.ogg, and put it along the other assets in the Data folder. Make sure that the music has a sample rate no higher than 44100Hz, or it won't play correctly.
7. If everything went fine, you should be able to see the game in your homebrew channel and run it.

Dolphin

1. Get the Dolphin emulator if you don't have it.
2. Create and edit a virtual SD card following these instructions.
3. Mount that virtual card.
4. Follow the steps 4, 5 and 6 in Wii with homebrew channel section.
5. Unmount the SD card, as Dolphin won't be able to access its contents while it's mounted.
6. Open Dolphin, go to Config, then to the Audio tab, and select DSP LLE REcompiler (slow). Audio won't work without that.
7. Go to Graphics settings, then to the Hacks tab, and move the Accuracy slider all the way to the left to set it as Safe.
8. Go to the menu File and then Open....
9. Locate and open SpaceCadetPinball.dol (or boot.dol in case you renamed it for the homebrew channel).
10. If everything went fine, you should be able to run the game.

Media

Running Windows Space Cadet Pinball on the Nintendo Wii! - (Michael MJD)

Controls

Wii Remote

A  : Launch the ball

Z  : Move the left paddle

B  : Move the right paddle

DPAD Left, Right, Up : Bump table

-  : Start a new game

+  : Pause

GameCube Pad

A  : Launch the ball

L  : Move the left paddle

R  : Move the right paddle

DPAD Left, Right, Up : Bump table

Y  : Start a new game

Start  : Pause

Changelog

v0.2

• The game now loads the good font that's embedded in pinball.exe.
• In case that font is not available, the one in PINBALL2.MID is scaled down and has the same color palette as the other font, so it fits better and it's more readable.
• Also deleted the font that was included in EmbeddedData.cpp.

v0.1

• It can be playable with a Wii Remote or a GameCube pad.
• Fully playable with some minor bugs.
• It lacks menus or score results window.

External Links

• Github - https://github.com/MaikelChan/SpaceCadetPinball
• OSCWii - https://oscwii.org/library/app/SpaceCadetPinball