Bowling Tournament, Condensed: “Tournament Mode” for BOWL-O-RAMA

As promised in our last blog post, we've been spending some time behind the scenes putting together a first-draft of a "Tournament Mode" feature for BOWL-O-RAMA. (Honestly, I'm a little embarrassed that I didn't realize this need sooner. But, better late than never!)

This system follows the outline provided by Mike Cravens about how pro bowling events are structured. To summarize, a real pro bowling tournament is going to include many hundreds of games of bowling--too many to re-create on the tabletop in any reasonable amount of time. The obvious short cut would be a quick-play chart that would generate a score for a full series of games (as many as 18) for each bowler. But there's a certain tedium to that, especially when you're talking about a field of, say, 80 bowlers.

So we opted to create a system that borrows from the tournament mode we created for HISTORY MAKER GOLF. It's not identical, but there are similarities. The idea is to narrow the field in stages, with a dash of drama and excitement, drilling down to the final "step ladder" grouping of five top-seeded bowlers, in an expedient manner. The step ladder TV finals, of course, will be played in full-play mode.

Pin fall totals for each bowler are NOT calculated--some stat-hounds might be disappointed, but it's a huge time savings not to have to crunch those numbers. We included a "money points" system (similar to golf), which will, I think, help compensate for the lack of hard numbers. You can track money points event-to-event, and this will allow for cumulative season earnings standings.

Anyway, here's how the system works...

PRELIMINARY Round: reduces the field to 24 bowlers, represents the preliminary qualifying of 18 games rolled for each bowler.

• Shuffle all bowler cards (any number, minimum 48), divide into EIGHT stacks. (Half, half, half again)

• For each stack, roll TWO six-sided dice...

[ 2 ]Three drawn bowlers advance

[ 3 ]Three highest-average bowlers advance (any symbol)

[ 4 ]Three highest-average bowlers (full-star only) advance

[ 5 ]Three highest-average bowlers (full- or half-star only) advance

[ 6 ]Draw one bowler to advance, then advance two highest-average bowlers (full-star only).

[ 7 ]Draw one bowler to advance, then advance two highest-average bowlers (full- or half-star only).

[ 8 ]Draw one bowler to advance, then advance two highest-average bowlers (any or no symbol).

[ 9 ]Draw two bowlers to advance, then advance highest-average bowler (full-star only).

[ 10 ]Draw two bowlers to advance, then advance highest-average bowler (full- or half-star only).

[ 11 ]Draw two bowlers to advance, then advance highest-average bowler (any or no symbol).

[ 12 ]Draw three bowlers to advance.

PRIZE MONEY: For consolation cash, divide eliminated bowlers into four stacks. Roll two six-sided dice for each stack and add. Highest roll (closest to 12), each bowler in stack earns 2 money points. Next-highest, each bowler in stack earns 1 money point. All others go home with no cash.

OPTION: for more realism, you can require a dice roll of 10 or more (for stack ranking) for an un-starred (low participation) player to earn consolation money points. On a dice roll of 6 or less (for stack ranking), only full-starred bowlers earn money points. In other words, if a dice roll of "8" is the highest of the four rolls, only full- and half-starred bowlers in the stack get 2 money points. If the next-highest dice roll is a "5," only full-star bowlers in the stack get 1 money point

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SEMI-FINALS round-robin: reduces the field to EIGHT high-performers, representing the match play segment of the tournament, where each bowler bowls a game against every other bowler.

• Shuffle bowler cards of 24 SEMI-FINALISTS, divide into FOUR stacks of six. (Half, half again)

• For each stack, roll ONE six-sided die...

[ 1 ] or [ 2 ]Two highest-average bowlers advance

[ 3 ] or [ 4 ]Highest-average bowler advances, one drawn bowler advances.

[ 5 ] or [ 6 ]Two drawn bowlers advance.

PRIZE MONEY: Award 5 money points for each of the sixteen bowlers eliminated from the round-robin.

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POSITIONING ROUND: reduces the eight high-performers to five seeded bowlers, representing the 24th game of match play, the seeded positioning round.

Use the BOWL-O-RAMA Quick-Play Bowling Mode (included with game) to determine each bowler's score in the 24th game, then seed the bowlers highest score to lowest. Eliminate the sixth, seventh and eighth seeds.

PRIZE MONEY: Sixth, seventh and eighth seeds each earn 7 money points.

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TV LADDER FINALS

Fifth seed bowls against fourth seed; winner bowls against the third seed; winner bowls against the second seed; winner bowls against first seed for championship.

PRIZE MONEY: fifth place gets 9 money points; fourth place gets 10 money points; third place gets 12 money points; second place gets 15 money points; winner/first place gets 20 money points.

NOTE that you can multiply the money points by different figures to have higher payouts for more important tournaments.

We’ve produced a finished “official” Tournament Mode game board with the above rules and results for use with the game. You can access/download it by clicking the button above. Questions? Comments? Let us know!