This stretch goal wasn’t reached within the frameworks of the main campaign. But Cosmic Lanes BOWL-A-RAMA Deck was quickly funded as a separate campaign on Kickstarter. The decks will be still available through the Backer Kit. Follow the appropriate Kickstarter page.

Cosmic Lanes BOWL-A-RAMA Deck is one of stretch goals in this campaign. It will have courts without names on shirts but with UV Spot Ink on cards. Other cards and tuck cases will also have UV Spot Ink. So, they should glow in the darkness… as Cosmic Bowling (bowling with black lights on, balls, carpeting, and other decor glowing) demands it 🙂

Midnight BOWL-A-RAMA Playing Cards: Cosmic Lanes Deck

Cosmic Bowling

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Do you know any other playing card deck devoted to bowling?!

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

AFTERWORD:

Other common variations of pin bowling are nine-pin, candlepin, duckpin and five-pin bowling.

Nine-pin bowling is played primarily in Europe (it’s especially popular in Germany). It has been the most popular type of bowling before ten-pin bowling took the lead. The American Bowling Congress standardized its rules in 1895.

The nine pins (sometimes cones) are placed in a diamond shape on the alley. The lanes are 19.5 m long. You have to knock down nine pins (usually attached to strings at the tops). Pin points are added up for each throw. The ninepin ball has no holes for the fingers. The most common standard ball for nine-pin bowling is about 6.3 inches (16 cm) in diameter and weighs approximately 6.28 pounds (2.85 kg). The ninepin balls can be bigger and heavier in some countries (Netherlands).

Each nine-pin team has six bowlers. Each game consists of six frames. Each bowler will roll the ball twice in each frame regardless of the number of pins knocked down on each roll. The next bowler must attempt to knock down the pins that were left by the previous bowler. The bowlers do not have to bowl in the same order in each frame. The scoring system in nine-pin bowling also doesn’t coincide with ten-pin bowling one.

Candlepin bowling is played primarily in Germany, the Canadian Maritime provinces (specifically Nova Scotia and New Brunswick), and the New England states of Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. A candlepin bowling lane is almost identical to a ten-pin bowling lane. You have to knock down ten pins with the lightest handheld ball (at 2.425 pounds / 1.1 kg) of any bowling sport. The ball has no holes for the fingers ad is about 4.5 inches (11.43 cm) in diameter. Candlepin bowling uses the tallest pins (15.75 inches / 400 mm). The pins are thinner than ten-pin bowling pins and resemble candles. That is why the game was named candlepin bowling. Each player uses three balls per frame. Scoring points is considerably more difficult than in ten-pin bowling.

An early 20th century four-lane candlepin alley in Windsor, Vermont, USA, about 1910; Modern Candlepin bowling pins and ball (from Wikipedia)

Duckpin bowling is a variation of ten-pin bowling. It’s popular in New England (a region of the Northeastern United States consisting of the six states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont). Duckpin bowling lane is exactly the same length as in ten-pin bowling. The duckpin ball has a maximum diameter of 5 inches (13 cm) and must be at least 2 pounds (0.91 kg) and no more than 4 pounds (1.81 kg). It also doesn’t have finger holes. The pins, while arranged in a triangular fashion identical to that used in ten-pin bowling, are shorter, smaller, and lighter than their ten-pin equivalents which makes it more difficult to achieve a strike. For this reason, the bowler is allowed three rolls per frame.

In accordance with The Book of Duckpin Bowling by Henry Fankhauser and Frank Micalizzi, the sport of duckpins was born at the old Diamond Alleys on Howard Street in Baltimore, Maryland, US. It happened around 1900. Owners of the Diamond Alleys When Robinson and McGraw (whose other hobby was duck hunting) were experimenting with smaller balls for ten-pin bowling and invented this game. They remarked that the pins looked like a “flock of flying ducks” when the ball impacted them. So, writing a story about this new game, a sportswriter for the Baltimore Morning Sun, Bill Clarke, named the game “duckpins”. The name has stuck ever since.

Five-pin bowling is a bowling variant which is played only in Canada. Five pins must be arranged in a V at the end of the lane. You have to knock them down. The bowler is allowed three rolls per frame. The pins are worth different scoring point values, depending on their location in the V-formation. The lanes are equal in length to ten-pin bowling lanes. Five-pin bowling balls have no finger holes. They weigh between 3.50 and 3.625 pounds (1.588 and 1.644 kg) and are between 4.75 to 5 inches (12.1 to 12.7 cm) in diameter.

It was invented around 1909 by Thomas F. Ryan in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Customers of his Toronto Bowling Club complained that the ten-pin bowling was too strenuous. Thomas decided to try other variants and cut five tenpins down to about 75% of their size. Also he used hand-sized hard rubber balls for knocking down the pins. The new game became popular.

Winners of the Ruhlman Five-Pin Bowling Competition, 1910: E.F. Seagram, M. Aikins, W. Kuntz, Herb Kuntz, Dave Kuntz, A. Hergott; Modern five-pin bowling.