LGR had a recent video about the PC game Hyperbowl. They brought up the fact it started life as an arcade game at Sony’s Metreon Entertainment Center in downtown San Francisco.

The game came in several forms, but the one I remember is the one above. There was a giant bowling ball mounted as a trackball style controller that let you steer the ball down the course. There was a mock ball return and a set of bowling alley style seats while waiting your turn.

What’s more interesting is I met the developers of this game around 1999 and visited their studio in California – which I believe included Terence Bordelon. I remember seeing physical mockups of the arcade system setting around the studio – which was really just a big room with black painted walls, black curtains to hide different parts, and no windows. Secrecy was definitely a thing. There were various full-size mockups of what would become the official arcade machines sitting around. The trackball bowling ball controller was on a stand, There was the ball return mock in 2 pieces, and one of the stand-up arcade verisons. What I do remember is that the stand-up arcade version had a standard Windows mini-tower PC bolted into the arcade cabinet. I believe when they booted it I saw the logo for a 3DFX card in it.

This was the late 1990’s, and it was that awkward time where arcade games stopped using custom hardware and started using off the shelf PC hardware. It was much cheaper, much faster to develop on, and meant you already had your game ported to a PC platform – which opened selling the game on two fronts. Now games are written on engines that let you ship on 4 and even more platforms simultaneously. Video games were always about 5 years ahead of other software development when it came to maximizing sales.

LGR’s video reminded me of this wonderful bit of history. It’s amazing how far the industry has developed in 25 years…

Links:

• Regularly updated! – https://www.facebook.com/hyperbowl
• http://www.hyperbowl3d.com/
• Unity Postmortem: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/hyperbowl-on-the-small-screen-a-portmortem
• https://www.mobygames.com/game/12649/hyperbowl-arcade-edition/
• https://www.classicarcadegaming.com/forums/index.php?topic=5418.0
• http://www.coinoptoday.com/newsflash/news/tjmpo_2006-10-13_hyperbowl.html
• https://archive.org/details/hyperbowl_20190626
• https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Wild-in-the-Streets-Video-game-designers-love-2940164.php
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbowl_Plus!_Edition