For the lanes, they had some fancy new tablets in place of the old school 80s keyboard system.
We couldn't figure out how to change our names from "Player 1". Tapping the name did nothing. Navigating all over the various screens revealed nothing helpful. No help page. Turns out you need to tap the little default avatar for your player, barely a fingertip large. None of us imagined it was a touch target. When someone quit, it turns out you need to ask the front desk to remove them.
Eventually I noticed that there were no fun animations between plays, like the old animated videos of a bowling pin stopping his car to get out a "spare" tire. Just a scoreboard. You might say they were imitating the professional atmosphere upstairs, but then I wouldn't have bright lights flashing in my eyes during my approach to bowl.
The lane next to me reached a stuck state where no matter how many balls they sent down the lane, the system wouldn't pick the pins up or send the balls back. I had never seen this happen in my prior 20 years of yearly bowling, though I'm sure it happens occasionally.
What happened to computing? Are we the only industry whose output quality seems to go backwards every year? Is it just a beginning lull while we figure out how to provide lane bumpers for the Eternal September programmers? Or do we accept the econ-left topic of the year and blame private equity for our inability to produce UX, too?
Anyways, I do recommend the bowling hall of fame. The HOF player pictures look exactly like you want them to. Late in my last game a guy strolled by and explained how to bowl a strike by lining up on the right side instead of the left like I was doing. I handed him the ball and he threw a slow, easy strike, which scored me a spare because I suck. I thought he was an employee but I was later filled in that he was a hall of famer leaving the upstairs tournament late.