Are you looking for an escape from reality? Do you want to play a game that can keep you hooked to the screen of your smartphone for hours on end? If you are looking for all this and more then head over to the store and download the Ketchapp’s new arcade game called Pocket Bowling. With the addition of Pocket Bowling, Ketchapp continues its legacy of highly interactive and addictive games. Another game to watch out for in this category is Kingpin Bowling by The Frosty Pop Corps Inc. even though it does not provide as many features to players as Pocket Bowling does.
As is the norm with games from Ketchapp, Pocket Bowling also packs reasonably attractive graphics and hundreds of endless levels into a very moderate size of only 80.4 MB. It also has tons of achievements and the possibility of competing online with thousands of players from around the world. Ketchapp pays special attention to the feedback of the players continuously rolling out updates to improve and add features to Pocket Bowling. The latest update brought with it added multiplayer functionality and the coveted leaderboard improvements which make the game much more addictive. Pocket Bowling is a free to play game so you should naturally expect ads but the developers have kept the option for you to get rid of them forever by paying a small price of $2.99 should you find them too annoying.
Even though the controls of the ball are just basic swiping, the game has an ever increasing difficulty level and it would be quite hard for you to progress very far without some external guidance. This is where this guide filled with tips comes in handy so read on and find out the easiest path to becoming the ultimate Bowling Star in Pocket Bowling!
1. Master The Control Of The Bowling Ball
Pocket Bowling is just like real life bowling in the sense that it employs realistic physics into the game by taking into account the size and weights of the bowling balls that you choose for your turns. This makes learning to control the ball much more important because you will have to master every kind of ball in the game in order to become a true bowling champion. There is only a single controlling mechanism in Pocket Ball and that is swiping your finger across the screen in a trail which the ball will follow. However, there are endless combinations as to how you make different patterns with the trail which enables you to handle almost any situation that the game might throw at you.
Once you begin the game, the starter tutorial will familiarize you with the basics of swiping a trail across the screen. What it fails to demonstrate effectively is the curving swipe or different patterns that you can make with your finger. On every level, you must select the trail that allows you to strike all the pins down because not hitting even one pin will cause you to fail. One way to do this is to make sure that you never take off your finger from the screen and anticipate the movement of the ball beforehand. This might seem like a very difficult strategy to follow when you play the game because the developers have made every effort possible to confuse you at each level. However, once you get enough practice, you will be able to predict the best trail line to get a perfect curve shot. This will definitely lead to a much better gameplay experience for you and you will be able to progress to the higher stages much faster than your friends.
A key tip for the later levels when you begin to unlock different kinds of bowling balls is to adjust your trail formation according to the size and weight of your ball. You begin in the game with a traditional dark blue bowling ball which has a standard weight and size and is very easy to control within trail formations. This ball however does not have the necessary strength to knock down the bigger pins at higher levels. What makes Pocket Bowling much more difficult that the hundreds of other arcade bowling games is the condition of knocking down bowling pins in order for you to advance to the next level. Having hit a bowling pin is not enough and when you have bigger pins, the standard starting ball will just be able to make them wobble and not topple over. You will be able to unlock and equip bigger and heavier bowling balls with the help of the stars that you collect on each level. What is important is that you learn to make new trails with the updated dynamics of the heavier balls.
The best way to do this effectively is to practice casually until you get the hang of the trail formation. Keep swiping trails across the screen until you get that perfect curve shot with a heavier ball and this will make you much more confident in your abilities. As there is no timer and no limit to how many times you can play the same levels, this strategy is extremely effective at improving both your aim and reflexes in Pocket Bowling. Always remember, to become a great bowling superstar, you will need hours and hours of practice because it is only practice that can make you perfect.
2. Upgrade Your Way To The Top
One of the main objectives of Pocket Bowling is to upgrade your bowling ball until no one can match it in the lane. With every challenge that you complete or achievement that you win you will gain points that you can use towards getting more powerful bowling balls and perks that can help you to hit the pins much better.
These upgrades and power-ups come at a cost of course and that is the spending of the in game “stars” currency to unlock and apply them. This means that you should decide and analyze which upgrade is truly worth the money before you start unlocking and applying them all like crazy. In order to decide this, the best way is to test yourself during one of the later levels. If you find that you are bad at aiming, apply one of the aiming quicker and more accurately perks or purchase a lighter bowling ball which will be easier to swing around. Similarly, if you see that you aim the ball perfectly but it still does not go too far, you should focus on getting the upgrades for power or upgrading to a heaver bowling ball. This is because there is simply not enough force behind your shot to knock all of the pins down!
Always remember to upgrade your perks intelligently. Too much of speed and very low turning ability will make things even more difficult for you than a normal bowling ball. Upgrade according to your assessment of the performance characteristics where your bowling technique is lagging behind. For example if you find perfect trails to be very challenging even though you have mastered controls, then do not spend points upgrading the speed or aim of your bowling ball. You need to focus upon the perfect trail feature to help you get through higher levels. If you are finding it difficult to make double pin knock downs then upgrade the power of your bowling ball or equip one with greater size. Just remember that you are the best decision maker according to your style of game play and even if you do mistakes, you can always reset, learn and repeat!
Ketchapp has also introduced a system of high play high reward where you can get a high number of stars for upgrades just by logging in to the game daily and staying active. The daily log in reward increases exponentially for each continuous day so you will be able to get a huge amount of stars if you just open the app and collect them for each day of the week. This trick of course comes in very handy during the later levels when you have loads of customization options and upgrades but not enough stars to fulfill your desires. Staying active and keeping the app opened is also another trick to keep earning a steady amount of stars in Pocket Bowling. This is because of the gift button located on the right of the in game screen and it refreshes every 5 minutes so you can collect a large number of stars just by ensuring that you tap the gift button at the right time. However do not let this feature distract you if you are on a roll and scoring very high as the amount of coins from achievements will be much higher than any active gift bonuses.
3. Crazy Combos And Dodging Obstacles
An arcade game would be incomplete without combos and different kind of bonuses that allow you to gain a huge amount of score very fast. Ketchapp has taken special care to include as many special bonuses and combos into Pocket Bowling as is possible without harming the already addictive gameplay experience of this definitive arcade title. The concept of the game is quite unique compare to any of the traditional arcade games and as a master bowling superstar you can move up the leader boards very quickly if you just focus upon chaining together combo moves and maintaining knocking streaks as you play the game.
Just like any other bowling arcade game, Pocket Bowling has combos as the bread and butter of the gameplay experience. Performing combos will get you through a level much faster and also grant you point multipliers which can greatly contribute towards attaining a huge high score. How you can perform a single combo will be explained by the tutorial at the beginning of the game but you will have to master the skill of performing multiple combos as you progress through the game. A good way to perform a solid multiple combo in this game is to wait for at least three pins in different positions to appear before you initiate the combo by striking on one of the pins with the bowling ball. Once this happens, the pins will continue striking other difficulty positioned pins in the series and this will lead to the stage clearing up much faster for you.
It is also possible to chain together many combo moves in Pocket Bowling and doing this can multiply the score that you earn. The game will recognize these chain combos and you will be rewarded with additional stars for your efforts as well as a huge multiplier will be added to your score making it increase at a much more rapid rate. Achieving combos can be much harder when the obstacles start to appear. These are the moving pins which move either in horizontal directions or even in a circular path at higher levels to confuse and disorient you.
In order to successfully clear the higher levels, you will have to knock down these moving pins in addition to the normal stationary pins which is by no means an easy task. When you first encounter the moving pins, they are very slow and very easy to hit with your bowling ball. However as you progress to the later levels, the movements of these pins becomes much more rapid and it will be a test of your reflexes to predict and aim at the correct moment to hit them as well as any stationary pins along the way. You will also encounter some stars cleverly placed in between the paths of the moving pins. If possible aim to get these but do not let it become a distracting factor during your trail formation process.