Playing the Table

Showcade runs a real table in your browser at show.cade.run — real physics, real scoring, the live engine, nothing to install. Everything you need to play it is on the keyboard, and this page is the reference for what each key does.

Controls

Each flipper has two bindings — a Shift key and a fallback letter — so you can play with whichever is comfortable. They drive the same flipper, and releasing either one drops it, so don’t hold both expecting the second to keep the flipper up.

Keys never fire while you’re typing. If a text field or a panel with its own keyboard handling has focus, your keystrokes go there instead of to the table.

The plunger

Hold Space to draw the plunger back and release it to launch. The longer you hold, the harder the shot — a plunger meter beside the playfield fills as you charge, so you can aim for a soft feed or a full-power launch by watching it rather than by counting.

Letting go fires immediately. Releasing focus mid-charge does not — see When focus leaves the page.

Nudging and tilt

Nudging shoves the cabinet to steer a ball you’d otherwise lose. T or Up Arrow shoves up-table; Left Arrow and Right Arrow shove a corner. Each nudge kicks the ball, shakes the camera, and adds to the tilt bob.

Lean on it and the table warns you before it punishes you — keep nudging past the warning and you tilt. Holding a nudge key down does not machine-gun the bob; each nudge needs its own press.

Camera views

C cycles three preset views:

• Player — the default, angled down the table from behind the plunger.
• Top-down — straight down, the clearest view for seeing lane geometry and where a ball is actually going.
• Side — along the table, useful for judging ramp and wall height.

The scoreboard and the panels

The Cade engine panel beside the playfield carries the scoreboard — Player, Score, Ball, In play, Balls left, and Mode — and the actions you can reach with the mouse:

• Sound: on toggles audio.
• Object editor (E) opens the Object Editor.
• Event tree opens the event-tree panel, described below.

Both the engine panel and the Browser rail have a – button that minimizes them to a restore tab when you want the full playfield. Before you start a game, an attract screen reminds you to press S to start.

P toggles a performance HUD with frame timing, for when you want to know whether a stutter is the table or the machine. (There’s also a Perf HUD row in Settings.)

The event tree

The Event tree button opens a live view of the events the running table is firing — the switches this page actually sent, read from the same engine you’re playing on. It’s closed by default and stops updating entirely while closed, so it costs you nothing when you don’t want it. Drag its header to reposition it; it remembers both its open/closed choice and where you put it.

The tree claims the arrow keys only while it has focus — click into it to navigate, click back to the table to play. That’s deliberate: the arrow keys are also the nudge keys, so leaving the panel open while you play keeps nudging working.

Clicking a row moves the cursor to it, and clicking a collapsible row toggles it.

While an editor is open

This is the one behavior that surprises people. While the object editor is open, every gameplay key is inert — flippers, plunger, start, and cabinet nudge all do nothing, and C won’t cycle the camera.

That’s not a bug. The editor owns the arrow keys (they nudge the selected device, not the cabinet), it owns Space (the pan modifier), and it locks the camera to top-down so clicking picks the right spot on the playfield. Letting the game keep those keys would mean fighting the editor for every one of them.

E (close the editor) and P (performance HUD) stay live, so you’re never stuck. Press E again and the table plays normally, with your previous camera restored.

When focus leaves the page

Alt-tab away — or click outside the sim when it’s embedded in another page — and every held control releases: flippers drop and an in-flight plunger charge is cancelled without firing. The moment you meant to release it is unknowable once focus is gone, so the harness declines to guess rather than launching a shot you didn’t aim.

Nothing latches. Come back, and the table is ready for the next press.