FOSSPicks
Virtual arcade game
Emilia Pinball
Thanks to their high frame rates and realistic physics, virtual pinball games running on modern hardware are a long way from the early Amiga 2D titles that started the genre. You can even find entire arcades in virtual reality along with properly licensed recreations of dozens of actual pinball games from the '70s, '80s, and '90s. Developers have lovingly written code to emulate both the circuits of the solid state era and the CPUs of the digital era that replaced it, and players have even attached low latency switches and large screens to help play these emulations at their best. You can do something similar with Emilia Pinball, an open source pinball environment designed to be run on an embedded device with OpenGL acceleration.
Even without a specific device, the source to this game can be built and run on any ordinary Linux machine, and it performs blisteringly well. Left and right Shift keys act as the left and right buttons on the real thing, with Enter to launch your ball. These controls are also mapped to a mouse, which opens up the possibility of building a physical pinball controller from an old mouse. There's a clever nudge system for virtually knocking the table to shove the ball, and the physics of the ball's movement seem indistinguishable from the real thing. There's a selection of tables, and these have their own project repositories so you can easily fork them and modify them. They all feature open source and GNU-like names, and include graphics of Tux and other Linux tributes. It can't yet compete with similar projects on Windows, which can often run on Wine, but as an open source alternative with decent graphics and accurate physics, Emilia Pinball is a great foundation to build into your own project or onto which you can recreate your favorite table.
Project Website
https://github.com/adoptware/pinball
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Canonical Releases Ubuntu 24.04
After a brief pause because of the XZ vulnerability, Ubuntu 24.04 is now available for install.
-
Linux Servers Targeted by Akira Ransomware
A group of bad actors who have already extorted $42 million have their sights set on the Linux platform.
-
TUXEDO Computers Unveils Linux Laptop Featuring AMD Ryzen CPU
This latest release is the first laptop to include the new CPU from Ryzen and Linux preinstalled.
-
XZ Gets the All-Clear
The back door xz vulnerability has been officially reverted for Fedora 40 and versions 38 and 39 were never affected.
-
Canonical Collaborates with Qualcomm on New Venture
This new joint effort is geared toward bringing Ubuntu and Ubuntu Core to Qualcomm-powered devices.
-
Kodi 21.0 Open-Source Entertainment Hub Released
After a year of development, the award-winning Kodi cross-platform, media center software is now available with many new additions and improvements.
-
Linux Usage Increases in Two Key Areas
If market share is your thing, you'll be happy to know that Linux is on the rise in two areas that, if they keep climbing, could have serious meaning for Linux's future.
-
Vulnerability Discovered in xz Libraries
An urgent alert for Fedora 40 has been posted and users should pay attention.
-
Canonical Bumps LTS Support to 12 years
If you're worried that your Ubuntu LTS release won't be supported long enough to last, Canonical has a surprise for you in the form of 12 years of security coverage.
-
Fedora 40 Beta Released Soon
With the official release of Fedora 40 coming in April, it's almost time to download the beta and see what's new.