Missions end either by being completed, or by being aborted due to running out of "fuel", as indicated by the lights in the passage that passes under the launch ramp.

The Skulduggery table features a treasure hunt where the player must find pirate Peg Leg's loot.

[5] The player can accomplish that two ways: either by piecing together a treasure map or by activating and completing a series of mini-games on the table called modes.

While weapons simply add points to the score, armors and spells temporarily turn on various gates, magnets, and chutes on the table to change the gameplay.

Elements from each of the three tables were elected for representation by Maxis in the illustration for the box art by Marc Ericksen, creating a montage below a hurtling Pinball.

In addition, hitting a wormhole that has the same color light locks the ball, which if done repeatedly activates the multi-ball round.

Also, the three yellow lights above the bumpers (both in the launch ramp and in the upper table zone) act differently: in 3D Pinball these are turned off if the ball passes on them while they are on.

[8] However, the 2005 release of Windows XP Professional x64 Edition includes an official 64-bit build of Pinball, which was found to have only minor graphical glitches.

[10] The final versions of Windows to include the game were the first released builds after the reset of the Longhorn project to start over with a fresh codebase, now for x86 and x64 only.

[14] This has led to speculation that, like the classic versions of the other games, Pinball was ultimately removed from Windows due to its visual style being considered outdated.

[12] In late 2018, Raymond Chen stated that there were multiple attempts to revive the game as a Microsoft Garage project.

David Stafford proposed the game, with the violence toned down and renamed to Gluem, to Microsoft's Alex St. John for inclusion in the upcoming Windows 95 operating system.

However, Windows 95 head David Cole was not impressed with the concept and remarked, "Can't we just get a game of pinball or something like that?".

[17][18] Windows 95 was targeting a release in early 1995, giving the team about nine months to produce a finished product, which pressured development.

Particular attention was paid to the flippers, making them as realistic as possible while not being overly demanding on the hardware, and ensuring the ball would never pass through.

[23] [18] Later on, Raymond Chen implemented a frame-rate cap to reduce the CPU usage of the game, which he would later describe as his proudest Windows XP feature.

[27] Todd Vaughn of PC Gamer gave it a score of 86%, praising the graphics and sound effects but criticising the lack of tables.

[28] 3D Pinball Space Cadet was cited to be among the computer games popularly played by school children in the Philippines in the 2000s, alongside Solitaire and Minesweeper.

[30][31] In March 2020, the sound effects of Space Cadet were sampled in a song, "You Better Move" by Lil Uzi Vert, containing elements from the game.