How to Play
Each game starts by choosing who is playing, your bowler (Male or Female) and one of four balls. Each ball rolls its own way: Crystal Rose barely hooks, Cosmic Swirl is the all-rounder, Fireball bends in one big arc, and Emerald Storm skids long and snaps late. Your bowler’s face sits beside the frame counter, and pops up when they talk. You also choose the lane: Easy (house shot: oil up the middle, a wide ball hooks back), Medium (longer, flatter oil and a later hook) or Hard (short, flat oil that hooks hard), or one of five PBA patterns from the drop-down: Cheetah, Chameleon, Bear, Scorpion and Shark. On every lane the dotted path runs all the way to the pins. The oil changes as you bowl, as it does on a real lane: the line the balls roll on dries out and hooks earlier, and oil gets carried down past the end of the pattern, where the ball then hooks less. Two bowlers playing the same side wear that line twice as fast; a bowler on the other side has it fresh. The sheen on the lane shows it, and every new game starts on fresh oil. The faint sheen on the lane is the oil. After every shot your stance, aim, speed and hook go back to the middle, so you line up each ball afresh. Then, for every shot:
- Stand. Click or tap the approach (the floor in front of the foul line) to place your ball, or use the ‹ › buttons.
- Aim. Click or tap a spot on the lane. The arrows on the lane are the classic targets. The moving chevrons show where the ball is expected to travel.
- Speed. Click the speed meter to pick a speed in mph. Faster balls hit harder and hook less.
- Hook (optional). Choose Left, Straight or Right and a strength from 1 to 5. A hook ball skids through the oiled front of the lane, then curves on the dry back end.
- Bowl. Press Bowl. Pins are scored from what actually falls.
Scoring
- Ten frames, up to two balls each. X is a strike (all ten on the first ball): 10 plus your next two balls.
- / is a spare (the rest on the second ball): 10 plus your next ball. – is a miss.
- In the 10th frame a strike earns two extra balls and a spare earns one.
- A ball that drops into the gutter scores nothing.
Keyboard
← → move where you stand, Shift + ← → move your aim, ↑ ↓ change speed, Enter or Space bowls, and P pauses.
Leaderboard
The trophy button at the top shows everyone's best game, all time and this week. Your score goes up when you finish a one-player game or an online match.
Two players
Choose vs Computer to play Pinbot at Easy, Medium or Pro. It bowls with the same physics you do. Every bowler talks trash in their own voice, Pinbot included.
On the start screen choose 2 Players · This device to take turns on one screen, or 2 Players · Online to play someone on another device: one of you hosts and gets a four-letter code, the other joins with it. You bowl a frame each in turn and watch each other's shots. The Say… button sends a quick message.
Pause and restart
Press Pause at the top (or the P key) to freeze the game at any moment, even mid-roll. From there you can Resume or Restart Game to start again from frame 1.
Celebrations
String strikes together for a Double, Turkey (3), Hambone (4), Six Pack (6) and beyond. Finish with 180 or more for a trophy, 200+ for the 200 Club, and bowl twelve strikes for a perfect 300.
Cosmic Bowling
Flip the Cosmic switch at the top for blacklights, disco lights and a dance track. The rules and physics are exactly the same. The sound button opens a menu where you can turn the music and the sound effects off separately, or mute everything.
Pin crash recorded by juskiddink (freesound.org), cut by qubodup for OpenGameArt, used under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Tip: the “pocket” just beside the head pin (the right side for right-handers, the left for left-handers) gives the best chance of a strike. Hitting the head pin dead centre often leaves a split.