How to play
- Goal
- Knock down as many golems as you can in ten frames.
- How it ends
- A game ends after the tenth frame; strikes and spares add the next balls to their frame, as in real bowling.
- Record
- The highest score on each lane; every finished game counts.
- Choose where to stand on the approach and which board to roll over at the rune arrows: the dotted line on the lane is the straight line the ball leaves on. Set the hook: in the oil the ball skids straight, and where the boards are dry it curls (to the left for + hook). Then hold Bowl: the swing meter rises and falls, and where you let go is the ball's speed. A fast ball curls less and later, a slow one more.
- Aim for the pocket, just right of the head golem for a ball curling left. A ball that comes in at an angle carries the golems best; a straight ball leaves more standing. Your hand scatters a little every ball, and the oil wears where the ball rolls, so watch the track each ball leaves and move two boards with your feet and one with your aim when the pocket moves.
- Scoring is real ten-pin scoring: all ten with the first ball is a strike, worth ten plus your next two balls; all ten with both is a spare, worth ten plus your next ball; the tenth frame gives bonus balls after a strike or a spare, and twelve strikes in a row is 300.
Controls
| ◀ ▶ Stand · ← → | Where you stand on the approach |
|---|---|
| ◀ ▶ Aim · A D · Shift + ← → | The board you roll over at the arrows |
| − + Hook · ↑ ↓ · W S | How much the ball curls, and which way |
| Bowl (hold) · Space · Enter | Swing; let go to bowl. Space while the ball rolls hurries it |
| Drag the ball or the aim ring | Set the stand or the aim on a touch screen |
| R | Start the lane again |
| Escape | Menu |
The golems, the dwarven hall's pillars, arch, statues and hearths are warehouse 3D models drawn with three.js; the ball's roll, its hook in the oil and every golem's fall come from the game's own physics, the same arithmetic the records worker uses to bowl a game again before it ranks the score. The music is three beds composed for the game in the Morass music repository, and the sounds and fonts come from the Morass warehouse. Your progress stays in this browser under morass.golem-pins.v1. No ads or analytics run inside the game.
Watch how to play
About Golem Pins
Ten-pin bowling in full 3D, in the bowling halls of the dwarf-holds under the mountain. The pins are ten little stone golems the runesmiths animate for the sport: they stand on their spots shifting their weight, tumble when your rune-stone ball breaks into them, and climb back up out of the deck for the next frame.
The lane is the opponent. Each of the sixty lanes in twelve halls has its own oil: a forgiving house pattern in Hearthstone Hall, short and long patterns in Copperdeep, moss that grabs the ball early, frost that skids it on, worn stripes, floors that lean, and iron golems that stand harder and move the pocket. The oil also wears as you bowl, so the line that struck in the first frame comes in high later in the game, and you move with it.
There are no ball stats and nothing to buy: one ball, your aim, your hook and your swing. Your hand is a little different every time, as a person's is, so a line that rides the edge of the oil strikes more often than a straight ball. Every lane keeps the Ten highest games, and the site bowls each game again before it keeps a place; gold, silver and bronze scores are yours to chase on each lane's card. Each set of halls has its own music, composed for the game.
