Homeling Seal of Approval: the Bowling Alley
by SealWyf, HSM Editor
It’s Friday night in Home. A group of aliens, sleek and furless in white plastic suits, dances around a bubble machine. Behind them, an otherworldly being lifts a blue sphere, and hurls it down a polished wooden runway toward a group of close-packed white bottles. The ball collides — in a thunderous crash, the bottles tumble. The alien cheers and waves his pipe-like arms. Strike!
It’s the Homeling Collective, out for a night of fun in one of its favorite locations: Home’s venerable Bowling Alley.
The Bowling Alley is one of the two most important historic Homeling spaces. The other was the now-vanished Central Plaza, with which it was connected. Both were core spaces that dated from Home’s Closed Beta and reflected the original Home aesthetic, a freeform philosophy of “let’s give gamers some space, and see what they do with it.”
What we used to see
For a long time, the Bowling Alley was the only place you could play the Echochrome arcade machine. That quirky, free-to-play game is the source of the distinctive Homeling uniform, the Echochrome Suit. But the Collective also valued the space for hosting two of the last free-to-play multiplayer social games in Home — Bowling and Pool.
In many ways, Bowling is Home’s ideal game. It’s one of the few games in Home that is still played entirely for free, and for fun. You can’t buy upgrades, and you don’t win rewards. There is not even a leaderboard. The closest the game comes to rewards are triumphant avatar animations when the player makes a strike or a spare — a small, but effective way of letting others know they are watching a skilled player.
Bowling is unusual among Home games in allowing free conversation among the players. In that way, it’s similar to the poker tables. But, unlike poker, Bowling is a very simple game — the basic rules can be learned in minutes. However, it’s not trivial. Fully mastering the controls takes skill and practice. The challenge of mastery brings regular players back night after night, as they seek the perfect score.
The new scoreboard
We were understandably apprehensive when Home was revamped, and the classic spaces vanished one by one. We still mourn the demise of Central Plaza. We expected the Bowling Alley to be the next to go. Or it might stay, but be “improved” beyond recognition. What we feared most was that the classic arcade machines would be replaced. Losing the Echochrome machine would be a Homeling disaster.
Homelings are based on an outfit and an idea. The outfit is the Echochrome Suit — one of the few interesting reward items in Home’s Closed Beta. It was this costume that gave buddy118, later known as Mother, the idea of creating a group of space aliens in Home. If Echochrome were lost, the Homeling Collective would still survive. But we would have to redefine ourselves in significant ways.
We also feared that a code refresh would change the aspects of the Bowling Alley we valued, especially the free-to-play social games of Pool and Bowling. Recently, we have felt that Home is too much driven by monetization. It’s a necessary evil, but an evil nonetheless, for many younger and poorer Home users. It’s getting hard to spend an evening in Home without a significant outlay of cash.
Echochrome survives!
So when the revision of Bowling Alley was announced in late April, we were worried. Would the Echochrome arcade game survive in its original habitat, or would it be exiled to Indie Park? Would Bowling become pay-to-play? Or would it be a “freemium” game, where we would have to buy premium bowling balls and shoes to improve our scores? Would the classic retro space be turned into a modern glitz palace? Would we recognize the place at all?
I’m pleased to report that the best elements of the Bowling Alley were preserved. And there are significant improvements.
My first view of the refreshed space was encouraging. At first, I could not tell that anything had changed. Unlike the other classic spaces, such as the Mall and the Theater Lobby, the revamped Bowling Alley preserves its classic layout, atmosphere and sound patterns. The arcade areas are larger, with five games in each side rather than four. And the games are the same — Ice Breaker and our beloved Echochrome.
The Bowling game is much improved. There is now a rumble in your controller when your team-mates play. It’s a surprisingly convincing effect — you can almost feel the ball rolling down the alley. The new graphic control for adding spin to the ball is more intuitive, though somewhat more challenging to get right.
Replay!
A video Replay feature has been added for Strikes and Spares, allowing you to relive your moments of triumph. And you now see closeups of your avatar celebrations. They’re a lot of fun, and those with video capture equipment can save them for posterity, or at least machinima.
I was sorry to lose the view of Central Plaza through the front door. As the surviving ghosts of the Plaza are deleted, Home feels a little older and lonelier. You can’t see anything outside the door now, but if you approach it, it drops you into Indie Park.
Like most new spaces, there are a few problems. The sound for the promo video screens is strongest in the central part of the space, and fades to silence next to the screens themselves. And, approaching the entrance now automatically respawns the user to Indie Park without a confirmation step. These are minor issues, and will no doubt be fixed in subsequent refreshes.
All in all, it’s a decent update. And the important parts of the Bowling Alley experience are untouched. For respecting Home tradition, and keeping what we loved about this classic Home core space, I am pleased to give the revamped Bowling Alley 4.5 Bubble Machines, and the Homeling Seal of Approval.
- The Bowling Alley experience we loved is still intact
- The classic arcade games remain
- New replay feature for strikes and spares
- Video screen sound is misplaced
- Unconfirmed spawning to Pier Park is annoying
May 28th, 2012 by SealWyf | 5 comments
SealWyf is a museum database programmer by day, and an officer in the Homeling Collective by night. She has been active in online communities since before the Internet, and in console gaming since the PS1. In games, she prefers the beautiful and quirky, and anything with a strong storyline. She is utterly addicted to PlayStation Home.
Nice review Seal. I have tried the new pool and bowling now and I think it is a bit harder to play the games than it used to be, but they are still a lot of fun. I have heard from a few people that they are not happy with the changes, but there will always be those who don’t like change of any kind.
Thanks, Burbie! I never played pool, so I wasn’t prepared to say whether the changes to that game were good or bad. I do like the new Bowling controls, but I admit that it’s now harder to get a Strike. Still, everyone is affected the same way, so the playing field is still level. Bowling in Home is still a fun, and very cheap, way to spend an evening.
Overall yes the new bowling alley is great but I would like to point out one little personal con I noticed, why did they change that first few feet of the entrance? I loved seeing the old central plaza. But overall another article knocked outta the park, great job seal.
I miss the view of Central Plaza too. But I guess they figured if it’s gone, we can’t see it. The only other choice would have been to bring CP back, so the view from the Bowling Alley would make sense.
I don’t know maybe we could think of it as looking into the past as we move forward, isn’t that what the evolution of anything including Home all about. But good point nevertheless.