{"slug": "visual-pinball", "name": "Visual Pinball", "category": "other", "category_name": "Other software", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 3, "warners": 0, "score": 2.687, "rising": -0.98, "first": "2026-05-10", "latest": "2026-05-10", "why": "+1 on Visual Pinball, it's really mind-blowingly great", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 0, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 3, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "+1 on Visual Pinball, it's really mind-blowingly great", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": "github.com/vpinball/vpinball", "official_url": "https://github.com/vpinball/vpinball", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Visual Pinball"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 769401681, "item_id": 48087605, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48087605", "by": "mrandish", "date": "2026-05-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Stick to only Visual Pinball", "excerpt": "Yeah, I hear you but as I mentioned in my reply to your other post there is a long-term silver-lining to having a bit of onboarding complexity. I think it's a big reason the VPin community is well into its second decade and still full of passionately committed contributors freely sharing awesome stuff. If you want drive-by casual pinball there are reasonably-priced pinball systems on PS5/XBox/Switch and Steam that ar", "context": "", "use_case": "pinball simulator", "switched_from": "", "story": "Space Cadet Pinball on Linux"}, {"id": 769394656, "item_id": 48087166, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48087166", "by": "luqtas", "date": "2026-05-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "works flawlessly on Android", "excerpt": "have you followed their build instructions? https://github.com/vpinball/vpinball/blob/standalone/standalone/README.md last time i tried on Debian it just worked... their developer testing app also works flawlessly on Android. Arch Linux has an AUR package with the last git and i updated it yesterday and played a bit before bed", "context": "", "use_case": "pinball simulator", "switched_from": "", "story": "Space Cadet Pinball on Linux"}, {"id": 769389984, "item_id": 48086874, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48086874", "by": "mrandish", "date": "2026-05-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "+1 on Visual Pinball, it's really mind-blowingly great", "excerpt": "+1 on Visual Pinball, it's really mind-blowingly great and supported by a huge, very active community of artists and table developers. For anyone who doesn't yet know, there are hundreds of high-quality tables with a dozen or more new releases every week. While there are new, original tables which do things no physical pinball table can, many are lovingly hand-crafted recreations of commercial pinball machines includ", "context": "", "use_case": "playing virtual pinball tables", "switched_from": "", "story": "Space Cadet Pinball on Linux"}, {"id": 769371184, "item_id": 48085699, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48085699", "by": "eahm", "date": "2026-05-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "You might want to check this one https://archive.org/details/vpinball-x-73-space-cadet for Visual Pinball", "excerpt": "You might want to check this one https://archive.org/details/vpinball-x-73-space-cadet for Visual Pinball https://github.com/vpinball/vpinball. There are others that might be even better but JP's is the one that just works without installing and configuring a bunch of other software (https://youtube.com/results?search_query=JP%27s+Space+Cadet). Damn amazing how they are making these pinballs today. More tables here t", "context": "", "use_case": "Pinball table emulator", "switched_from": "", "story": "Space Cadet Pinball on Linux"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["pinball simulator", "playing virtual pinball tables", "pinball table emulator"], "compared": [], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48082968", "title": "Space Cadet Pinball on Linux", "mentions": 4}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {"recommend": 3}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 769401681, "item_id": 48087605, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48087605", "by": "mrandish", "date": "2026-05-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Stick to only Visual Pinball", "excerpt": "Yeah, I hear you but as I mentioned in my reply to your other post there is a long-term silver-lining to having a bit of onboarding complexity. I think it's a big reason the VPin community is well into its second decade and still full of passionately committed contributors freely sharing awesome stuff. If you want drive-by casual pinball there are reasonably-priced pinball systems on PS5/XBox/Switch and Steam that ar", "context": "", "use_case": "pinball simulator", "switched_from": "", "story": "Space Cadet Pinball on Linux"}, {"id": 769394656, "item_id": 48087166, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48087166", "by": "luqtas", "date": "2026-05-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "works flawlessly on Android", "excerpt": "have you followed their build instructions? https://github.com/vpinball/vpinball/blob/standalone/standalone/README.md last time i tried on Debian it just worked... their developer testing app also works flawlessly on Android. Arch Linux has an AUR package with the last git and i updated it yesterday and played a bit before bed", "context": "", "use_case": "pinball simulator", "switched_from": "", "story": "Space Cadet Pinball on Linux"}, {"id": 769389984, "item_id": 48086874, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48086874", "by": "mrandish", "date": "2026-05-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "+1 on Visual Pinball, it's really mind-blowingly great", "excerpt": "+1 on Visual Pinball, it's really mind-blowingly great and supported by a huge, very active community of artists and table developers. For anyone who doesn't yet know, there are hundreds of high-quality tables with a dozen or more new releases every week. While there are new, original tables which do things no physical pinball table can, many are lovingly hand-crafted recreations of commercial pinball machines includ", "context": "", "use_case": "playing virtual pinball tables", "switched_from": "", "story": "Space Cadet Pinball on Linux"}, {"id": 769371184, "item_id": 48085699, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48085699", "by": "eahm", "date": "2026-05-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "You might want to check this one https://archive.org/details/vpinball-x-73-space-cadet for Visual Pinball", "excerpt": "You might want to check this one https://archive.org/details/vpinball-x-73-space-cadet for Visual Pinball https://github.com/vpinball/vpinball. There are others that might be even better but JP's is the one that just works without installing and configuring a bunch of other software (https://youtube.com/results?search_query=JP%27s+Space+Cadet). Damn amazing how they are making these pinballs today. More tables here t", "context": "", "use_case": "Pinball table emulator", "switched_from": "", "story": "Space Cadet Pinball on Linux"}]}