"Electrolite, you're outta sight." - "Electrolite" - REM

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|                                     |
| Bowling                             |
| For the Atari 2600                  |
| FAQ/Walkthrough                     |
| By T. Jackson (see section 4.03)    |
| Started: 6/6/04                     |
| Finished: 6/6/04                    |
| Last Updated: 6/6/04                |
| Version 1.0                         |
|                                     |
+-------------------------------------+

This guide is best viewed in 800x600 or 1024x768 resolution with the Courier
New font on your browser's "small" text setting (CTRL + -).  It was composed
in Notepad+.

Table of Contents:

I. Introduction
    1.01: Table of Contents
    1.02: Introduction
    1.03: Dedication
II. Basics
    2.01: Controls
    2.02: The Screen
III. Walkthrough
    3.01: How to Play
    3.02: Scoring
IV. Last Words
    4.01: Copyright Information
    4.02: Revision History
    4.03: Contact Information
    4.04: Credits
    4.05: A Perfect 300!

If you want to find anything, press CTRL + F and search for its numerical code
(i.e. 3.01 for how to play).

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                               I. Introduction

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| 1.01: Table of Contents |
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Up there!

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| 1.02: Introduction |
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Bowling.  We all know it.  Bowling has been around for centuries, ever since
primitive man looked out to the dinosaurs and thought to himself, "Geez those
things are big."  This same man later walked off a cliff to find out how far
down it went.  This is why thinkers are bad.  But this same man decided it
would be fun to take a large stone and throw it at his fellow man.  Due to the
casualties involved, this was a fun sport.  Then the entity known as "Judge
Judy" came in and decided to replace men with pins.  That's where bowling
stands today.  Bowling is both a professional sport and a fun thing to do with
friends.  This game is a good ol' fashion bowling game.  No special graphics.
Just a bowling game.

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| 1.03: Dedication |
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This guide is dedicated to LizAnn Nealing, a girl that never fails to make me
laugh.  She's also one of the friends I bowl with.  She's a great person who
laughs a lot.  Even if her bowling is subpar.

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                                 II. Basics

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| 2.01: Controls |
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| Button |          Function          |
|--------|----------------------------|
| Button | Throw ball                 |
| Up     | Move up; curve ball up     |
| Down   | Move down; curve ball down |
| Left   | Nothing                    |
| Right  | Nothing                    |
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There are no special difficult settings.

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| 2.02: The Screen |
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Diagram 2.02a |
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           1 (3)

89  (1)                                                       10 (4)
--/  (2)
-X-
--/
-/X

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                                                                .
                                                               .
                                                              . .
                                                             . .   (5)
                                                              . .
S                                                               .
                                                                .
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------
1 - Current score  |
2 - Record*        |
3 - Player         |
4 - Frame          |
5 - Pins           |
S - Starting point |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*This will be straight unless you get a spare (slash) or strike (X).  The top
three are frames one through three.  The second set of three marks are frames
four through six.  The third set represents frames seven through nine.  The
final set is frame ten.  Frame ten, as you might know, can have up to three
shots.

It's hard to do an ASCII set up of the bowling pins.


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                              III. Walkthrough

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| 3.01: How to Play |
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Bowling is a simple game.  You throw your ball at the pins and try to knock
them down.  The best thing to do is probably to stand in the middle and
throw the ball.  It will hit the pins straight on.  You can also throw the
ball from the side.  If you press up, the ball with curve up.  This seems to
be how professional bowlers bowl (although theirs curve twice; ours can only
curve once).  Timing is the key to this.  You want to have it curve up or down
(depending upon which side you're standing on) about three quarters of the
way to the pin.  That way, it will hit the pins properly.  Again, your goal
is to hit the pin closest to you.

Now you have another shot.  Each frame consists of two throws.  Your goal is
to knock over whatever you can.  The ball in this game seems to bounce a lot.
So if you have one stray pin and a few others lined up, you can go for the
stray pin, and the ball will bounce off and hit the others.  Or you can just
aim straight for the majority of the pins.  That's normally a safer bet.

That's all there is to it!  Try to refine your strategies to get strikes every
throw!

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| 3.02: Scoring |
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The scoring in Bowling is done just like the sport: the amount of pins knocked
down.  This total is added up for your score.  However, there are two kinks
to this: strikes and spares.  We've all seen Fred Flintstone toss a strike.
He makes it look so easy.  It's a lot harder.  A strike is where you knock down
all ten pins in one throw.  When you do this, the total for the frame is
calculated by adding 10 to the score you get on your next two throws (and those
two still count for the next frame).  So say you get a strike in frame one,
throw a four in the first shot of frame two, and a five in the second shot.
Your total score is 28 [(10 + 5 + 4) + (5 + 4)].  If the next two were
strikes, the total for that frame would be 30.  A perfect game of bowling is
a 300 (all strikes).

Spares are like strikes, inasmuch as the end result is that all the pins are
knocked down.  The difference lies in when you knock them down.  To get a
spare, knock down all of the pins (or all of the remaining pins) in the second
shot of the frame.  So you could get a nine for your first throw and a one for
the second, and you would have a spare.  The spare score is the 10 plus the
first throw of the next frame.  So if frame one resulted in a three and a
spare (seven), and frame two resulted in a four and a five, your score would
be 26 [(3 + [10 + 4]) + (4 + 5)].

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                               IV. Last Words

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| 4.01: Copyright Information |
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Bowling and all other characters, stages, items, and related things are
copyright 1983 to Atari, Inc.  This guide/FAQ/walkthrough is copyrighted (c)
2001-2004 to Trace Jackson, and is the intellectual property of Trace Jackson.

This guide/FAQ/walkthrough is protected under International Copyright Laws.
Please feel free to put this anywhere you like, as long as I get credit for it.
After all, this is to help the readers!  It should be spread around!  I WOULD
like it if you emailed me asking for permission, but it's not necesary.  Just
realize that the latest updates to this guide can and will always be found at
IGN FAQs (faqs.ign.com), GameFAQs (www.gamefaqs.com), and Meowthnum1.com
(www.meowthnum1.com).  Just please credit me for it and don't make any profit
off it.

The following are sites that can not use my work. If you see these sites using
any of my FAQs, please e-mail me ASAP. Each of these websites are sites that
have plagiarized myself or others in the past, or simply taken our works
without our prior permission. Since they do not have enough respect for the
authors (or an ignorance of the law), I am expressly forbidding them from using
my work. I will not condone such sites that partake in these actions.

  911 Codes                     http://911codes.com
  9 Lives                       http://www.9lives.ru/eng/
  Bean's PSX Dimension          http://www.bean.dk/psx/index.htm
  Cheat Code Central            http://www.cheatcc.com
  Cheat Index                   http://cheatindex.com
  Cheat Matrix                  http://cheatmatrix.com
  Cheat Search                  http://cheatsearch.com
  Cheatstop                     http://www.panstudio.com/cheatstop/
  CNET Gamecenter               http://games.netscape.com/Faqs/
  Console Domain                http://www.consoledomain.co.uk
  Dirty Little Helper           http://dlh.net
  Dark Station                  http://www.darkstation.com/
  Dreamland                     http://kirby.pokep.net
  Games Domain                  http://www.gamesdomain.com
  Game Express                  http://www.gameexpress.com
  Games Over                    http://www.gamesover.com/
  Mega Games                    http://www.megagames.com
  Square Haven                  http://www.square-haven.net
  Ultimate System               http://www.flatbedexpress.com
  VideoGaming.net               http://www.videogaming.net/

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| 4.02: Revision History |
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Version 1.0 (6/6/04) - The guide was completed.

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| 4.03: Contact Information |
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Before emailing me, please make sure that whatever question you have wasn't
addressed here in the guide.  If it's not a question (i.e. input, suggestion,
correction, etc.), please go ahead and email me.  I'm not too picky about
grammar, but if I have no idea what you're saying, I might ask for some
clarification.  I'll take emails in Spanish or English.  Doesn't matter to
me.  No me importa.

I'd appreciate whatever you've got.  Questions (again, as long as it's not
answered here), inputs about ideas that I've raised, suggestions or corrections
for the guide, requests for using parts of the guide, problems in life, jokes
(as bad as some of these are in the guide), praise emails (ha!), or whatever
else is on your mind.

Email: meowthnum1 [at] meowthnum1 [dot] com

I wasn't too bad about doing the spam thing at first.  Now half of my emails
are virus emails.  Just replace the [at] with @ and the [dot] with ..

You could also use AIM.  I'd prefer these be quick questions, but I really
can't stop you from long, involved ones.  To be honest, I prefer emails.  AIM
is still here.  That's TracesWritingAIM.

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| 4.04: Credits |
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-Magician Type 0 - Help with the strikes.  I never understood that.

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| 4.05: A Perfect 300 |
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I've enjoyed writing this guide.  I hope you enjoy the game.

--Trace Jackson

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