Open Cadet

A CC0 game-data package for SpaceCadetPinball, the open-source reimplementation of 3D Pinball for Windows — Space Cadet.

The engine is a faithful, MIT-licensed reimplementation, but it still needs PINBALL.DAT and the sound files from a Windows install to start. Those files are Microsoft's, so nobody has been able to ship a complete build that anyone can legally redistribute — you had to already own a copy of Windows XP, or find the files somewhere you probably shouldn't.

This package replaces them. Every file here is original work dedicated to the public domain under CC0, which makes this (as far as I know) the first Space Cadet build that needs zero Microsoft files.

▶ Play it in your browser — the engine compiled to WebAssembly with these assets, no download.

Use it

Get the engine from k4zmu2a/SpaceCadetPinball, then drop the contents of this repo into the directory it searches for game data — next to the executable, or the working directory it is launched from:

PINBALL.DAT
sound1.wav
sound104.wav
...            # 47 sound files in total

Run it. The table is a neon-space redraw rather than the beige-and-chrome original, because the art here is original — see below.

How this is legal

The interesting part is not the art, it is the split. Copyright protects creative expression; it does not protect facts, and it does not protect a file format. So the two are separated deliberately.

Original expression — created from scratch, dedicated CC0:

• Every bitmap in PINBALL.DAT — playfield, score panel, lights, bumpers, flippers, targets, ball. All procedurally generated in a neon-space style. No pixels were copied from any source.
• The colour palette.
• All 47 sound effects, synthesised with numpy from sine/noise/decay envelopes. No audio sample was copied.
• All text strings.

Facts, reused for interoperability:

• The container structure: group names, group order, record type codes.
• Geometry: wall-segment coordinates, component positions, sprite bounding boxes, the table boundary polygon.
• Physics: elasticity, smoothness, thresholds, gravity, ball radius.
• The table_objects assembly list and the camera/projection matrix.
• Per-surface depth values, used as functional geometry so shading direction and foreshortening put the table at the right viewing angle. The original artwork's pixel silhouettes are not reused — every sprite is drawn independently.
• Sound-effect filenames, which are the contract between the DAT and the engine.

Facts and measurements are not copyrightable (Feist v. Rural Telephone, 499 U.S. 340). Reimplementing an interface for interoperability is the same principle Wine and ReactOS are built on. A table's physics constants are measurements; a drawing of a bumper is expression. This package keeps the first and replaces the second.

NOTICE.md records the same split in more detail, as the canonical provenance document.

What you are allowed to do

Anything. CC0 waives copyright worldwide to the extent the law allows. Ship it, modify it, sell it, remix it into another table, do not credit me. If your jurisdiction does not recognise public-domain dedication, the license text grants an unconditional fallback license.

Not affiliated

Not affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft, Maxis, or Cinematronics. 3D Pinball for Windows — Space Cadet and Full Tilt! Pinball are their respective owners' trademarks. This package contains none of their files.