Hacker News Reader

Comment by evan_ | Hacker News Reader

It could be worse, as far as I know there's nobody trying to make a pin-less bowling alley with a big LCD screen at the end of the lane.

View on HN

Hmm... sensors read the vector/spin/color of the ball as it travels down the lane and models its trajectory, the real ball drops into a concealed pit at the end of the lane just before where the pins would be, the screen shows a real-time physics modelled result of the pins dropping complete with a virtual representation of your ball. You could get fancy and have cartoon character pins for kids... maybe best not to think about this anymore.

Let's not forget the potential ad space in between turns.

Ads? You also forgot adding pay-to-win mechanics!

Player 3, you’re up next! Would you like to buy a pack of 4 Mega Magnets? Your ball will attract any pins it comes near.

Only 600 Gems! Special Offer today only!

Kids already get the raised bumpers, now their ball can explode at the end of the lane

Never before have I been so repulsed by a thread on HN.

They already do that on the scoreboards.

motion capture markers in the bowling suit you rented on arrival transform you, in the eyes of everyone's VR goggles, into the temporary skin that came with your Frozen 3-themed Game & Ice Cream combo ticket. you appear as kristoff, your buddy appears as elsa. actually eating the ice cream is prohibited without an active Disney+ subscription, be sure to link your account prior to arrival. more sophisticated players snicker quietly to one another about your plebeian choice of a mass-market skin; they are of course using limited-edition outfits that were bought or earned. bowling professionals and top amateurs enjoy individually rigged tailoring bearing sponsor logos. no-one looks like themselves. each strike builds up "golden balls" that can be spent as an in-alley currency for powerups e.g. allowing you roll again, or to penalise an opponent. gameplay never supplies enough of the golden balls but you can buy more with real money, or earn small increments by orating the slogan of an apparel company to the satisfaction of a performance-judging ai. the ai has a reputation for penalising foreign accents but this is hotly denied. after the game you are awarded special tokens that can only be spent on hats

> the real ball drops into a concealed pit at the end of the lane just before where the pins would be

The sexy way to implement this (horrible) idea is to have a smoke/fog curtain at the end of the lane, and project onto the fog. The ball could slide through silently, and then the synthetic image (and sound!) would be cued.

Could use a water curtain instead that only stops specifically at the time and area the ball will pass through it, similar to this water stop sign: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2325904/Water-stop-...

I imagine the wind from the ball passing through would disrupt a sheet of fog too much to see the pins bounce around, but it would be cool to see 10 narrow columns of tightly collimated fog with pins projected on them.

Maybe there's a big sheet of glass suspended at an angle around the last quarter of the lane. The ball rolls under the glass into darkness and is visually replaced seamlessly by the virtual ball shown on a screen hanging on the ceiling, facing away from the bowlers- a Pepper's Ghost effect.

The first issue with this of course is that it would only work from certain angles; the possibly larger issue is that you'd have people rolling bowling balls at a giant sheet of glass.

Laminar fog curtains show visible disruption, but it recovers surprisingly quickly. e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sV4C_I0yCX8

Neat. Though the issue is that the disruption occurs exactly when you want to see the pins the most.

that is pretty impressive, I wonder if a faster/rounder/smaller object would be better or worse. I could imagine it going either way.

Reminds me of Topgolf. It's fun to see the occasionally considerable difference between the motion trackers and hole sensors. You'd see the ball stranding on the field, but then the hole would light up and you'd get the points.

Couple it with a nifty Peppers Ghost effect, good sound effects, and you'd have a damn compelling product.

There are a couple of businesses near me that have sport simulators like this: https://www.sportssimulator.com/promaxedition

The focus is golf, but they do have a bowling mode where you throw the ball and the camera picks it up and simulates it on the projector. It's not attempting to replace the bowling alley in town though.

The golf sims are really fun. It’s maybe one of the best AR experiences. Real clubs, real ball, and software and hardware to track the shot and put it in on a course.

Genius! It does make me think how much you could virtualize the experience while still requiring the same mechanics / ball control. Sort of like those virtual gold driving ranges.

Here's an idea: instead of requiring the whole 60ft lane, just have a lane ~10 ft long with a trap at the end. Based on the measured spin, angle etc, you could project the trajectory down the virtual lane.

Use one of those head-tracking techs (Dimenco screens?)

This would allow you to have like 3x-4x the number of bowling lanes in the same building footprint.

As much as I really hate that idea, I'd prefer it over the strings.

Wouldn’t even need a full lane, just catch the ball early and simulate the rest. Not something I would play but I don’t bowl either.

Merely an arcade game... for now: https://www.betson.com/amusement-products/lane-master/

Wii Bowling?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com