Bowling

Bowling is a sport where you roll a ball and have it take down as many pins as possible. It is specially popular in Equestria and the Crystal Empire

History
The earliest predecessors of bowling were harvest festivals in Gaia where after a good harvest, the abundance would be celebrated by rolling gourds and melons (depending on the region) against pins.

As cities grew, bowling lanes were first installed in urban pubs using more resilient wooden balls.

In recent times, the sport was standardized and for the first time bowling alleys exclusively dedicated to it have been constructed.

Characteristics


Bowling balls are carved out of a hardwood and covered in Changeling Wax for smoothness. Lighter woods are used for the pins.

The distance between the player area and the pins varies depending on the difficulty.

Pins are arranged in a 1-2-3-4-3-2-1 manner.

How to play
In each player's turn, they get two throws to take down all 16 pins. Their score is how many pins they take down between the two throws. If they take down all pins in a single throw, that's called a strike, they get 32 points instead and their turn is over.

In a typical game, there are 8 turns per player, with a maximum score of 256 which can be achieved with 8 strikes.

Scorekeeping
The score of each player at the end of each turn for that turn is written down using up to 4 horizontal lines and 4 vertical lines. Each horizontal line represents 4 pins taken down and each vertical line represents one, effectively conveying the number of pins taken down in a base-4 numeric system.

In the case of a strike, an x is written instead.